Highlights from #SHRM16 Day 2 – Power Poses, Corporate Delegates, Certification, and Engagement

Day 2 (and the first full day) of SHRM 2016 had me jumping around in various directions.  Here are some highlights…

Power Posing

The morning keynote was Amy Cuddy, author of the book “Presence” and known for coining the phrase “power pose” through her well known TED talk.  I’ve had the opportunity to see Amy speak previously, and recently finished reading her book.  Amy presents a convincing case for the power of connection between the body and the mind in bringing your best, most authentic self to work, especially in difficult, challenging, or nerve wracking situations.  She encouraged attendees (and especially encouraged us to teach our daughters, who tend to fall into restrictive posture and body language as they move into puberty) to “take up their fair share of space in the world” by opening up and focusing on expansive posture and body language.  A fair takeaway for anyone looking to continue to increase their power and influence in their own lives and organizations.

Corporate Delegates

I had the opportunity to attend the Senior Delegate Luncheon, part of the Corporate Delegate Program.  Not knowing much about it prior to attending, I did a little research and learned that that Corporate Delegate Program is something SHRM offers for companies who send a minimum of five attendees to the annual conference.  Along with discounted rates, there are a number of additional benefits, including an exclusive networking luncheon for the most senior leader in each corporate delegation.  This year’s luncheon also included a presentation from Deloitte on tax implications and tax breaks as related to the Affordable Care Act, a topic no doubt on the minds of many in the room.  I’d highly encourage any company who regularly sends more than one attendee to SHRM Annual to check out the Corporate Delegate Program and the potential benefits of sending maybe just a few more of your folks to the show.

The Value of Certification

As most SHRM members probably already know, a couple of years back SHRM rolled out the SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP certifications based on the SHRM Competency Model and body of knowledge.  Monday afternoon some of the members of the SHRM Certification team visited the bloggers lounge to give us a preview of some of the soon to be introduced developments pertaining to the SHRM Certification.  Amongst the most exciting are a dedicated app to track certification activities (no more thick manila folders to hold onto certification materials!) and an online library of virtual certification activities that can be used for up to half of your required credits.  Good stuff!

Employee Engagement

The last session I attended Monday afternoon was “Living for the Weekday: The Employee Side of Employee Engagement.”  Though the session didn’t turn out to be exactly what I thought it would, speaker Clint Swindall was engaging, entertaining, and had a number of good points.  Though his focus was on ensuring that we ourselves are engaged contributors to our companies, what his message boiled down to is that engagement is far more complex than just work/life balance.  He spoke of five components that contribute to engagement: career, relationships, health, finances, and spirituality.  If any of those five are off, we can’t possibly bring our full selves to work and be fully engaged.  That’s an important concept to think about regardless of whether you’re considering your own engagement or the engagement of your employees.  Work/life balance is too abstract and means different things to different people, so why not take a more holistic approach?  Now how exactly we do that is the key question!

Overall, a full day of activities with much more to come!

About the Author: Jennifer Payne, SPHR, SHRM-SCP has almost two decades of HR experience in employee relations, talent acquisition, learning & development, and employee communications, and currently works in talent management in the retail grocery industry.  She is one of the co-founders of Women of HR, and is currently the Editor of the site. You can connect with her on Twitter as @JennyJensHR and on LinkedIn.