Cool news from SHRM09 - the company I work for, DAXKO, was recognized as one of the top 50 best small and medium companies to work for in America by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Great Place to Work Institute, Inc. (GPTW). Winners were announced Monday at SHRM’s 61st Annual Conference in New Orleans.

DAXKO ranked 10th in the small employer category, which is great.  The commitment that is behind all the good stuff that led to the award is a big reason I chose to join the DAXKO team 3 months ago.  I'm a newbie so no credit goes to me, although like any free agent worth their salt, I'm looking forward to helping a clear winner defend it's title moving forward.. :)

Jennifer McClure, a part of the Fistful of Talent team, was kind enough to sit down in the video below with Dave Gray, our CEO and cultural architect, and Concetta Lewis, a member of our people team, to talk about what makes DAXKO different and leads to the team recognition.

Way to go DAXKO!

DAXKO - Great Place to Work from Fistful of Talent on Vimeo.

One of the nice things about most of the presenters at SHRM is they've got some passion about the topic they're presenting on.  They're not HR practitioners in my classic definition of the word, but they've got passion.

Case in point - I took in a solid presentation on Monday from Jeremy Eskenazi on Consultative Staffing and Recruiting Strategies for HR Generalists.  Jeremy had some good stuff and it was clear he was passionate about helping recruiters and HR generalists become consultants - check out my twitter stream from Monday for the play by play.

The only issue?  If you listen closely to what Jeremy advocates, a less-experienced HR pro might become a lot more formal than the culture they operate in can tolerate - and that might clip a young pro's career at an early stage.. It's all about context and acting like you have more experience than you actually do...

Jessica Lee and I discuss below - also included in the clip is me catching up with Jeremy and asking him how to make a push for Service Level Agreements (known as SLAs to those of you that have been around big company America) in a less formal way that doesn't get you killed/fired.

SHRM09 - On SLAs and Boxing Hiring Manager In... from Fistful of Talent on Vimeo.

Let's face it, if you're like me and occasionally have been challenged to find the value in SHRM, it's usually been because you've felt it moved too slow and didn't have enough of a soul.  Speed and accessibility were always the primary issues for me when it came to SHRM, along with an absolute void of opinion.

The EFCA?  SHRM's against it, but they don't want to make members with union representation mad or uncomfortable.  So, they've stated that the organization's not anti-union, but IS anti-EFCA. 

What? Alrighty then...

So, I've always wanted SHRM to have an opinion, or at least have a face.  But it's been difficult to find an opinion/face throughout my membership period with SHRM.  If you want to be accessible, you have to work at it.  If you want to be seen as a leader, you can't mamby-pamby the EFCA message or other controversial messages to the membership - you have to lead and have a take.  You can't have your CEO riff an intro to a keynote at a conference attended by 5% of your membership once a year and think that makes your organization look accessible, because it doesn't.  But that's been the SHRM strategy visible to the detached member like me for a long time.

Things might be changing at SHRM.  The great SHRM hope is China Gorman.

China Gorman is the COO of SHRM.  Whether or not she was passed over for the CEO spot vacated by Sue Messinger is SHRM's business (China was COO under Messinger's leadership).  What's important is that she's emerged in the new leadership structure at SHRM as an engaged leader and active face of the organization - even though she's not the CEO.

Need proof? Watch China go toe-to-toe with a clueless legislator on capitol hill, defending the big (our legislative interests) and the small (how to pronounce "SHRM").  Watch China out-tweet the so-called HR bloggers on Twitter (present company included) during the SHRM Conference in an effort to promote what's going on.  Watch China look for new ideas that can freshen up the mix at SHRM (sponsoring broad coverage for bloggers) while staying true to the needs of the organization (warning said bloggers not to curse during a blogging panel to be held on Wednesday - which was outright funny, but crafty smart on her part).

I've had some brief exposure to China, and here's the true value of what's going on.   Pros like China have always had the capability to engage customers in different ways that help their organizations grow - regardless of the line of business.  The problem is that the culture of the organization they're in doesn't always support it.  However, once an engaged pro is released at a high level in any organization and starts doing stuff not ordinarily tolerated, the culture can change.  People below that leader start taking risks, and everyone figures out that engagement is good.  Nobody dies when mistakes are made or opinions are shared.  Pretty soon, the organization becomes a lot more open and the customers start raving.

That's my hope for SHRM - that lots of SHRM staffers start engaging members the way China does.  Because if 20% of them do and SHRM embraces it, SHRM could be scary good compared to its past.

China Gorman is the great SHRM hope.   

Pretty good first day for me at SHRM09 on Monday.  Started thinking that night about the sessions I attended, which were high quality.  One of the problems with a big show like SHRM is the fact that there are 20+ concurrent sessions running at the same time, so I decided to take a look at the program to see what I missed.

After looking at the program, let me tell you first what I didn't miss.  Just this one little thing, it kinda jumped out as I looked at the names, titles and companies of the presenters...

I didn't miss the HR Practitioners...

THERE ARE NEXT TO NO HR PRACTITIONERS ACTUALLY PRESENTING AT SHRM09...

repeat - THERE ARE NEXT TO NO HR PRACTITIONERS ACTUALLY PRESENTING AT SHRM09...

Before I give you the stat, let me define what an HR Practitioner is in the mind of the HR Capitalist.  An HR Practitioner is an HR Pro who is actually employed by a company and supports a client group of employees within that company.  In short, they're practicing the HR craft inside a company in the classic sense - in a way that most typifies the average SHRM member.  Doing it on a daily basis.

