Benjamin McCall has put together an invaluable guide to training and development with the release of his e-book, "What We Teach/How We Learn."

The e-book contains:

• 32 pages of articles around engagement, presentation tips, encouraging and empowering individuals to learn and in the workplace approaches to learning.
• Approaches and tips on increasing the way we deliver and facilitate to our employees.
• Reaction sheets after each article for the reader to "react" to what you wrote and jot down some ideas on how they can use it and act.
  

To provide this information, he went out, scoured the country, and found a number of great contributors (myself excluded):

• Erin Schreyer, President of Sagestone Partners, Founder of Authentic Leadership Cincinnati, Twitter: @eschreyer
• Jennifer V. Miller, People-Equation.com, Managing Partner at SkillSource, Twitter: @jennifervmiller
• Steve Boese, HR Technology Blog, HR Technology Instructor, Rochester Institute of Technology, Twitter: @steveboese
• Sharlyn Lauby, SPHR, CPLP, She is the HRBartender.com, President of Internal Talent Management (ITM) Group, Twitter: @sharlyn_lauby
• Matthew J. Stollak, Ph.D., True Faith HR, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, St Norbert Collage, Twitter: @akaBruno
• Ben Eubanks , UpStartHR.com, Runs his SHRM chapter’s RocketHR blog, HR pro at Volunteers of America, Twitter: @beneubanks
• Chris Ferdinandi, RenegadeHR.net, Author of CultureConvo, Employee Development & Social Media Specialist at EMC, Twitter: @chrisferdinandi
• Lance Haun, ReHaul.com, Community Director for ERE Media, Twitter: @thelance
• Steve Browne, Executive Director of HR for Larosa’s Pizza, Facilitator, HR Net, Twitter: @sbrownehr
• Benjamin McCall, Leadership Performance Consultant, Editor, ReThinkHR.org, Twitter: @BenjaminMcCall

Check it out now.

At the HREvolution Unconference last May, I was challenged by a certain Trench HR professional, despite my Ph.D. in Human Resource Management and SPHR certification, that my credibility in the field was limited since I was not a "true" HR professional. Shhh....I have a secret....

I have been practicing HR in my job as a professor for over 15 years. How so?

Recruitment and Selection - As an advisor to the student SHRM chapter, I am always trying to find new members to join the organization. In addition, I have served on several faculty and staff search committees.

Managing Turnover - Unlike many organizations, my turnover rate is highly predictable. Students WILL graduate. As a result, I have to repeatedly build and rebuild our SHRM student chapter as new members of the e-board join the group.

Training - Through the design of appropriate curricula, I facilitate the learning of job-related knowledge, skills, and behavior by students. Syllabi try to meet the ADDIE model.

Performance Management - Through the grading of exams, papers, and other work, I am constantly providing feedback and knowledge of results to students throughout a semester. In addition, syllabi have to be clear with regards to performance standards.

Career Development - I meet regularly with students to help prepare them for their future career. Our college devotes two days a semester for advising students not only on their next semester's schedule, but on their plans post-college. In addition, I serve as the graduate school advisor for our department

Counseling Employees - Its not uncommon to receive e-mails and in-office visits throughout the day and into the night from students requesting help to deal with sickness, injury, and even death. Similarly, I have to deal with poor performing students and try to help them improve.

Benefits - For the past 7 years, I have served on the college's Benefits Advisory Committee. We assist the college in making decisions regarding health care, insurance, retirement, and other benefits. In addition, I serve on the wellness subcommittee as the college looks to improve employees' health.

Harassment - I have also served on our college's Harassment Resource Committee. This committee assists the college in dealing with harassment-related issue and helped form the consensual relationship policy

Mediation - I have served as chair for the Faculty Mediation Committee. The function of the Faculty Mediation Committee is to mediate individual complaints against behavior and decisions arguably inconsistent with the Faculty Constitution and the Faculty Policy Statement.

In sum, my job IS human resources

Last week, I finally got to meet the HR Capitali$t himself, Mr. Kris Dunn, as he was the keynote speaker to close out the WI SHRM State Conference. We were able to chat before his presentation, and the conversation turned to the many individuals we have been able to meet over social media. It occurred to me that there is no one I haven't met and maintained a relationship with on the various social media mediums that I haven't liked. So, it begs the following question:

Is likeability a necessary precondition to success in social media?

Anyone who is reasonably successful and gains a lot of followers on Twitter and/or Facebook must be worthy of being followed. We rarely maintain a relationship or follow someone who ends up being mean, hateful, etc.

