Sunday’s events kicked off with an easy flight out of Richmond and concluded with an easy train ride to my hotel. If you haven’t taken the train in Chicago you should try it, as transit systems go it is pretty easy to navigate.

After checking in at the hotel, I went ahead and took the shuttle to McCormick place to pick up my registration. The process of shuttle to McCormick to registration in the bloggers lounge was super easy. Kudos to SHRM for putting together an easy-to-navigate process and kudos to Dice for the blogger lounge setup.

After setting up in the bloggers lounge I proceeded to check out the Expo hall which was….ENORMOUS. There are hundreds of vendors there, so many that it is difficult to comprehend at first. I wandered around for a while and tried to take it all in. I plan to hit it up again later today or tomorrow, with a more targeted approach.

At night I had a chance to meet friends IRL, take a LONG walk around the city and grab a late dinner and drinks with new and old friends. All in all a most satisfying start to the SHRM Conference. Today, I’m attending a number of great sessions (the problem is trying to figure out which ones to attend) and heading to the Glassdoor party tonight.

Check out my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages for regular updates, I am also going to try and get one or two posts published while I am here to update you on the great sessions and parties (which means you need to forgive my already sketchy grammar which will probably be worse).

Stay tuned!

That’s right. I will be talking up a storm at 1 PM Eastern Time/12 Central Time with Nisha Raghavan (@theHRBuddy) and Bryan Wempen (@BryanWempen).

Possible topics for discussion:

#SHRM13

What employees really want from HR?

How is William Tincup doing?

My search for a purple squirrel

What about you? What do you want to hear me talk about? Be forewarned though it’s only a 30 minute discussion.  

Here’s the link to hear all the goodness live:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/drivethruhr/2013/06/12/melissa-fairman-at-lunch-with-drivethruhr (oh and you can catch the replay there too if you missed it live).

When I’m “off the clock” so to speak, I am pretty choosy about how I spend my time.

After eating, sleeping, commuting and working I have maybe six hours left to cram in the following: exercise, blogging, hobbies, spending time with loved ones and some brain-less activities like TV watching.

I am happy to say that the posts I have for you today absolutely rock…they are so good in fact that I’m worried you won’t come back to my blog. So, read these posts, subscribe to their awesome blogs but keep some room in your reader for the reMix!

On the international front:

• From Abhishek Mittal’s Mumbler blog, he builds on an article from The Atlantic to discuss how The Way Work is Working in Singapore.
• From the Canadian HR Reporter, Stuart Rudner is advising us on how to Hire A Worker With A Disability.

Work, MC’ing, Employee Engagement, Social Media and other goodies:

• Ben Eubanks is giving you the lowdown on the importance of writing at work in his excellent piece on Business Communication Writing Skills (or How to use Persuasive Writing at Work).
• Sometimes HR has to MC a company event…haven’t done that yet? Done a disastrous job? The Job of an MC is a quick how-to on this important task that all HR Pro’s get asked to do at some point in their career.
• Alex Raymond, of Kapta Systems, wants you to think differently about the balanced scorecard in his post Scorecards and Successful Organizational Alignment.
• Rory Trotter Jr. encourages us to open the lines of communication in order to get that elusive employee engagement we all seek in his post Want to Increase Employee Engagement? Open the lines of communication.
• Ian Welsh, an excellent blogger and HR thinker from Canada, asks a great question in his post Is Employee Commitment More Important Than Employee Attitude?
• A fan of HGTV? This post is for you. Robin Schooling asks Will Your Employees Love It or Leave It?
• Think you are inclusive? Sure! But do you realize you can employ specific behaviors to improve your ability to include others? The HR Introvert (aka Tim Gardner) has some tips for you in his excellent post The Power of “What” and Presumed Inclusion.
• In her post, Only A Players Wanted, Susan M. Heathfield defines A, B & C players and who she wants on her team.
• Doug Shaw, over in the UK, gives us a critical look at giving talks from the speaker’s perspective in his piece A Chance to Speak.
• Another excellent blogger from the UK, Mervyn Dinnen, advises us Be Social To Get Your People Social – The 3 E’s and Pizza. Pizza? Count me in!

