Well once again the HRMAE put on a pretty fantastic conference. I really enjoy their format (short 20-30 minute presentations followed by 10-20 minutes of questions). It really allows you to get a lot of interesting new ideas in a single day, and gives ample time to cover questions. This years event had a number of excellent speakers, and I will provide you the summary from my views. The topics I managed to catch (when I wasn’t on a conference call in the hall):
- HR Metrics – Alan Gee, Director of Organization Development and Heather McLeod, Organizational Development Analyst — Stantec
- Welcoming Workplaces – Mandie Abrams, Workforce Strategy Program Manager, ECVO; Karen Link, Director, Critical LINK Management Group; and Shelagh Thurlbeck, Chairman, SMT Business Services Inc.
- What is Values Intelligence – Dave Neumann, HR Manager and BHO Team Lead, Computronix
- Training and Development Speaker Panel – Suprea James, HR Director – SMS Equipment; Grace Ko, HR Director – AMA; Dave Richardson, Senior HR Manager – ATCO-I-Tek; Allison Betton, Management Development Consultant, Alberta Corporate Human Resources; and Todd denEngelson, Senior HR Manager – Canyon Technical, Chair, HRIA
Stantec – HR Metrics, What is the Point?
- A key part of Stantec’s metrics strategy is for forecasting trends and improving effectiveness by moving resources.
- Stantec divides their metrics into three areas: recruiting, engagement, development. Then aligns them to their bottom line and goals.
- Upon collection, Stantec uses a large heatmap to compare all the business areas as am easy way to highlight good/bad areas quickly.
- With strong analytics Stantec moves from just collecting data and turns it information to guide decision making. Additionally, Stantec has their data validated by a University’s statistics department.
Welcoming Workplace Pilot Program – support for non-profits and diversity (and finding workers in Alberta
- Non-profit demographics in Alberta “we’re white, female, and aging” so how do we improve diversity and find staff.
- Process: Assess your organization, identify target employee markets, build your policies/programs (remove barriers, support) then develop plans for recruitment.
- This project had 100% satisfaction rate among participant organizations, and one non-profit’s auditor “loved” seeing strong diversity and recruitment processes.
What is Values Intelligence
- Organizations have strategies for dealing with customer or quality issues, but we don’t always have strategies for dealing with our people.
- One new process is values based staff development strategies, which are at the stage where leadership competencies were 15 years ago.
- Part of this is identifying “which side of the road your bias is” and then balancing between hard and soft.
- Soft-heart leaders co-facilitate dysfunction (they allow employees to abuse policies / trust)
- Hard liner leaders address problems without addressing symptoms
Training and Development Speaker Panel (Highlights)
Canyon Tech
- At Canyon all learning modules are tied into strategic plan, so you can see where your learning connects to the organizations future
- Development starts with Sr. Management (including holding the CEO to task) and includes both self study and facilitated sessions, impact maps, and goals. This is needed because if you want committment throughout the organization you need commitment in Sr Management.
- Finally, with common leadership development we can a establish common language at work, increasing productivity and efficiency.
Alberta Public Service (APS)
- The APS organizes training into 3 groups: learning supports, formal learning, and experiential learning (such as executive mobility program which in my experience at the APS was very successful)
ATCO I-Tek
- In high tech industries there is a short window on technical skills. To combat this ATCO I-Tek predicts future consumer demand to ensure they have skills.
- This is particularly important when you consider ATCO I-Tek specializes in IT and business process outsourcing, creating learning demands ranging from six-sigma to call centres.
SMS Equipment
- Closely aligns learning plan with people strategy which is linked to business strategy.
- SMS equipment used the economic downturn to ramp up. (Note: I love hearing about businesses that choose to be proactive).
- First step in their process is identifying your value proposition , and then building your programs and growth strategies to support it.
Unfortunately I am a bit light on the training plan, as I was away from the session on a conference call during the second half, and missed AMA so if you have anything to add from on this section let me know in the comments. Additionally I want to thank Chris Falconer, Alison Meyer, and Pamela Berg for their help with this summary (they don’t know it, but I reviewed their tweets from the session).
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