So, it follows that if likeability is a necessary precondition to success in social media, why, then, are people reluctant to get involved in social media (beyond the artificial barriers placed on social media tools by employers)? Do people feel that the Social Media world is much like Heathers and they feel like they will be picked on like Martha Dumptruck? Where does the fear derive from?

This is all prologue to the plug I am making for the Social Mentoring project being put together by Ben Eubanks and Victorio Milian. If you fear getting involved in social media, or need help getting started, this project is for you! Don't hesitate in joining, either as a mentor or a mentee, as everyone involved is truly likeable.

This past Monday, I was fortunate to appear on Bryan Wempen's daily blog talk radio show, "Drive Thru HR," to promote the Wisconsin SHRM State Conference, currently going on in Appleton, WI. The conversation turned to the topic of social media.

Of late, social media has become a growing component of the conference experience. The 2010 SHRM Annual Conference had their first annual blog squad to highlight conference activities, and a social media lounge. Illinois SHRM, HRFlorida, and Ohio SHRM had bloggers and heavy activity on the Twitter stream. As expected the HR Technology Conference was rife with social media experience with a number of bloggers and the HR Happy Hour. HR Southwest is starting up soon and it, too, will take a stab at carving up a part of the social media pie. You even see wonderful companies staking out a claim in this area, such as the Stelzner/Ruettimann powerhouse, "Voice of HR."

However, two major state HR conferences are going on this week, with relatively little fanfare: the 2010 Michigan SHRM Conference and the aforementioned 2010 WISHRM conference. While I can't speak for Michigan, WISHRM10 has over 1100 attendees, exhibitors, speakers, and guests....all with limited promotion on social media avenues. No major bloggers....no social media sessions....a relatively quiet Twitter stream.

So, I posed a number of HR bingo-type questions on Bryan's show: What is the return on all this social media activity? Is it creating a buzz? And is this buzz creating increased revenue to the state council? Are more people attending? Is it creating interest for future years of the conference? What is the bottom line of this activity?

Wisconsin SHRM enters its first full day of conference activity today. 1100 individuals will be busy enjoying the activities and learning, oblivious to the social media world's comments.

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to sit in on the SHRM Membership Core Leadership Area webinar, "Social Media for Chapters and State Councils: The Rules of Engagement" (powerpoint here; membership may be required), led by SHRM's Manager of PR & Social Media Relations Curtis Midkiff. As described,

Learn how to use social media tools like SHRMConnect, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to engage your members and recruit new members. If you are new at using social media in relation to promoting and communicating information about your chapter, you won’t want to miss this webinar. SHRM's Social Media Manager Curtis Midkiff will provide an introduction to these tools and how they can assist you in reaching your goals.

The session was repeated on Thursday and over 270 people attended one or both sessions.

It is apparent that SHRM is taking a step forward in adopting Social Media, as evidenced by the hiring and work of Curtis, the creation of the SHRM Blog Squad and Social Media Lounge at the 2010 SHRM Annual Conference, and webinars such as the one presented above. However, if SHRM really "knows next," the next step is to make social media a critical component of SHAPE.

The SHRM Affiliate Program for Excellence, or SHAPE, is SHRM's volunteer centerpiece, ensuring that chapters and state councils align and engage with SHRM's overall objectives, as well as focus on activities and initiatives which are more strategic in nature. In addition, "SHRM depends upon each of its affiliates to operate in a professional manner; effective manage its finances; maintain affiliation standards; communicate with members, the community and SHRM, and promote SHRM. (italics mine)" Adopting social media with SHAPE would seem to be a strong fit with these objectives.


So, what would it take to make social media a component of SHAPE?
1. Top Management Commitment - SHRM has already shown some commitment to social media as already mentioned. Let's hope it continues.

2. Creating a Core Leadership Area (CLA) - SHRM already has a number core leadership areas to support the mission, including:
*Membership
*College Relationship
*Government Affairs/Advocacy
*Workforce Readiness
*SHRM Foundation
*Diversity & Inclusion
*Certification

While each of those areas could have a social media component (i.e., promoting membership initiatives locally and nationally, highlighting a SHRM Foundation silent auction, bringing attention to a particular piece of legislation), a Social Media CLA could spearhead, as well as support, each of those areas.

