I am, let’s face it, the typical HR practitioner. I do boring stuff like write policies and lecture train managers. I coordinate open enrollment meetings. I drop acronyms into daily chit chat like “ADA” and “FLSA” and “OFCCP” until people’s eyes glaze over. I have boring corporate conference calls on topics like HIPAA and the ACA. I help my team as they plan wellness communications and craft articles for the employee newsletter. I sit in the weekly operations meeting and share dull HR updates about hiring metrics and recruiting goals while chastising the department directors about some form they haven’t completed correctly. (note: I do try to keep it fun; in last week’s meeting I made a really bad pun about the urinals in the men’s bathroom).
I don’t work for some sexy fancy name-brand company; I’m sitting here in middle-America with a tight and well-managed budget. I keep a large chunk of my HR data (read: “system of record”) on excel spreadsheets but (thank you baby Jesus/Moses/Vishnu!!) I do have access to an in-house team of analysts who can slice and dice just about any sort of gibberish data points I send them. “Hey….guys…can you put a projection together for how much crawfish I need to order for the annual crawfish boil?” (Really; in Louisiana this is damn serious business.)
Apart from, perhaps, the urinal jokes…..I’m your HR lady. And your HR lady is also also fed up with spreadsheets and paper files and crap processes and archaic systems that are keepin’ her down.
She also doesn’t have a huge budget to spend on buying fancy new systems and widgets. And that’s OK. neither do I.
I do, however, have the ability to learn from those sexy fancy name-brand companies and I intend to do just that, in a few short weeks, at HR Tech Fest. Naturally, in true HR fashion, I also get to suck up some HRCI and SHRM recertification credits. #score
Credits aside though, I am stoked. Tincup doing a Jumpstart session. Neil Morrison with an opening keynote called “Experiment, Innovate & Excite as an HR Leader.” Jonathan Kestenbaum talking “Top Trends in Talent Acquisition Technology.” My friend Katee Van Horn talking about Culture. Boorman doing his “Data for Good;Data for Evil” talk and freaking us all out. Ambrosia Vertesi talking #HROS: Open-Source Comes to HR” (yeah yeah – I’m an #HROS volunteer so I’m super jacked up for this one).
People….this will be great!!
It’s my first journey to this conference and I actually think it’s the inaugural US event.. though I may be wrong. I dunno. Nevertheless, based on the line-up I envision less of a circle-jerk of mutually-congratulatory accolades than those that surface at other events and more in-depth learning on the future of work and how HR technology will impact that future. Less fraternity culture…more inclusion; I’ll be sipping on my wapatui in the corner observing and waiting for a pledge pin.
Well…if not a pledge pin then at least an end to the spreadsheet madness.
note: if you register now you can receive 2 hotel nights as part of your registration! Join us!
Hi Robin – Enjoyed the read, and I do hope that HRTECH provides “in-depth learning” instead of the usual self-aggrandizing board of experts. As an HR technologist, I’d love to know what you mean by, “impact the future” of HR. It feels like you’ve got a few more thoughts and I’d love to know specifically what comes to mind. Do you want to focus on things like employee engagement instead of being stuck in the “spreadsheets and paper files” all day?
Give up my spreadsheets and paper files? Are you mad?!? 😉