Showing posts with label Speakers. Show all posts
It is hard not to read several articles a day bemoaning the performance appraisal process, and how it should be abolished. There have been a lot of reasons given for wanting its demise. However, I have discovered the real reason. Much like lawyers make the worst clients, and doctors make the worst patients, HR professionals make the worst appraisers.
How do I know this?
I have attended the SHRM Annual Conference for 16 straight years and spoken to hundreds of speakers. I have served on the Green Bay Area SHRM Chapter Board and read the reviews of every session. I have had the privilege of being on the WI SHRM State Conference Planning Committee for eight of the last ten years and have read the attendee reviews of over 500 speakers. It is embarrassing that individuals who should know how to do performance appraisal appropriately, provide such poor and inadequate feedback.
Take a gander at some of these "gems" left by attendees and imagine yourself in the shoes of the speaker(s) receiving them:
- "I hate 6:30 am classes." "Not to mention 6:30 is quite early." "Maybe have earlier in the day...I was tired and may not have retained all the material." I understand that you are trying to maximize your recertification credits, but no one is forcing you to attend the conference, let alone an early morning or late afternoon session. Further, how does this in any way help the speaker?
- "Room is too hot." "Room was freezing." I'm sorry that the room temperature did not meet your needs, but, again, how does that help the speaker? How will it help him or her improve the content? Save it for another area of the attendee survey.
- "Horrible Speakers." The session was a bit dull and boring." As a professor who gets student reviews every semester, I can get 29 out of 30 positive ratings, but the negative one is going to be the one I mull over and remember. Unfortunately, there is nothing provided as to how and why the session was horrible. Where is the information that could help the speaker do better? Would you like to receive this comment about you and your performance?
- He wore a suit and was quite formal (for a session by an attorney on labor law)." "Her shoes were ugly." Again, how does this help the speaker? Your taste may be different than theirs. Further, if this is where you choose to focus on in your appraisal, maybe there are other underlying areas that might be more appropriate. Unless there is something outrageously wrong with the outfit, it might help NOT to focus on attire at all in your feedback.
- "Didn't realize the keynote and the breakout session were the same speaker." The program was available four months in advance, and you didn't bother to read it before attending?
- Two people evaluated and gave a 100% very satisfied rating.....to a speaker who canceled at the last minute. C'mon, man. Really?!?!?
I know many of you have prepped for and passed the certification exam with SHRM and/or HRCI. You certainly spent some time understanding the performance management process. You certainly know that you should focus on behaviors that employees (or speakers) have the greatest control over. And, this is the kind of nonsense that speakers are receiving?!?!?
Hence, the number one thing you should NOT do at the SHRM Annual Conference is to give speakers bad feedback. Praise when warranted. Be critical, but be constructive. Help them understand what they did poorly, and how they could improve.
If you can't even do that well, given your training, please get out of the profession. You are making the rest of us look bad.
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THE ISSUE
Finding quality speakers to present relevant, up-to-date information to a HR audience
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
One of the leading drivers for individuals to attend their local SHRM chapter meeting or conference is the quality of the speaker(s) and his/his/their topic. In particular, individuals not only want to gain their PHR/SPHR/GPHR certification credits, they want to learn, be entertained, and feel that the dollars and time they invested are worthwhile.
Unfortunately, finding speakers, let alone quality ones, is difficult. As I noted in this space nearly three years ago, volunteers have to go out and find willing speakers (often at no cost) to provide a compelling hour or more of information to attendees. Further, volunteers have to go through a somewhat onerous process to get a program approved by HRCI at least 4 weeks in advance to ensure that it meets the requirements to provide recertification credits.
Let's revisit the math: With 575+ chapters offering 8-9 programs a year, along with a significant number of state and national HR conferences, there are at least 5000 sessions a year being offered. Even with some likely repeat speakers, there is a huge demand that needs to be met, and places a huge burden on the HRCI to approve a significant number of programs
There has got to be a better way.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE FROM SHRM?
To be fair, it must be noted that SHRM does provide a number of resources to assist chapters in finding speakers.
- In their volunteer leader resource center, chapters can contact the SHRM Speakers Bureau to find a member of the SHRM organization to speak on a whole host of topics.
- There is a short non-SHRM staff directory of speakers who have scored 3.8 out of 5 at one of the SHRM major conferences in the last four years
- A SHRM speaker program that contains just under 130 speakers
WHAT ELSE IS AVAILABLE?
- In 2010, the SHRM Chapter and State Council Leadership LinkedIn Group tried to create a list of top 10 speakers from their state conference. Everyone who commented thought it was a good idea, but it withered on the vine.
- Late last year, the St. Norbert Collge student SHRM chapter tried to crowdsource a list.ly list of good SHRM speakers (you can see it posted on the right), but it hasn't quite taken off.
1. Expand the SHRM Speaker Program. This list is a great start, but it is too small to meet the demand.
2. Have HRCI publish yearly a list of ALL programs approved the previous year. Ideally, it would be searchable by listing sessions by state, topic, speaker, credit amount (i.e., 1.25 hours), and certification level (PHR, SPHR, GPHR, etc.). Yet, even providing a link online to a pdf would be a good start.
On Tuesday, the monthly #SHRMChat focused on the vexing topic of chapter programming - where do you find your speakers? The lack of collaboration among chapters sharing information about successful speakers was noted as well as a desire for a Yelp-like tool where chapters could identify good (and not-so-good) speakers. Hearing about this, the St. Norbert College SHRM chapter sprung into action and put together a tool using list.ly for chapters to utilize in addressing the programming issue. Sharing the details is guest blogger, Jenna Ray Hines, President of SNC SHRM:
Have you ever had a difficult time finding a quality speaker in your region for your SHRM Chapter or Conference event?
We have created Crowdsourcing SHRM Chapter Speakers for that exact reason.
We wanted to create an outlet for chapters to find and recommend quality, cost efficient speakers within their respective regions. After a chapter has a quality speaker, they can post on their list.ly regional page to promote the speaker and presentation topic as well as mention if it was HRCI-approved.
This social media tool will be useful for chapters to collect ideas, collaborate, and share successes.
We are using list.ly, a social media website that allows users to create and share lists that other users can build upon, to host our five regional lists. Each one of the regional pages represents one of the five SHRM HR regions and can be used by them to collect their list of recommended regional speakers:
As you can see, not only are details such as speaker name, date he or she spoke, HRCI-credits, SHRM event, who recommended the speaker, and details about his or her talk included, you can give thumbs up or down to a particular speaker.
To learn more about Crowdsourcing SHRM Chapter Speakers go to your regional page below:
Southwest Region
Southeast Region
North Central Region
Northeast Region
Pacific West Region
Of course, this tool is only as good as the people who contribute to it. Be sure to add a speaker who you felt excelled, and share the list with chapter leaders in your region.
Thanks to Jenna for the post. If you have questions, do not hesitate to contact Jenna (@jennaray21) or me....and, note, Jenna will be graduating in May of 2013 and looking for a job in HR.
