Hot Topics in HR: Updates From the 2013 California HR Conference
Hot, hot, hot – yes it was quite warm in Anaheim, CA during the annual California HR Conference but even hotter were the session topics – Affordable Care Act (ACA), Millennial’s (the new generation that will soon comprise over 50% of the workforce), social media, recruiting, employee recognition are a few others rounding out the sizzling topics of the HR world. There is so much to say on the ACA and Millennials that I am writing separate upcoming blogs on each.
Along with several on ACA & Millennials, a couple notable sessions were:
- A Contrarian Approach to Performance Management: Insight on why companies should move away from the dreaded annual review process and focus instead on giving frequent feedback about performance.
- Impacts of the Corporate Life Cycle: Looking thru the stages of Adizes Organizational Life Cycle and knowing where you are at in each stage can be critical to your company’s success.
- Reverse Mentoring: New concept of pairing 2 employees together to learn & share; a millennial with a boomer in which the millennial often teaches the boomer about all the new tech widgets/sites and the boomer shares their experience of the corporate world.
- Trends in Employee Recognition: Employees want to hear specific, timely and meaningful praises.
- Social Media in the Workplace: Get a social media policy in place now if you don’t already have one.
This 3-day event is the largest annual HR conference in California. The conference was held at the Anaheim Convention Center – just blocks from Disneyland, making it a great family vacation, before or after the conference! Days consisted of four 1.25 hour-long sessions and lunch was included for all of the days. A Tuesday evening event was held just steps from the Convention Center, with comedian John Heffron. The Expo hall was open the first 2 days, which provided a great networking arena, of course loaded with informative vendor booths and nice conference swag.
As a first-timer to the conference, I was impressed with the four superstar keynote speakers:
Liz Wiseman, former Oracle exec and author of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (WSJ Bestseller ; Thomas Kalinske, Vice Chairman of Leapfrog; Stedman Graham, Bestselling author, educator and entrepreneur & Chris Van Gorder, President & CEO of Scripps Health.
My favorite keynote was Chris Van Gorder, CEO of Scripps Health, a local San Diego company.
It was an inspiring and touching speech about how he transformed Scripps Health from an underperforming corporation with disengaged employees/physicians to a company that now rates on several “Top 100 Places to Work” lists with highly engaged employees. Chris has a pretty inspiring story. A former police officer, Chris was injured in the line of duty, which ultimately led to a career change. He took a job as a hospital security officer and his manager at the time saw the initiative that Chris had for this seemingly lackluster job and recommended Chris for a higher level position. Eventually he had worked his way up the ladder and fell into the role of CEO for Scripps. One noteworthy point in his tenure at Scripps is that he has never fired one person — “you may make a mistake once he says, but you won’t be around to make a mistake twice.” Intertwined with the business story was also a patient story, where I had to hold back the tears as I sat at the lunch tables listening. Both stories concluded with a wonderful ending. If you ever get the chance to hear Chris in person, jump on it – you will not be disappointed.
For HR professionals interested in pursuing the PHR, SPHR, GPHR or California centric certifications, HRCI had a morning information session as well as an expo booth to help answer questions and go thru the process. For current certified professionals, this is a great place to earn those CEU’s!
If you missed out this year, next year conference dates are set 8/25/14 – 8/27/14 and will be held at the same place, Anaheim Convention Center. Tweet you there next year! #cahrcon
Written by Melissa Secody, Accounting Manager at DSD Business Systems
