An interview with Lyn Goodear, AHRI CEO, on SHRM18 & the WFPMA Conference in Chicago, Illinois

On July 25, @shrmnextchat chatted with Namely Senior Director of People, Julie Li (@JulieLi8) about Getting the Inclusion Part Right.  

If you missed this excellent chat about how to make inclusion a foundation for engagement in your organizational culture, you can read all the tweets here:

This morning I had the opportunity to testify before the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions to express and explain  SHRM’s support for H.R. 4219, the Workflex in the 21st Century Act.

Last month’s Forté Foundation, #PowerUp Conference hosted in Atlanta is still on my mind. Inspiring women as incoming MBA’s were the primary audience. They were each eager for a re-start of their educational journey. Their stories and dreams will set a new standard.   Many of you are still on a high from the #SHRM 18 event.   I lived vicariously through the posts of your time in Chicago, the re-unions and the new found friends.

As a local Chicagoan, I didn’t have to travel very far for #SHRM18, but it was still a new and exciting experience since I was a first-time attendee to the SHRM National Conference.  I was fortunate to be able to attend the conference with two other colleagues - Tony Zamora, HR Manager, and Shannon Yates, HR Manager.  Tony is a regular SHRM Blogger and he gave both Shannon and I an inside look at his partnership with such a great organization. 

If you were asked, would you be able to recite your company’s values? Does your company have explicit values?

About three months ago, I was invited to a meeting with some of our marketing gurus and newest Field Services Director (FSD) – and when I say newest, Callie’s been here for 10 months and is practically a seasoned SHRM employee at this point.  But I’ll get back to her later. 

Is Diversity and Inclusion important within your organization? Do you do it because it is the right thing to do or because it is the smart thing to do?

This was my first time attending a SHRM conference, local, state or national. I was honored to be one of the recipients of this year’s SHRM Foundation scholarship. Moreover, I was touched as an international student from Ecuador, now working in human resources, to experience the theme and feel of inclusion throughout the conference.

When a fellow HR Blogger invites you to be a guest on their blog, the answer is YES.  EVERY. TIME.  Wendy has thought this through, and she even provided writing prompts!  While there were plenty to pick from, one resonated with me:

“If you could change one thing about HR (as in you have a magic wand), what would you change? What steps can we take today to make that change happen?”

At Google, change is constant. But how we managed and messaged change wasn’t always working. So we developed a simple framework to rethink reorgs and it starts by asking “Do we even need this change?”

There is no single way that Google manages internal change, like a reorganization. But we’ve been piloting a new approach that has been used in different parts of the company, impacting thousands of Googlers.

On July 11, @shrmnextchat chatted with @CyWakeman about Ditch the Drama -- Drive Big Results.

If you missed this enthusiastic chat filled with excellent advice, you can read the tweets here and below:

I consistently see organizations with unnecessary barriers slowing their D&I efforts down or blocking them altogether. Want to move forward? Here are six opportunities to consider. I will unpack each of these further in following posts:

It’s HERE! I feel like the dad in A Christmas Story when he gets his leg lamp…

Wendy and I had the great opportunity to talk to several of the international SHRM18 Bloggers and are sharing those conversations with you. First up, Sel and Ben Watts of Watts Next HR from Australia and Kavi Arasu from India! 

What does last week’s Supreme Court decision outlawing mandatory union fees mean for me?

The law doesn’t affect private employers, so if you’re associated with a private employer simply carry on, there’s nothing to see here.

I can’t believe it’s been just over 2 weeks since the annual SHRM National conference was here in my hometown of Chicago!  I’m naturally a very introverted person, so when I attend conferences or big sessions like this I get pretty wiped out; and after reading this post you’ll see why!  I even needed to take a few days off to completely unplug and go camping, just to let the mind recharge.

I’m still recovering from SHRM18. There were so many memorable experiences that it’s hard to capture them all. I had the chance to see old friends, meet some folks who’ve I’ve only known through social media and also meet a ton of new people. If you haven’t gathered my focus yet, the SHRM Annual Conference, and any HR event for that matter, is about the people.

I’ve just returned from SHRM18, and this was one of the best SHRM Annual Conferences I’ve attended. It was the largest and most attended in SHRM’s history, and yet it felt very accessible and easy to maneuver. The attendees were geeked whether they were in sessions, browsing the SHRM store, enjoying the keynotes or taking in the wonder of Chicago.