SHRM Conference Touts Teamwork, Leadership

The SHRM Conference 2015 in Las Vegas championed HR as key movers of business transformation through building and leading winning teams.

    The need for teamwork was a top theme at this year’s Society for Human Resource Management convention that took place in Las Vegas, and who better to deliver the teamwork message than the “winningest” men’s college basketball coach, Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski?

    Krzyzewski, head coach of the Duke University Blue Devils basketball program, led the team to its fifth NCAA championship this year. He is 12-time National Coach of the Year and widely recognized as the most successful coach in NCAA Division I history.

    In the conference’s opening speech, “Victory Through Teamwork and Leadership,” Krzyzewski told HR professionals to create a winning atmosphere­; one where everyone feels valued and inspired to make contributions.

    “Make sure everybody feels important — everybody,” he said.

    More than 15,000 people attended SHRM’s  annual conference and exposition, held at the end of June. Sessions explored everything from employment law, to global issues, personal & leadership development, talent acquisition & retention, total rewards, and business acumen & strategy.

    Best-selling author and consultant Marcus Buckingham also stressed teamwork and leadership in his keynote talk. “So goes the team leader, so goes the organization,” said Buckingham, founder of The Marcus Buckingham Company.

    A radical move is occurring in today’s workplace, according to Buckingham. This includes major paradigm shifts, such as refocusing from the organizational level to team leaders; moving from a dependence on big data to an effective use of smart data, and changing the mission of team leaders from providing feedback to coaching.

    Buckingham’s newest book, “Stand Out 2.0: Assess Your Strengths, Find Your Edge, Win at Work,” was the top-selling hit at the conference bookstore. It gives readers resources to identify their top strengths and includes access to an online assessment tool.

    SHRM conference attendees also heard keynote speeches from Mika Brzezinski, co-host of the MSNBC TV program “Morning Joe,” and Emmy Award-winning TV host and best-selling author Dr. Mehmet Oz, a heart surgeon and co-founder of the Complementary Care Center at New York’s Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.

    A session on “What CEOs Think About 2015’s Top Workforce Issues” gave HR professionals insights into how to become better team players. The session, based on a Harris Poll survey, was presented by Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder. The survey noted that opinions expressed by HR post-recession, carry greater weight with senior management than ever before.

    According to the survey, the top things that CEOs said they expected from HR leaders were:

• Fostering a culture of excellence -- 65 percent.
• Acquiring talent in a timely manner, regardless of role or skill set need -- 64 percent.
• Keeping the CEO informed of important human capital issues within the company and strategies to address them -- 61 percent.

    The CEOs surveyed said HR professionals can develop broader influence within the organization by:

• Providing actionable human capital data and other research to help devise strategies to meet larger business goals -- 57 percent.
• Showing ways to increase efficiencies or cutting costs by better using the organization’s human capital -- 57 percent.
• Knowing what the company does, but also knowing how everything works -- 52 percent.
• Proactively working with other leaders to help solve business problems -- 51 percent.
• Asking to be involved in more business decisions -- 34 percent.
• Obtaining an MBA -- 15 percent.

    Eight percent of the CEOs surveyed said: “I do not believe that HR leaders can have broader influence within the organization.”

    Next year’s SHRM conference will be held from June 19 to 22, 2016 in Washington, D.C.

“Make sure everybody feels important — everybody,”

— Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski

“So goes the team leader, so goes the organization." 

— Marcus Buckingham

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