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Friday 7:30 - 9:00 am                  

Michael London

In times of turbulence, timely and consistent communication from senior leaders is key to supporting enhanced business performance, key employee retention, and more rapid and successful turnaround to correlate with enhanced market and financial performance. Today’s top HR leaders are experiencing greater demand to steward effective organizational communications strategies, messaging, and tools that:

• are reality-based and consistent, integrating and aligning leadership and HR initiatives;
• present powerful concepts through compelling language and logical thought patterns to support the organization’s strategy and culture;
• carefully select media, messages, and tone to engage the intended audience; and
• measure and guide the enhancement of communications’ effectiveness.

Participants will enjoy a highly interactive session with Duane Cashin! A communications tool kit designed to assist HR leverage its role as a key communications player and communications’ best practices in times of rapid change will be provided to attendees.

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - General Credit

Friday 9:30 - 11:00 am                  

Michael London

Every business organization, sooner or later, has a “significant corporate event.” Sometimes it is a crisis… earnings unexpectedly tumble, there is an explosion in a factory, or a drive toward union organization. Sometimes the “significant corporate event” is inherently positive… an operation is being expanded, there is a need to hire new workers, acquire another company, or add a product line. Whether at the core the event is positive or negative, it is critically important for an effective internal communications plan to be in place and in operation – in advance, long before the significant event is even a remote possibility. Without effective internal communications, the organization sits on the precipice of crisis.

This presentation will focus on:

• Why it matters
• Regulation and compliance
• The difference between “tell,” “sell,” “consult” and “involve”
• Organization marketing begins inside
• Internal communications techniques
• What do you want them to hear – and what do you want them to do
• Line managers as human billboards

Mr. London will highlight the importance for HR leaders to have a key “seat at the table” when significant organization events, including corporate strategic planning, are being discussed.

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - Strategic Credit*

Friday 1:30 - 3:00 pm                  

Robert Cenek, Director, Minerals Technologies, Inc.

Businesses cannot expect to remain viable in fluid markets when they cannot anticipate and rapidly adapt to new conditions, including today's rapid pace of change as a leading cause of stress (and distress) for leaders and employees at every level. Most global organizations today acknowledge experiencing disruptive change and leaders agree that vital competence is needed in effective leadership of organizational change and management of the reactions to it among employees. During times of turbulence, HR plays a critical and strategic role in organizational transformation by providing leadership in planning and implementing carefully orchestrated change efforts in support of business strategy. This session will define a strategic and well-orchestrated change process for use in navigating an organization through a process of transformation. Attendees will gain:

• a ‘Best in Class’ transformational process;
• best practices to mitigate transformational derailment/resistance;
• a tool to map a course for transformation that highlights key HR infrastructure/practice levers; and
• a relevant case study with lessons learned.

Room: more info link

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - Strategic Credit*

Friday 3:15 - 4:45 pm                  

Ed Hammett, Northeast Utilities

With competing pressures to move quickly to address turbulent economic, social and global markets, stringent financial performance demands, achieve strategic imperatives, and the continuing need for people to innovate and perform at ever higher levels, HR must carefully assess, reconfigure and re-commission how it delivers value to organizations… including structure, roles, competencies, and practices to ensure continuing positive bottom line impact in the midst of an increasingly turbulent global economy. As we have evolved from an industrial, to a technological, and now an intellectual capital era, coupled with rapidly escalating change, information overload, growing ambiguity, and the need for greater individuality and employee contracting, the continued breakneck pace of evolution in the HR profession is required now more than ever before.

This session will provide insight as to how one HR leader after joining his new company found himself in an HR-transactional world where HR was more typically dismissed or ignored by his senior management team. Ed set about transforming it to a function where business leaders won’t hold meetings without HR. Ed will share his vision and value proposition that aligned HR with the business strategy and will share his story of how he led and implemented a process of restructuring and re-commissioning HR including the business strategy, culture and decision making criteria, how he selected the right model, pros and cons, lessons learned, and the results to date. Additionally, he will provide an HR competency outline and process review tool that he used as a part of his successful HR transformation and recommissioning process to all attendees.

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - Strategic Credit*

*A PHR may obtain General Credit by attending any session approved for Strategic Credit or International Management Credit.

To learn more about PHR, SPHR, and GPHR certification and recertification, visit the Human Resource Certification Institute web site at www.hrci.org