3. Adopting social media at the chapter or state council level for SHAPE- This would require:

• having a volunteer person on the chapter or state council board, or as a director, responsible for advocating social media
• creating and maintaining a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn page at the chapter level
• creating and maintaining a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn page at the state council
• ensuring that all chapters have a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn presence (if the person is at the state council level)
  
• this volunteer person would participate in SHRM-sponsored conference calls, SHRM-sponsored live webinars, state-council sponsored conference calls, and share best/successful practice discussions with CLA peers

4. Adopting a number of initiatives to support the chapter or state council - these could include, but are not limited to:

• conducting, hosting, or sponsoring a social media seminar, conference, or social media-focused event
• Contribute to an article or write and submit an article on the topic of social media
• Maintain and write a chapter or state council blog
• Be a speaker at a student chapter event

As evidenced by the 270 people attending the webinars last week, there is a demand for an increased social media presence for chapters and state councils. As it was geared to Membership CLA individuals, it does not come close to the number who might have attended but had time conflicts, or were simply unaware of the session. Given this demand, and the growing importance of social media in contributing to chapter growth, it only makes sense to make social media a required component of professional chapters and state councils.

RESOLVED: The HRCI Certification process for chapters is broken.

Prologue

The primary reasons HR professionals attend chapter meetings are networking and earning recertification credits toward their PHR or SPHR. People do enjoy talking with another and seeing what is going on in the HR world in their little neck of the woods. Yet, it is the quality of the session/topic being offered that is the primary driver of attendance. If the topic is poor or the speaker is of low quality, the networking is simply not strong enough to devote 2.5 hours of one's time to a SHRM chapter meeting.

The Problem

Finding quality speakers is a difficult process. Chapter volunteers have to go out and find willing speakers (at no or reasonable cost) to provide a compelling hour or more of information to attendees. As anyone who as attended several meetings, the quality of the speaker can be hit-or-miss. Complicating matters is getting a chapter program to be certified by HRCI.

Having been involved with chapter boards and state councils for a number of years, working to get a meeting or conference is a constant challenge. Chapters have to submit a program a minimum 4 weeks to get approval for credit. Even then, it is a battle back-and-forth to finally get the needed approval. Anecdotally, I have heard of several instances where chapters have taken programs and/or speakers that have previously been successfully approved (when offered by another chapter), only to be turned down when submitted for a second time. HRCI even notes that a program should be "re-submitted every calendar year, even if the activity does not change from year to year." Simply, it is a lot of jumping through hoops.

The Solution
1. HRCI should create a national database of pre-approved programs

*There are more then 575 chapters, a significant number of state conferences, and the national conference
*Most chapters have 9 monthly meetings a year (as most take off summer months), with most of these meetings offering certification credit

Doing the simple math (575*9) tells me that is a total of 5,175 sessions approved per year. If we go 3 years back, that is a total of 15,525 different sessions. Let's say that 25% of those are repeats from another chapter or conference,and we add in all the state and national conference speakers, and we are talking over 11,500 sessions that HRCI has approved.

STOP THE MADNESS! Create a database listing all of these sessions by state, topic, speaker, credit amount (i.e., 1.25 hours), and certification level (PHR, SPHR, GPHR, etc.). Make it easier for the chapter volunteer to find the topic and speaker of choice.

2. Shift the burden for becoming a certified program from the chapter to the speaker; expand the Approved Provider program

If #1 above is accomplished, there might be concern that topics might become stale or out-of-date, and the 11,500+ programs would quickly decrease. Surfing the HRCI website, I discovered that HRCI offers an Approved Provider program:

The Approved Provider Program is for organizations that offer multiple HR-related continuing education activities per year. Approved Providers are awarded a three-year contract in which all your qualified HR activities that you submit to us are pre-approved for recertification credit. After three years, you can continue your Approved Provider status when you renew your contract.

Let's expand this program. Any speaker who wishes to speak to a SHRM chapter should have to get approved by HRCI. As speakers get recognized, their topics would be added to the database.

3. Create a public feedback mechanism for speakers and programs.

Before going out and buying a product, I like to read Consumer Reports. If I am traveling, I like to check out TripAdvisor.com to check the quality of hotels before making my reservation. If I am going out to eat, I might check out Yelp or Urbanspoon, before trying out a new restaurant. A similar offering should be available to chapters looking for speakers. Most information sharing about speakers is word-of-mouth. Let's increase the amount of data available.

ADVANTAGES

1. It eases the burden on chapters

As SHRM is fond of reminding us, they are a volunteer driven organization. Yet, more and more volunteers are feeling pressed for time, and chapters are finding it more difficult to find those willing to serve. This would be one way to ease their burden.

