Session Descriptions

Keynote Sessions

“You Already Know How to Be Great”

Alan Fine

Employees have two fundamental human desires that are deep within each of us: the desire to be and do our best, and the desire to be significant and make a difference.  In any situation that requires higher performance, leaders want to improve focus, increase action, and achieve results.  But we also want to unleash the talents and skills of those around us.  This presentation will challenge your view of your organization’s human capital and their performance potential and provide you with a proven performance plan so you can help others achieve breakthrough results.

Attendees will learn:

• A proven performance model to improve focus and accelerate decision making.
• A fast and simple coaching methodology so you can help unlock  the performance potential of those around you
• A simple way to structure conversations to strengthen personal and professional relationships
• The three key principles of performance and the most common performance barriers

“The Future of HR: What’s Next for the Profession”

Pamela J. Green, SPHR

For most organizations today, the business focus has shifted from short-term survival to long-term sustainability as the U.S. and global economy continue to recover slowly from the 2008-2009 recession.  Achieving sustainability will be a true test of HR leadership in the uncertain post-recession economy.  In this presentation, you will explore four major challenges HR professionals are facing today and a two-part strategy for turning the challenges into opportunities for your organization.  In addition, you will look at a case study of Zappos.com where the strategies have brought impressive bottom-line results, as well as employee retention, engagement, and productivity.

“No Legs, No Problem”

Rohan Murphy

This session addresses never giving up.  Rohan has always lived a purpose driven life and how now shares his unique perspective on life with people.

Being born with deformed legs was a crushing blow to Rohan and his family.  At the age of four, his rare birth defect forced doctors to amputate both of his legs.  Doctors told the Murphy family that Rohan would never be able to take care of himself and would require 24 hour care each day of his life.  It’s now safe to say that he proved them wrong!

Rohan’s speech is emotionally enthralling and will inspire even the most cynical person to believe that anything is possible! Rohan’s target audience is the youth of America, but he believes from the bottom of his heart that his life story and speech can reach adults and inspire them to also live life with a purpose.  He talks about priceless life skills, such as overcoming adversity, dedication, and discipline.

Mega Sessions

“Learning, Leadership, and Change”

Brad Benson, M.S.

Organizations have inherent abilities to learn that are often overlooked by corporate leaders and HR professionals.  Mr. Benson will share methods for HR professionals to integrate leadership development efforts with the development of company strategy.

Learning objectives:

• The roles of the executive function and how HR needs to work with key players to achieve measurable impact
• How to tap into the “Company Operating System”
• Generalizable case studies where development programs were integrated with company efforts such as leadership development and executive coaching

“Leading Change in Turbulent Times”

Dr. Timothy R. Clark

Dr. Clark will address some break-through concepts and tools for leaders who are charged to lead critical change initiatives in their organizations.  Participants will come away with a more strategic understanding of the change process, but they will also take away some practical tools for tactical-level application that will provide immediate value and impact to their organizations.

Dr. Clark will address the following key concepts:

• Gaining mastery of context
• Developing a planned abandonment mentality
• The EPIC stages of large-scale change
• Applying the concept of competitive distance
• Managing your span of uncertainty
• Using the Gain/Impact Matrix
• Sending early signals
• Consolidating the culture

Concurrent Sessions

Resolving Conflict in the Workplace

Nancy McGahey, M.A.

Human resource professionals and other company leaders are often called upon to resolve workplace conflicts involving sensitive matters such as performance evaluations, discrimination allegations, and personality differences.

When left unresolved, conflict can have a significant negative impact on teamwork, morale, productivity, and retention of valuable employees.  In this session, attendees gain a basic understanding of the nature of conflict along with valuable information and skills to effectively resolve conflict in the workplace and model, communicate, and reinforce valued behaviors.

Conducting Internal Investigations

Monica Whalen, JD

In this era of increased legal complaints, it is critical to have solid investigation techniques.  When conducted correctly, internal investigations can resolve a current problem and mitigate the potential risk of a related lawsuit.  An airtight internal investigation can be your company’s best defense.  This session will help you sharpen your skills learning insights she has gained from conducting countless investigations of workplace misconduct.

Workforce Planning – the Bedrock of HR Strategy

Nicky Firth

There is a difference between Headcount Planning & effective Workforce Planning.  One helps to understand costs and annual planning cycles.  The other is the engine room to HR strategy.  Companies need both, but HR practitioners should not stop at Headcount Planning and think they have all that is needed to deliver a proactive and sustainable people strategy.

Workforce Planning must be based on an understanding of the drivers of work and productivity in any business and must have strong links to Talent Management.  For instance, a business is planning a future expansion in an open pit mine.  How will this expansion impact the people needs of the business?  What skills are needed and when?  What skills are already embedded in the organization?  How long will it take to develop that skill?  Is it available from the labor market and in what form?  How will people be trained and when?  Is the work permanent or reflect a ramp up of work that will not be sustained?  Can someone else provide the skills more expertly and efficiently than the company?  Ask the right questions, involving people with “know how” in your business, and HR analytic tools and thinking are critical success factors for effective workforce planning.

Workforce planning is a dynamic process that, if done well, provides an excellent way for HR teams to become engaged with business leaders at the planning and strategy phases of business growth and sustainability.

Working on Borrowed Time – Maximizing Your HR Department Using Someone Else’s Expertise

Jeanine Wilson, SPHR

Debbie Stone, SPHR

When your organization or department is faced with tough problems that won’t go away, you can often benefit from some fresh insights or need help to tackle time consuming issues.  Knowing when to bring in outside help is a hallmark of a professional who knows how to get things done.

