HR pros find learning opportunity in big easy

Planners for the Society for Human Resource Management's 56th Annual Conference and Exposition have brought back the popular mega and masters sessions and have supplemented learning opportunities with up-to-the-minute updates on out-sourcing and changes to Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations.

The preconference and conference workshops and sessions will span five days in June at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. Two preconference workshops on the FLSA changes are planned for June 26-27, with more concurrent sessions following through June 30, said Nancy Woolever, SPHR, manager of education for SHRM. "We've beefed up these offerings since this is an important topic."

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Speakers from top business schools--Stanford University, Harvard University and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania--will lead the three Masters Series sessions held June 28-30. Two mega sessions are offered during each concurrent session time frame throughout the conference, covering a variety of topics across the five learning tracks. The tracks this year are Business and Strategy, Compensation and Benefits (which is new this year), Employment, HR and the Law, and Skill Development. Additional topics to be covered in concurrent sessions are the aging workforce, privacy issues, the HR scorecard, human capital asset management, the maturing of the HR profession worldwide, skills for HR leaders and succession planning.

"Attendees will notice that we've added the compensation and benefits studies track and beefed up the business and strategy track. There are a lot more, new concurrent sessions that attendees will notice," Woolever said. "We also are featuring 22 sessions by HR practitioners, who bring real-life experience to their presentations."

In response to feedback from conference attendees, SHRM planners also have added several sessions specifically on training and development; they can be found under the employment and skill development tracks. Full descriptions of all concurrent sessions are available at www.shrm.org/conferences.

Each year "we bring back the popular sessions and supplement them with new, hot topics," Woolever said. "The challenge is to get something for everyone."

Courses, Certificates, Certifications

The SHRM Academy will take place during the conference for HR professionals who want to strengthen their understanding of business essentials and management. Participants will receive certificates for each of the courses they attend. SHRM also will hold certificate programs in topics such as strategic decision-making and strategic leadership, as well as the Essentials of Human Resource Management, HR Generalist and Conflict Resolution Skills certificate programs.

Woolever noted that attendees who are tracking conference sessions against defined HR competencies can go to www.shrm.org, where an online tool to be launched in May will tell them how to pair sessions with competencies. For those looking to recertify in their professional certifications from the Human Resource Certification Institute, the conference program will be marked with sessions that fulfill recertification requirements for the Global Professional in HR certification, as well as those that fulfill strategic management requirements for the HR section of the Senior Professional in HR certification.

"We realize that often the attendees of the Annual Conference only have one professional development opportunity a year," said Woolever. "We want to make the Annual Conference robust enough so that you will be able to show your boss that you have more than two or three choices at each time frame. You can show your boss that it's more than worth it to send you so that your boss can sign off on the check."

Online Resources

See the latest news about SHRM members, chapters, programs and services at www.shrm.org/hrnews/insideshrm.

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