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Are You Ready For #SHRM19?

I’m excited and ready for at #SHRM19! Are you?

I can’t believe that #SHRM19 is less than a month away! It’s my third year attending, and my second year as a member of the #SHRMBloggers team.  The first two conferences I attended were held in places I have never been before (New Orleans and Chicago). This year, I’m returning to a familiar and much loved location: Las Vegas!  I’ve been there on several occasions—accompanying my daughter to compete in the Tae Kwon Do National Championship; visiting friends; attending weddings; and stopping by on the way to San Diego Comic-Con International (Yes! I’m going back there, next month, too!)

I’m excited to meet up with both my #HR and non-HR friends. Las Vegas is home to many Filipinos. I’ll visit with extended families and friends who I’ve known since first grade back in the Philippines. I can’t wait to reconnect with fellow #HRPros I met at #DisruptHR events, #SHRM17, #SHRM18, #SHRMDiv, and/or #WorkHuman. I’m equally excited to meet others for the first time IRL. Since we’ll be in Las Vegas, who knows what kind of #HRShenanigans we’ll embark on. Lionel Richie is entertaining at the conference this year! We’ll be Running with The Nightand Dancing on the Ceiling. All Night Long!

SHRM Annual Conference and Expo has become more than just a professional growth destination for me. I know this is the case for many of my fellow bloggers and attendees. It has become a reunion for us, to catch up and have fun after hours long of learning.

I am thankful for the way #SocialMedia has helped me connect with many HR professionals around the globe. It’s enabled closer connections, and opportunities to network outside my immediate surroundings. Many HR professionals in my area have not embraced the power of social media, and seem unaware of the importance of networking. It’s ironic, considering the HR powerhouses we have in Nebraska: Jason Lauritsen, Cy Wakeman, Joe Gerstandt, and Maren Hogan, to name a few.

I hope to see you at the SHRM Annual Conference! If you follow me or have participated in #NextChat and we haven’t met IRL, give me a tweeter shout out or DM me for a meetup! I may just be at the #SHRMCertification booth chilling or giving out information.

By the way, if you’re looking into signing up or renewing your #SHRMMembership, use  to get a $20 discount. I don’t know how many Starbucks coffee you can buy with that. You can also consider donating to SHRM Foundation to help other HR professionals with their professional development.

 

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A New Year Means Reflection, Renewals, and New Goals

I’ve been called an influencer and a thought leader, these past few months. This still sounds surreal to me because I don’t really consider myself to be either. When I looked back on 2011, when I created my Twitter account, I realized how much things have changed. I considered Twitter boring, and my Facebook community was limited to close friends and family members! It wasn’t until 2017 that I took a more goal-oriented approach to Twitter. I focused on intentionally connecting with HR Pros who are willing to share their insights on #NextChat, #JobHuntChat, #HRHour, #HRSocialHour, #DisruptHR. I started following blogs that were inspiring, thought provoking which finally got me started in blogging. In 2018 I began to see the potential for applying social media to my personal life and started adding fellow HR pros on Facebook. Twitter and other social media platforms are now part of my daily routine. A way to connect and engage with a broader world, especially fellow HR pros who continue to inspire me, inform me, and provide me a deeper understanding of evolving trends and attitudes that affect our common calling.

2018 Reflection:

It’s been a while since my last blog post, which means that I’ve already failed to achieve one goal in 2018 – publishing at least one blog per month. That said, the goals that I did manage to reach were beyond my expectations, so I can honestly and proudly say that 2018 was a great year!

Professionally speaking, being chosen as one of the #SHRMBloggers was about the best 2018 birthday gift I could have asked for. And while I wasn’t able to maintain a pace of at least one blog per month, I did publish fourteen blogs entries in total. Thanks to being a #SHRM18 blogger and #SHRMDiv18 blogger, I also became a blog contributor for Workology and a guest spot for #DriveThruHR and #HRSocialHour podcasts. I enjoyed every minute spent at SHRM18, meeting the HR bloggers who I’ve admired online and I enjoyed many post-conference adventures with them – Talk about “Expanding Our World”. The experience helped shape and merge my personal and professional brand in a constructive and holistic way. What you see online is who I am in person, and I’m grateful that so many of the individuals I followed online turned out to be genuine, unpretentious, no-BS people after my own heart!

I had the opportunity to speak at two DisruptHR events, Sioux Falls, ND, and Brookings, ND. It was awesome to connect with so many HR professionals and entrepreneurs who found that my topics resonated with them. (HR is not for Lazy People and Is it the Skills Gap, the Pay Gap, or both?). In April, I launched the #DisruptHR event in Omaha. Some considered the venture overly risky—the kind of event that wouldn’t be well-received due to the conservative nature of the local HR community. It was a sold-out event! It turned out that there were many HR pros who were hungry for disruption!

The SHRM Diversity and Inclusion Conference was an eye-opener for me! The sessions I attended were phenomenal! The speakers were passionate about diversity and inclusion, and though I consider myself knowledgeable on these subjects, I still learned many valuable lessons. Attendees shared a litany of experiences that illustrated how far we have to go as people and as employers. I highly recommend it as one of the best conference to attend!

2018/2019 Renewals:

Before the year ended, I renewed my SHRM-SCP Certification and my SHRM Membership. I consider this a necessary personal/professional investment. Though I don’t always align with SHRM’s marketing and leadership (who does?) the organization has done a lot for my career growth. The ability to update and monitor the accumulation of CE credits towards my recertification has served to make the process considerably easier than it once was. I look upon my HR Certification as an individual necessity, not a social statement. If I let it lapse, it will be me who has to shoulder the consequences, not the community.

I also renewed my license to hold DisruptHR events in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska.

2019 Goals:

My 2019 goals are coming along nicely! I’m attending #WorkHuman2019 in March. I’m always excited to visit new places and am looking forward to learning, meeting new people, and spending time with online connections in real life.

Planning for DisruptHR events in Omaha and Lincoln is well underway. I can’t wait to host events in both of these awesome locations!

I am also looking forward to attending #SHRM19 to spend time with old and new connections in real life, and hopefully I get to attend #SHRMDiv2019.

I hope to work on my blogsite and have time to blog more often. I won’t commit to one blog per month, because I don’t consider this practical.

I guess you can say that my 2019 goals aren’t any different from 2018, except perhaps I want to be able to contribute more in the HRTech landscape and the future of work. I’m thankful for UltimateSoftware for including me in their white paper on my thoughts about AI in 2018 and I look forward to sharing my knowledge and hands-on experience in various HR Tech.

I hope that whatever your goals are for 2019 that you will include getting more involved in networking, engaging, and providing positive impact to the HR community, the world of work, and your local community. I am fortunate that many in my #HRTribe helped me in achieving my goals, if I can help you in anyway in achieving your goals, lets connect!