Hiring a consultant may be the answer.  But how do you know when it’s time to “import” the expertise you need, and what can a consultant do for you?  How do you select the right consultant?  How do you know whether a consultant you’re considering truly has the expertise you need?  This session will answer those questions and provide many helpful guidelines and checklists for working with a consultant.

A Positive Approach to Performance Management

Daken Tanner, SPHR

For years, organizations have used a fairly standardized procedure to handle employee problems such as absenteeism, poor performance, and other misconduct.  This approach, usually called “progressive discipline,” provides for increasingly serious steps or penalties – reprimands, warnings, suspension without pay – when an employee does not meet the organizations.  But today, a growing number of companies are moving away from approaches that focus exclusively on punishment.  Instead, they are adopting an approach of accountability – employees with unfavorable performance, conduct or attendance issues are required to take personal responsibility for their choice of behavior.

Positive Discipline by Performance Systems Corporation, is an effective approach to performance management based on the works of Alfred Alder.  This session will help HR professionals implement a different type of performance leadership that reinforces the organizations core values and expectations and where:

• Employees are and should be treated as responsible adults
• Recognition and coaching are generally most effective in building superior performance
• Both employees and leaders have specific responsibilities in the performance, values, behaviors, and success in an organization.

The Anatomy of a White Collar Crime and Flags to Potential Misconduct

Diann Cattani

Diann Cattani will be sharing a personal story of the insidiousness of temptation, the importance of culture, but also the need for financial and procedural controls within every organization.  HR professionals will learn the consequences of failing to implement risk reducing procedures in all areas, stressing upon professionals the need for vigilant monitoring to mitigate organizational risk.  Ms. Cattani will also be sharing flags to potential employee misconduct and consequences to individual and companies to assist attendees with the identification of possible issues, remedial action to be taken.

Tapping in to Talent: Best Practices in Hiring, Retaining and Accommodating People with Disabilities

Leah Lobato

In the next decade, several trends will greatly impact the workforce. These trends will mean that employers need to re-examine many of their current human resource practices. Consider the following:

• More people will be working with a disability.  This trend will be due to a variety of factors: our aging population and workforce, our enhanced ability to detect and diagnose particular types of disabilities and the availability of better treatments enabling more people with disabilities to work.
• More people will be working with hidden disabilities.  Our ability to detect and treat particular types of hidden disabilities means that more people with these disabilities will be engaged in the workforce.

Because of these trends, being able to engage talent is likely to become a significant factor differentiating organizations who succeed and those who fail.

Many of the underlying ideas of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA ) are not just important for employee’s with disabilities, they are important for all employees. Similarly, the human resource practices outlined in the employment guidelines of the ADA are not just about complying with the law, they are about creating organizational practices that will engage the talents of ALL employees.

See The Big Picture: Business Acumen to Build Your Credibility, Career & Company

Kevin Cope

This session simplifies complex and intimidating financial concepts and teaches participants our Five Business Drivers model.  Understanding this model enables employees, no matter their role or experience, to practice and perfect their business acumen throughout their careers.  Participants will understand how to execute better, smarter, and faster business decisions that drive profitable and sustainable growth.  Our research indicates that 90% of employees lack a basic understanding of important business measures.  Those who do understand these financial concepts (CXO level employees and the finance department) often struggle to communicate their knowledge with stake holders and employees with clarity of purpose.  This lack of understanding and clarity results in managers who struggle to align their strategy with corporate results, departments that are too insular, and organizations that scramble when it comes to turning increased complexity into financial advantage.  Employees within these organizations lack the courage and conviction to explain what they need to do in clear, simple terms, and how their workgroup, team, or organization will improve the company’s money-making process.  This leads to a feeling of isolation and uncertainty.  The results are employees who shy away from making important business decisions, employees who make uninformed business decisions, or employees who slow down the decision making process in an effort to avoid making the wrong choice.

Wellness in the Workplace

BrandE Faupell, M.S., SPHR

BrandE Faupell will discuss Utah State University’s process of creating a wellness program… the baseline before the program, barriers faced and the challenges of getting agreement on exactly what to include (and what not to include) as well as one major hurdle – agreement on a definition of what wellness IS.

Participants will be able to:

• Describe one organization’s business case and process of creating a wellness program
• Identify issues to address, i.e.: which services to include and whether or not to outsource
• Describe both potential medical benefits for employees and less-tangible, psychological benefits
• List considerations your own organization needs to address in creating or modifying its wellness program

Solutions to Getting Your Organization and Recruitment Team Working Together

Sherri Hollingsworth

Critical work is not getting done due to positions being vacant.  Whose fault is it?  The leader blames human resources.  Human resources blames the leader.  This presentation will focus on how to build team and accountability between organizational leadership and the human resources team.  Learn how to enlist a neutral party, create transparency, and healthy competition.

Ethical Lapses in Human Resource Management

David Cherrington, DBA, SPHR

Although many of the major frauds and ethical violations that have shocked the business community have focused on accounting irregularities and financial errors, the pressures and inducements that lie at the foundation of these mistakes have been largely rooted in unhealthy human resource practices.  Many HR practices that appear innocent and even desirable on the surface can exert an abusive influence on members and lead them to participate in serious moral lapses.  Every organization has the capacity to abuse people, even organizations that are led by highly principled managers and executives.  Attendees will learn the identification and effective communication of the organizations values and ethics.

Immigration and the State of Utah

Luz Robles, M.A.

Utah has changed the immigration discussion at a national level due to the different legislative approaches to a broken federal immigration policy.  This session will review some of those policies and what it means for the state and the national discussion.