This is a great group of posts asking us to re-think ideas that have been around for a long time:

• Stephen Roesler encourages us to think differently about work-life balance (and IMHO we need to) in his post Thinking About Work-Life Balance.
• Julie Winkle Giulion (quick aside, can I say how excited I was to “meet” her over email? If you haven’t read her book Help Them Grow or Watch Them Grow go get it now) asks us to think a new way about an old phrase in her post Give ‘Em Enough Rope.
• Jennifer V. Miller of The People Equation offers a unique twist on Stephen Covey’s classic emotional bank account analogy with Auditing Your Workplace Relationships.
• “The binders don’t count.” That is what we can learn from some P&G Succession Planning Lessons from Wally Bock.

On leadership:

• Mark Miller challenges you focus and say yes to the right things in his post Take Back Your Life.
• In his post, Millennial Leaders: Welcome to the Arena, John Mertz is taking a different perspective on millennials by asking them to focus on the important lesson to lead from within the arena.
• In this great post on leadership/management Dan McCarthy asks and answers the perennial question Can A Manager Be A Coach?
• Chip Bell asks an important question: What can Carnation Milk teach us about leadership and mentoring? We should Leave the Gates Open for Protégés

No carnival of HR would be complete without HR talking about itself:

• Over at Cost of Work, Chris Fields has some words for people that think HR is so easy a cave man could do it, in his post Stop it, You Don’t Know What You Are Doing.
• Paul Smith, from Welcome to the Occupation, asks us to stay true to ourselves despite the HR Haters in his excellent post HR: We Are Ourselves.

So you may have heard that SHRM is having its annual conference soon…even if you can’t make it you can still participate by helping support No Kid Hungry, check out Dwane Lay’s post SHRM Kickball and No Kid Hungry for all the details!

Actually,  I chose to focus on just two things SHRM can do to improve the services it provides for HR pros:

1. The SHRM website is a wealth of tactical and compliance information.  When I needed to bring myself up to speed on FMLA this past year SHRM was the first place I went. It is a great resource but the focus is tactical and compliance driven.  In addition to providing the tactical information why doesn’t SHRM make a bigger effort to talk about strategic issues?

One example: Why isn’t the We Know Next website easily linked to from the SHRM website? With its focus on trends in the workforce, public policy and social media the We Know Next site is a great example of pushing the HR field forward beyond the compliance driven model. Why this isn’t heavily promoted on SHRM’s website is baffling. Honestly, if I wasn’t in social media I’m not sure I would have found this great site.

2. Why does it cost so much money to get certified? I think taking the step to become certified is very important in the HR profession.  It shows you have made the effort to understand a body of knowledge and you care about your profession. I encourage everyone to get certified. But as someone who is contemplating getting my SPHR and paying for it out of pocket, the cost is intimidating. 

Looking at the latest fee schedule it would cost someone pursuing a SPHR $475-$525 (the lower price applies to SHRM members) just to apply and take the test.  That doesn’t include taking a course to learn the material.  Those courses (provided by SHRM) cost anywhere from $1400 (in-person) to $1700 (virtual!) to $700 for self-study.  Why does it cost $300 more to take a course virtually? SHRM isn’t paying for a room or buying lunch for attendees.

Please realize that not everyone can afford these high prices. I understand SHRM is working to build credibility so you can’t make it a cakewalk to become certified but the high cost is a big barrier for HR pros that work at companies with little to no training budget. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that high cost = credibility.

These are just two examples of how SHRM can work to improve service for its members.  With a membership that spans #trenchhr pros, senior leaders, consultants and students it can be difficult to please everyone and I get that.  But in order to push the profession forward we need to make it less expensive to become certified and/or to get training and make sure members have exposure to the broader, strategic aspects of HR.

Don’t misunderstand me,  things are awesome but  I also don’t want to become settled or “comfortable.” With that in mind I’m going to be taking a week or two off the reMix. I need to take some time to focus on some other priorities, re-assess my current priorities and put some thought into future content for this blog.

