Three Things I Learned at the IHRIM Conference

IHRIM HRMStrategies Conference 2010, Las Vegas. I won an Excellence Award, a $100 American Express Gift Card, and $200 at the Chairman's Texas Hold 'em Tournament. I renewed old friendships and set the foundations for new ones. I received some good advice and shared some good advice. Mostly, I learned. I learned quite a bit and I'd like to share some of that knowledge with you lest I let it flutter from my head without being used.

1) Good leaders don't compromise their values. Most managers (when asked) will say that Family and Integrity are the values that are most important to them, but they are also the values that they feel they compromise the most as managers. I really need to stop this compromising of my family for my job. (Thanks to Stan Slap for this bit of information)

2) The top three things that give you a return on investment in HR are implementing a Shared Services model, outsourcing your application hosting, and implementing competency management. I'm still not sold on the hosting - as I believe it depends on company size. But I was surprised to see competency management in the top 3. (Thanks to Lexy Martin and Karen Beaman for this data)

3) Bring it up, talk it up, wrap it up. I have found that I don't often speak up when I see something wrong. I'm more a walk-away person. Instead of resolving issues, I'd wait until they piled up too high for me to bear then I'd walk away. That is why I Haven't spent more than 3.5 years at a company. This just in - I just passed the 3.5 year mark at my current company. I need to address issues when they come up instead of letting them fester, which will only lead to my own discomfort. (thanks to Helanie Scott for this advice)

Other conference attendees: What profound piece of wisdom did you pluck from the conference?

A Tardily Written Acceptance

This past week I was honored by IHRIM with an Excellence Award at their annual HRMStrategies Conference. I was genuinely surprised that IHRIM would honor me with such a reward. Though I have been known to be my own worst critic, I haven’t quite felt that I deserved the award. Let me rephrase: I feel that there are many more deserving people within the organization than I.


I didn’t quite understand it until this morning as I lay awake in bed pondering my next blog should be about. Somehow I got around to the idea of awards and I made a connection that may be even more far-fetched than me receiving the award:


Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.


The award was considered by many, myself included, premature. Though there was controversy, President Obama accepted the award with “deep gratitude and great humility.” In his acceptance speech, he stated that he was at the beginning, and not at the end, of his labors.


And though I am no Barack Obama (and the IHRIM Excellence Award is no Nobel Peace Prize) I can still accept the IHRIM Excellence Award in the same spirit.


I am but at the beginning of promoting the use of social media for the benefit of IHRIM and its members (the reason for which I earned the award), not at the end. And thus it is with the deepest of gratitude and greatest of humilities that I can accept the award.


So I send out my heartfelt thanks to IHRIM and everyone who deems me worthy of the honors.


And finally for those of you wondering: Yes, "tardily" is an actual word and quite often reflects how I do things. ;)

IHRIM HRMStrategies – Day One

The first day at the IHRIM Conference was a good day for HRputer. I received an IHRIM Excellence Award for my online presence in the IHRIM Core community. Additionally, I won a $100 AmEx gift certificate in a raffle. To top it off, I didn’t lose any money at the blackjack tables.

This year, the Expo Hall is quite lively. There are a plethora of old companies and new companies to talk to. Even though, I believe I’ve talked with almost every workforce solution vendor under the sun, I can always find a new system that surprises me. This year that company is Flextrack.

I stopped by Flextrack’s booth with little knowledge of who they were and even less knowledge of what they did. By the end of our conversation, I discovered that they have a workforce solution that helps you to manage your contingent workforce (temporary and contract workers). The market it as a Vendor Management Solution (VMS) and when the economy is tight, you find that your contingent workforce rises. This solution helps you to manage that contingent workforce by enacting spend control measures, achieving greater control and compliance of your vendor community and helps you secure more favorable pricing with your contractors and vendors. Excellent show, Flextrack!

I am a little miffed that there are a few noticeable names missing from the Expo Hall this year: SAP, Oracle (I know your user group has a booth, but that hardly counts), Lawson, and Kronos (Sorry Ed, I just calls ‘em as I sees ‘em). Each of these companies should be an anchor point in Expo Hall considering how big their names are in the industry. Perhaps next year, guys?

IHRIM, Here I Come!

Tomorrow, I'm catching a flight out of Chicago O'Hare bound for Las Vegas and the IHRIM HRMStrategies conference. IHRIM is the International Association for Human Resource Information Management - the professional organization I belong to.

I know that some people who read my blog will be there, so to those people: See you there! For those who don't know what it's about - it's for HR Systems (I think were moving to calling it (Workforce Solutions or something like that) professionals. I've been there many times and feel lucky that I was able to make it back this year as I've been working in Ireland. I missed last year's conference and missed seeing many of my HR Systems friends.

I really look forward to this conference as it's a great place to network with other HRIS professionals. The downside - as you might guess - is that it's another 4 days that I'm away from my family. I'm only home for two weeks and four of those days I'm out in Vegas.