That doesn't mean I don't think consultants, vendors, attorneys can't be HR Pros - they can and are, but they're advisers to the core of the industry - the practitioners who are charged with actual employees in the field.  Consultants, vendors and attorneys are highly regarded in our economy and bring tons of value. I might be one of them one day.

But they're not HR Practitioners.  They're not HR Representatives, HR Managers or Directors/VP of HR inside companies.  They're consultants.

So here's the stat - I went through the SHRM09 Conference Program and looked at the profiles of the presenters.  Here's the ugly stat I came up with:

Of the estimated 95 presenters through Monday, only 4 (four!) looked to be HR Practitioners holding a title like HR Rep/Manager/Director/VP inside a company.

Let me tell you why that's a big deal.  SHRM has backed models like Ulrich's "New Competencies for HR", profiled in past copies of HR Magazine and other SHRM resources. See the entire list of competencies here.  Since competencies like "Credible Activist" represent the top indicators in predicting who's a player in your HR department -- according to Ulrich, the Credible Activist is respected, admired, listened to and offers a point of view -- doesn't it make sense that SHRM would go out of their way to showcase the HR Practitioners nationally who are game changers by having them present to their peers at National SHRM?

4 of 95... I'm not even asking for half - how about 25% of the speakers (roughly 24 of the 95) be actual HR Practitioners who are world class?

4 of 95?  Can I get a study on this?  A task force?

I'm in the airport in the Big Easy, getting ready to head to the SHRM convention.  A question hit me during the flight - SHRM's sitting on almost $200 Million in cash, most of it from membership dues like mine.  So why hasn't the bailout (read: the remake) of HR begun with some of that money?

More on the concept of the SHRM-funded bailout of HR from an earlier article I did at Workforce:

"You can’t turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper today without getting a rundown of the latest entity/industry/organization that is seeking a bailout from the federal government. The economy has been in the tank, and any bailout (of financial institutions, auto manufacturers, etc.) is designed with the firm belief that the organizations in question need a capital infusion to ensure they don’t go out of business, and that their survival is crucial to the U.S. economy.

    What about HR? Where’s our bailout?

    Before you dismiss this as grandstanding, consider similarities between the state of HR and the plight of the U.S. and its economy:

1. Consumer confidence is reported to be at an all-time low.

2. Approval ratings are in the toilet.

3. People are scared and unsure of what to do.

4. Experts are worried about our ability to compete in a global economy.

    Now, are those statements about our economy and government or about the HR profession? OK, I confess: They are about the economy and government, although the HR profession’s naysayers could easily claim they’re an accurate reflection of the state of HR as well.

But there’s a silver lining to this reputational cloud. If you agree that the HR profession as a whole could use a capital infusion (a kinder term for a bailout) to retool, reinvent itself and prepare HR pros everywhere for the challenges that lie ahead, a source of such capital does exist.

We don’t even have to go into debt to get access to the funds. The Society for Human Resource Management, the professional group of choice for HR professionals everywhere, is sitting on a cash reserve in the neighborhood of $179 million. Most of that cash, which came from dues from its 233,000 members, hasn’t been spent on services.

To be fair to SHRM, every well-run nonprofit sits on a cash reserve. But now’s not the time to channel the conservative side, button up the business suit and ignore the problem. Now is the time to channel Hank Paulson, spend the cash and double down on the investment in HR pros and the HR profession.

In a nutshell, the funds for the HR Bailout of 2009 should be focused on technology, leadership and the cultivation of business savvy.

I know Jack Welch would approve of my list of 8 things I would spend SHRM bailout money on.  Click through to see if you're down with the list.  Hit me in the comments if you aren't...

To be fair to SHRM, I'll keep everyone posted on what what's going on in some of these areas.  That's why you go to conventions, right?  That and to get a big bag of CareerBuilder calculators.  Maybe even a book or two that I'll never read...

The Cincy Recruiter has been in the Big Easy since early Sunday.  I suspect she's already collected all the available swag...

I'm on a plane down to the 2009 SHRM national convention in New Orleans this morning.  I'm looking forward to the trip, even though I've been a distant observer of the national convention for most of my professional HR career. 

It's not that I'm lazy, it's just that... I don't usually care... (Cue the office space clip)

So, what's changed?  I'm noticing some signs that some things are changing at SHRM.  At the same time, I'm noticing some things that indicate that things will stay the same forever at SHRM.

For most of my career, I've been a member of SHRM.  I've held the PHR early in my career, and currently hold the SPHR (since 01 or 02).  That means I've drank a good bit of the Kool-Aid, but always paid my dues and took SHRM for what it is...

The reason I've always been a distant cousin is that SHRM has operated as a classic non-profit.  Great lobbying organization, but when it comes to taking chances and moving the profession forward, too slow for my tastes.  Trying to please a ka-zillion members will do that to you. 

Which brings me to the reason I'm attending SHRM this year.  Can some of the progressive movements I sense actually survive inside Alexandria, VA?  Or will the conservative forces (that's called culture, people, it works for both bad and good) finally have enough and send out a search and destroy mission to bring everything back to the mean?

That's why I'm heading to New Orleans. To try and get a feel for whether the progressives inside SHRM can win. Or even survive.

You remember the mean.  It's similar to average.  It's where everything's safe.  No risks.  Keep printing money and playing to the center.  Progressives don't like the mean.  Fundamentalists love it, however.  Keeps them in power.

If you're at SHRM this week, do like the Iran watchers, get a green twitter icon and change your location to "SHRM09".  We need to provide cover for the change agents.

I'll let you know what I find...