CAHR18

California HR Conference Update

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By Stephanie Hammerwold

There is only one more day left in the 2018 California HR Conference. The conference has been a whirlwind of HR information, and I met quite a few HR professionals, vendors and speakers committed to creating workplaces that are growing and adapting to our changing world.

One of the biggest themes of this year's conference has been a focus on building workplace culture. This year the California HR Conference offered something new in the form of TED-style talks from CHROs. Paul Wolfe from Indeed, Laurie Shakur from Nielsen Portfolio Division and Mindi Cox from O.C. Tanner all shared ways in which they have invested in building a culture that supports their employees.

"When someone is called into a leadership position, their job becomes people," Cox said. She then explained that her company sees the greatest value in taking care of employees. That is ultimately what leads employees to build a successful product and strong relationships with customers.

Shakur talked about putting the human back in human resources. She emphasized why walking around, asking employees questions and also taking the time to listen to what they have to say is essential to improving culture. Shakur had realized that she was failing to do this, and it was not until she changed her approach to HR that things began to change within the workplace culture.

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Earlier in the day, Garry Ridge, the President and CEO of WD-40 spoke about how his company has successfully built a workplace culture that is driven by a need to take care of its people. Ridge reminded the audience that, "Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."  If we strive to create a workplace where this can happen, then success will follow. It is a matter of creating an environment where employees are empowered to do the work that needs to be done to achieve company goals. I will have more on workplace culture as well as what Ridge talked about in a post later this week.

Several sessions also covered culture from a compliance standpoint. With the rise of the #MeToo movement, workplace harassment is finally getting the attention it needs. At a Monday session on how to prevent a harassment claim from toppling your organization, Helene Wasserman stressed that it is important that training covers civility in the workplace. This includes upper management that fosters a respectful workplace. She also said that training should include information on bystander intervention so that employees know the importance of speaking up if they witness something.

The highlight for the final day of the conference is the closing keynote by astronaut Scott Kelly. Be sure to follow me on Twitter for live updates of Kelly's talk.

Watch this blog and Workology for more posts on conference content later this week.

The HR Hammer is Going to the California HR Conference 2018

By Stephanie Hammerwold

It is the time of year where HR professionals can gather together and nerd out on all kinds of HR topics at the annual California HR Conference in Long Beach. If you are not lucky enough to be attending, never fear! The HR Hammer will be blogging about the conference here and over at Workology and posting regular updates on Twitter.

This year's conference takes place from August 26 to August 29 and is packed with all kinds of exciting HR content and speakers, including a closing keynote by Captain Scott Kelly, an astronaut who is famous for spending a year in space.

There are quite a few sessions that look interesting, but high on my list is a session on California's new fair chance hiring law (a.k.a. Ban the Box). This is a topic that is important to me because of my work with the nonprofit I founded, Pacific Reentry Career Services. Through my nonprofit, I volunteer my time to mentor formerly incarcerated job seekers and advocate for fair chance hiring policies. We had a big victory with California's new law, but there is still a lot of work to do to ensure that people with criminal records are given a fair chance at employment, so they can work toward building healthy and productive lives following release. When a formerly incarcerated person is able to turn their life around, we all benefit.

There are also sessions on harassment, pay equity, negotiating approaches for female HR professionals, creating more empathetic leave policies, mental health and other topics I have covered on this blog. Now that I work in HR at a tech startup that is focused on some advanced machine learning technology, I am looking forward to a session on reimagining HR jobs in the artificial intelligence economy. I am also interested in a session on working with transgender and non-binary employees because it is important that HR strives to create a workplace that is welcoming to all people.

If that was not enough to convince you that this conference is going to be awesome, the Tuesday night entertainment will be Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood from Whose Line is it Anyway? Contrary to popular belief, those of us in HR do have a sense of humor, so I am looking forward to this.

Be sure to visit the conference blog for more information on all the exciting things awaiting this year's conference attendees.

You can find out more about the conference on the official website, which includes links to all the social media channels. Best of all, you can still register to attend the conference.