In the meantime you can still get some fresh content from me over at PerformanceICreate. I’m writing about change over there to.
Here is a quick snippet to whet your appetite:

“Many of us HR pros (including myself) would advocate a leadership shakeup in different circumstances, but it feels different when that change is happening to my…”

Click here to read the rest.  

Thank you for your patience while I take a little break, keep in mind you can still contact me via email, Twitter or LinkedIn. Make it a great day!

In the next few weeks we will be hearing a lot about commencement speeches. Some of these will be great, some boring and some mind-blowing. Some colleges will pay a fortune to bring in some heavy hitters like Bill Clinton or Condolezza Rice.   Unfortunately not everyone gets to hear speakers such as Bill Clinton.  Some get stuck with someone marginal they don’t even remember.  It’s OK!  You don’t want to pay the tuition bill for the college that hires a former president to speak at commencement.

Today’s post isn’t about aspirational stories or funny anecdotes about conversations with Vladimir Putin; instead I want to give you some solid advice on the next endeavor in your life: getting a job, keeping a job and maybe even liking that job.

I have spent almost 10 years of my life working in the corporate world on both sides, so I think I have something relevant to tell you.  Here goes:

Job search tips: 

1. Resumes are important – double and triple check grammar and spelling.  I see  grammar, spelling and formatting errors across all age groups, these mistakes chip away at your candidacy before you’ve even had a chance to open your mouth.

2. Cast a wide net – you are just starting out in your career so you can and should explore different jobs, different locations, and different companies. Consider all opportunities.

3. Don’t take the advice you receive too seriously.  Most people give advice based on their own life experience. This may or may not be relevant to you depending on how close your life is now to someone’s when they were your age 30 years ago. You should listen but take advice with a grain of salt.

4. Interview advice – This is simple but I feel like I have to reiterate the basics: show up on-time,  turn off your phone (I can still hear it vibrate), say “please” and “thank you,” don’t interrupt someone who is speaking, dress for the occasion, send a thank you note or email.

5. Some work history is better than no work history – is it September and you are still looking for a job? Get a job. Any job. Don’t laugh at the Starbucks barista, she is building experience and making money.  Trust me, the point in time where you become the unemployed loser sitting in your parents basement is much sooner than you think.  

Career and workplace advice: 

1. It’s OK to take a job you are less than enthusiastic about….really you won’t find your passion at your first, second or third job, at this point you need to take a job (preferably in the professional field of your choice) that gives you experience and pays you money.

2. Since I brought up the “P” word, check out these two great posts from Laurie Ruettimann and Lance Haun about work passion…they pretty much sum up my views on finding your passion.

3. Working at a crappy job builds character – character is good. It is good to get crappy jobs out of the way at a young age. When people are screaming at you on the phone it won’t seem like that is true but trust me this is better now instead of later. It is much better to be at a miserable job when you only need to worry about feeding yourself and not an entire family. The crappy job you put up with now will give you the perspective and experience to see the good opportunities when they come along.

4. Don’t be annoyed if someone refers to you as the ”kid” or mentions that you are the youngest person on the team. At some point you won’t be the youngest person on the team anymore…this will make you sad.

5. What you were taught in school is not always how things play out in real life. The best practices you read about in your text books are expensive. Contribute realistic ideas that fit the organization (financial, culture and people) that you work for.

6.  Do not compromise your ethics or morals.

7. Live below your means – this is common sense right? Unfortunately it is so common that people ignore it.  Do you have a hard time thinking thirty years into the future? When 10, 15, 20% of your paycheck is going toward a goal 30 years in the future it is tempting to spend that money on your current reality.  Don’t buy into that. Money = Freedom. Freedom = the opportunity to go into business for yourself, the opportunity to take a real vacation and disconnect, the opportunity to educate yourself and much more. Money = Freedom

8.  No one expects you to know everything. I’m ashamed it took me a minute to learn this one; it actually took me quite a few frustrated hours and some candid advice before I finally stopped giving a crap and started asking questions.  Don’t make my mistake.

