If you're a newbie to the SHRM Annual Conference, you'll see that a major attraction to entice people to attend is the array of keynotes providing guidance and inspiration.  Perhaps this was one of the critical factors influencing your decision.

After attending for 14 years, you'll see that their are 4 major types of keynotes (h/t to Matt Charney for inspiring the post) that SHRM brings in.

The CEO/Major Executive.  

This speaker shares his (usually) insight of how he views HR and the workplace.  Think Earl Graves, Richard Branson, Jack Welch, Tony Hsieh, Louis Gerstner or Steve Forbes.  This year we have David Novak.

The Management/HR Pundit

This individual usually has a best selling book on HR and is sharing his or her results.  Think John Kotter, Patrick Lencioni, Malcolm Gladwell, Jim Collins, Marcus Buckingham, or Dan Pink.   This year it is Tom Friedman.

The Celebrity/Political LeaderIn the past, SHRM has brought in such names as Tom Brokaw, Hillary Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, Al Gore, Rudy Guiliani, Al Gore, Bill Cosby, and Sidney Poitier.  This year, we have Laura Bush.

The Inspirational/Motivational Speaker

This speaker usually has a message that gets us excited about what HR is about, or inspires us about how he/she overcame obstacles.  Sometimes, this overlaps with the celebrity speaker.  Such audience pleasers have included Lee Woodruff, Captain Mark Kelly & Gabby Giffords, Erin Gruwell, Liz Murray, Michael J. Fox, and Lance Armstrong.  This year is Robin Roberts.


Keep these archetypes in minds for future SHRM conferences.

Some 200 passionate HR people made their trek to Austin for the first Transform HR conference sponsored by TLNT.com.

Ron Thomas, Principal Consultant, Strategy Focused HR, kicked off the introduction of the conference talking about how attendees are all transformers.  He noted that HR needs to be people focused, scalable,  repeatable and analytical

Jim Knight, Senior Director of Training for Hard Rock, and the morning's keynote focused on how to build a team of "rock stars" for your organization.    He focused on 10 types:
1.  Develop a crystal clear, brand-specific recruiting strategy
2.  Ensure leaders are singing off the same song sheets - Hard Rock uses a three interview process for every staff-level potential hire in the hopes of gaining interrater reliability
3.  Be the chocolate - create employment differentiation - Have to avoid lipsynchers to differentiate one's workforce from everyone else
4.  Serve the brand koolaid through compelling storytelling.  Look at onboarding.  It matters who and how onboarding occurs.  General managers can reduce turnover by 15%. Don't just give onboarding responsibilities to just any employee.  That story matters.
5.   Communicate in the language that employees dream.  Staff materials with photos/graphics, less text, white space, bullet points, consistent font, and humor (where appropriate) key.  Job aides are awesome.  Videos are extremely helpful. Using PollEverywhere.com to gain instantaneous responses with small groups (n < 30)
6.  Create an army of giants around you - It starts with performance appraisal.  Simple performance form with a performance grid creates consistency in assessing performance.  Appraisals should be done more than once a year.  Managers have to give the "Why" behind the "What."
7.  Incent employees like they're rock royalty and treat them like volunteers.  Public, daily recognition of positive performance helps develop morale and repeat positive performance.  Lots of interesting perks you could offer (Hard Rock has Rolex Watch for 10 years of service; GM of the year gets a Harley-Davidson).  Employees expectations today - they want both money and work/life balance, and are only loyal to those that inspire.
8.  People quit individuals - love the ones your with - Employees have an "emotional bank account" - the more deposits the better the interest and health of the account.  Peer recognition is critical.
9.  Let love rule - support an employee volunteer philanthropy group.  Philanthropy helps employees become valuable community partners.  It galvanizes employees and gives employees an emotional connection to the brand.
10.  People only repeat what they like.  Positive experiences are critical.

Coming up next is Libby Sartain on the new consumer of work.

If you are not in attendance, you may follow the conference on Twitter at #TransformHR or it is streaming live at http://transform.tlnt.com/2012/live/

This past week, Mike Vandervort published the pros and cons of having Al Gore as a keynote speaker at the 2010 SHRM Annual Conference in San Diego. Out of curiosity, I went back through my old conference programs to see who SHRM has chosen as keynote speakers in the past and whether Al Gore is truly a controversial choice.

2001 - San Francisco - Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gary Hamel, Nando Parrado

2002 - Philadelphia - Rudy Guiliani, David McCullough, Gordon Bethune, Star Jones

2003 - Orlando - Madeleine Albright, Jim Collins, Tom Morris, Dr. C.K. Prahalad

2004 - New Orleans - Queen Noor, Magic Johnson (replaced by Christopher Reeve), Marcus Buckingham, Scott Livengood

2005 - San Diego - Bill Cosby, Malcolm Gladwell, David Ulrich, Bertice Berry

2006 - Washington, D.C., Gen. Colin Powell, Louis Gerstner, David McCullough, Liz Murray

2007 - Las Vegas - Lance Armstrong, Linda Alvarado, Dan Pink, Erin Gruwell

2008 - Chicago - Sidney Poitier, Patrick Lencioni, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Nancy Giles

2009 - New Orleans - Jack Welch, Earl Graves, John Kotter, Lee Woodruff

2010 - San Diego - Steve Forbes, Al Gore, Angela Herrin (panel), Marcus Buckingham

So, SHRM has chosen a number of conservative voices as prominent speakers (in Giuliani and Powell). One could say Al Gore is the first political person from the other side of the aisle in over 10 years. Is it really that controversial?