2. It makes for more timely presentations

Some chapters have their programs laid out a year in advance, in part, to ease the process of getting programs certified. Yet, what might have seemed fresh a year ago may quickly be out-of-date. With the menu of pre-approved programs, it shortens the time between selection and presentation.

3. It improves the SHRM brand

Let's face it, why would SHRM want a potential customer to attend a program at a local chapter meeting and come away unimpressed with the product? Over the past 10 years, the gap between at-large membership and chapter membership continues to widen. What was once a 60-40 split of at-large/chapter members has grown to 66/34. What better way to get people to join local chapters if they knew that each session that was delivered was recognized as a quality topic worthy of their time.

4. Speakers get the HRCI seal of approval

Getting identified and recognized as a HRCI-approved speaker may increase the number of sessions the speaker might be offered.

So, let's get to it HRCI. Make the change!

NOTE: I recognize the hard work that HRCI does each day. Trying to certified 575 sessions a month, along with state and national conference sessions, is an arduous undertaking.

Pardon me while I go "Inside SHRM" for a bit.

We are currently in the heart of conference season for many SHRM State Councils. Illinois had a successful conference last month. Florida and Ohio just wrapped up their strong events. Wisconsin and Texas are about to embark on their conference adventure. For most state councils, the state conference is THE primary mechanism for raising dollars to support many of their state HR activities. For many local SHRM chapters, conference support is a strong economic driver.

For my state, Wisconsin, this is definitely true. The state council receives 50% of whatever profit a state SHRM conference generates. The remaining 50% gets split up in a variety of ways. The co-chairs each get 20%, which goes to the professional chapter they belong to, committee members each have a certain percentage that goes to their respective chapters, and a certain percentage gets shared with the chapters based on the attendance of their chapter at the conference. All in all, some significant dollars exchange hands.

This all serves as prologue to a Twitter conversation I had with the inestimable Steve Browne over the weekend. He was making a valiant effort to try to bring state conference volunteer community together over Twitter, writing, "After a successful #OHSHRM, would like to personally connect w/ folks who are w/ other State #SHRM conf so we can promote each conf, DM me." I replied, saying it ought to be SHRM directing this effort.

In a little under two months, I will be attending the SHRM National Leadership Conference in Arlington, VA. for the 11th straight year (You'd think I would know more about Leadership after all this time, but I must be a slow learner). As always, it is an excellent opportunity for various state and local chapter leaders to get together and learn how to benefit their respective groups (and Dave Ryan does a fine job discussing it today). In exchange for their dedication, a significant number of leaders get to attend for free, and SHRM has always been commendable in their efforts in this arena. However, one group is conspicuous in their absence - State Conference Liasions and Conference Co-Chairs.

I've served in a variety of roles on the WI SHRM State Council (Foundation Director, College Relations Director, District Director), and have served on our state conference planning committee for the past four years (including a stint as co-chair). SHRM does an excellent job in bringing together similar Core Leadership Areas together to share best practices in those areas. However, in my 10 years attending the SHRM National Leadership Conference, I recall very little time or energy being dedicated to building a successful state conference. Even with sessions dedicated to high performing state councils, the voice of the state conference liaison or conference co-chair was seldom heard.

I understand that the SHRM National Leadership is already significantly large. I also understand that the Volunteer Leaders' Resource Center has a number of items to help organizers put together an excellent conference. But, is it time to provide the similar support that is given to Core Leaders to those that provide the biggest economic impact to the State Councils and professional chapters - the Conference Liaisons and Conference Co-Chairs? The call for support and community is there.

ADDENDUM: One point I didn't emphasize enough earlier is that the entire conference committee is made up of VOLUNTEERS. It is volunteers who put together the programming slate. It is volunteers who work with exhibitors and vendors to fill the exhibit hall. It is volunteers who help put together the conference publication. It is volunteers who work with the hotel and convention center to make sure rooms are correct.

As Mark Stelzner suggested in his excellent piece on "the Conference Economy," costs are often exorbitant, and you may have volunteers who are new to the committee trying to negotiate and work deals out with the host site. In Wisconsin, one has to have served on the conference planning for at least a year before taking the reins as co-chair (though more time on the committee is preferred). It is also hoped that you have some staggered terms on subcomittees (such as exhibits), so that there is someone experienced in a support position, and there is continuity, but this does not always occur. We hold a transition meeting every December, but is that sufficient? Where is the training and support from SHRM to help in the process?