9. Grit is good.  There is a wealth of research material (and a great TedX talk) about grit.  This is the ability to diligently persist until things are accomplished, a box is checked or the product has shipped.   This is one of the most important skills you can develop. You don’t need to be the smartest or the most connected but if you can get things done, you shine. The people who get things done are the organizational linchpin. You want to be a linchpin.

What advice would you give to this year’s college graduates? I would love to hear it! Tell me in the comments. 

There are few things more ridiculed in corporate culture then the middle manager.  Executives usually get their fair share of hate but they also get some glorification as “kings of industry” or job creators.  We rarely see the middle manager treated in such glorious fashion.

Once a position aspired to, the middle manager has fallen by the wayside and is now thought of as a relic of the past. There is an easy explanation for that: innovations in technology has enabled businesses to remove entire layers of middle management and individual contributors. It seems that in our never ending quest for greater efficiency and lean organizations we’ve also forgotten the value of good middle managers as anything other than task managers.

A recent study detailed in Harvard Business Review blogs, describes the importance of middle managers as companies undergo major change efforts:

“I recently conducted a study of 56 randomly selected companies involved in major change and innovation efforts in the high-tech, retail, pharmaceutical, banking, automotive, insurance, energy, non-profit, and health care industries. Nearly 68% of these large-scale change and innovative efforts failed…The result was startling: Aside from the role of the senior executives, the most important determinant of success was the role of MLMs [Mid-Level Managers, emphasis added]. In the successful initiatives, MLMs served as levers of change, influencing those above and below them in the corporate hierarchy.”

The study found three things were important to the success of the change initiative from the perspective of the MLM, to paraphrase:

Alignment – Managers goals were aligned with the change initiative

Authorship – the best companies put together cross functional teams of middle managers and used those teams to create initiatives aligned with organizational goals

Actions- Managers put into place initiatives and are held accountable for the results.

This is all good information but it is also common sense. When you are trying to change an organization why wouldn’t you involve your middle managers? IMHO if you want successful change it has to come from the top, the bottom and the middle. I would go one step further and set up cross functional teams at the employee level as well. I don’t think it is enough to develop initiatives at the MLM level, I would argue there is just as much if not more value on the employee level.

I’m also interested to see how the perception of middle management influences decision making at the top.  Are executives and consultants sitting in the proverbial ivory tower assuming that middle managers are task managers and can’t handle the strategy? Is there a belief that middle managers should stick to tasks and leave the strategy to the experts?

If that is the case it isn’t hard to understand how 68% of large-scale change initiatives fail. One of the bonuses of a leaner organization is that all employees are closer to the business and performance expectations are higher.  We shouldn’t demand change and at the same time assume middle managers are the same task masters of the past.

Is there any bigger headache for HR managers than the one brought on by managing FMLA leave events? Keeping track of federal and state leave laws, managing requests, tracking snippets of time … it can eventually drive even the most organized HR pro to the brink of madness.

HR often wonders, “Is there anything to do to ease this headache?”

Good news: There is. The first step is to stop banging your head against the wall. The second is to follow a few simple steps.

But before we jump into the steps, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page:

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) gives eligible employees job-protected leave for 12 weeks in a 12-month period to care for any of the following:

• A newborn, adopted, or foster child within one year of birth or placement

• A spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition

• The employee’s self

Additionally, FMLA covers any family matters that require missing work to coordinate logistics for a spouse, child, or parent on active duty (e.g., finding a child-care provider). It also protects eligible employees for 26 weeks in a 12-month period when caring for a service member if that service member is their spouse, child, parent, or next of kin.

Whether it’s the birth of a child or caring for a parent, there are a lot of reasons that your employees could be on protected leave. To complicate matters, the leave can be taken intermittently. With a large number of employees, we can all agree that managing FMLA can quickly become unwieldy.

So, about those steps. Here are a few tips to help ease the head pains of managing FMLA:

• Document, document, document — Sometimes it’s the simplest things that lead to our unraveling. As obvious as it sounds, be sure to write clear notes and keep any documentation associated with a leave organized. The payoff? Clear and concise documentation will be beneficial if there’s an instance where the leave needs to be reviewed in an audit or litigation occurrence.   

• Keep the lines of communication open — Everyone involved in an employee’s leave of absence needs to be on the same page — including the employee, their manager, and HR. To avoid any misunderstandings, be transparent and consistent. Frequent communication will also aid in return-to-work efforts — but don’t be too clingy and interfere with their leave. 

• Train managers and keep your policies updated — Make sure managers understand, or at least will comply with, FMLA basics so they don’t mistakenly cause a sticky situation. And in the HR department, be sure to review your policies and procedures to ensure they incorporate the March 2013 regulation updates.   

• Run FMLA concurrently with short-term disability — If possible, start the clock on FMLA and STD tracking at the same time. You’ll thank yourself for the time sync.     

• Request recertification and re-request, if needed — HR pros can request re-certification as frequently as every 30 days. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for a second doctor’s opinion. Just be sure to give the employee reasonable time to do both tasks.   

• Manage FMLA with the ADA in mind — Don’t forget that extra leave time can sometimes be a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. So, if the 12-week leave time is exhausted and the employee still can’t return to work, make sure all possible avenues are explored before any staffing changes are implemented.

Clearly, there are a lot of moving pieces that come with managing FMLA. Although it sounds daunting, following these steps will definitely alleviate some of the headache. And during the times when you’d like to reach for that bottle of Advil (or a glass of wine), try to remember the big picture. As an HR manager, you get to help these folks during an important time in their lives — whether it’s welcoming a new child, caring for a sick family member, or coordinating a loved one’s military leave.

Additionally, managing the leave effectively will ultimately impact your organization’s bottom line for the better and make your job easier in the long run.

Today’s post is brought to us by Optis. Optis makes your disparate people data easy to see, control and understand. Our flexible data solutions and cloud-based software empower your organization to manage leave events, navigate regulatory compliance and integrate all of your data sources. Alleviate the burden of manual administration, reduce risks, get the full picture of your people data and make better business decisions.

Today’s post is brought to us courtesy of Broc Edwards, an HR pro that specializes in leadership and organizational development.  He recently published a book on Human Resources titled “What thinks you? A fool’s eye view of Human Resources” You can connect with him over LinkedIn  and Twitter. 

Us humans place a lot of weight on our heroes. We need them to inspire us to be better, to set an example, to show us the way, to push back the edges of what we thought was possible.

Who are your HR heroes?

Brian Tracy has said that if you don’t love what you’re doing enough to strive to be in the top 20%, you’re probably in the wrong field. What’s it mean to be in the top 20% of HR? Who do you consider in the top 20% of HR? Who do you look up to as a role model or example of who and how you want to be? Who is setting the pace for you?

Who are your HR heroes?

When you go to conferences, which speakers do you seek out, regardless of topic or re-certification credits? Have you ever gone to a conference just because of the speakers there? Who do you consider the rock stars of HR? Who would you get all giddyshyembarassed about meeting?

Who are your HR heroes?

What are your favorite human resources or business books? What’s the best one you’ve read this year? What writer do you wish you could meet? What would you ask that person?

Who are your HR heroes?

Whose blogs do you read regularly and religiously? Whose thoughts do you RT on twitter or share on Facebook? Who writes from such a consistently mind-blowingly awesome perspective that you have it set up to auto-tweet-post-announce-broadcast to your world?

Who are your HR heroes?

Who do you admire for moving the field forward over the past decade? Who do you anticipate will move it forward the most in the next 10 years? What do they do so differently? What will you bring into your own work?

Who are your HR heroes?

What traits do you most admire in the top HR pros? What behaviors do you think the entire field would be better off for emulating? When you’re facing a tough, ambiguous situation with high visibility outcomes, who do you ask yourself, “How would                    handle this?”

Who are your HR heroes?

What is your ideal HR job? Who is your dream mentor? Who inspires you to elevate your game and makes you want to be your best every day? Who would you drop everything and move your family across the country for just to be able to work with and learn from them?

Who are your HR heroes?

Why is it important to you to pursue excellence? How are you moving the field forward? Who do you inspire? Who have you mentored? What difference are you making?

Whose HR hero are you?