Maine Human Resources Convention

This pre-convention time is reserved for the SHRM State Council in Maine for planning and training purposes. It is open to SHRM State Council members and board members of SHRM's eight affiliate chapters in Maine.

Welcome! Convention registration remains open throughout the day. You may also visit the Owl & Turtle Bookstore and the Internet Cafe hosted by MyJobWave.com. A special thank you today to: Convention sponsor – MEMIC. Keynote sponsor – Smith, Elliott, Smith & Garmey. Reception sponsor – Broadreach Public Relations and Patient Advocates. Convention bag sponsor - Geiger. Travel mug sponsor - Bernstein Shur. Lanyard sponsor - The Holden Agency. Golf tournament sponsor - Standard Insurance Company. Coffee sponsor - Keurig.

Strategic Talent Management and Performance. "So you think your staff walks on water?” That’s the question posed by Nicole Morin-Scribner, SPHR, MBA, and Cindy Cronkhite, SPHR, from St. Mary’s Health System. They will demonstrate how HR can drive strategic talent management with simple tools that measure overall performance – department by department. Step away from traditional evaluation ratings and connect the dots between individual performance and the ability to meet department goals. Learn how to engage managers in this process, identify talent flight risks, and create a retention action plan. Begin your organization’s “Workforce Development and Planning Journey” and enable your management team to have the right people and the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right jobs, at the right time!

Enjoy lunch in Marcel's Restaurant with a view out to the islands. The Silent Auction opens at this time – take a look at all the possibilities. Proceeds to benefit Maine’s SHRM State Council and the SHRM Foundation.

How to make an effective speech and live to tell about it! Angus King is known as one of Maine’s great communicators. From his early days as host of MPBN’s “Maine Watch,” through two terms as Maine’s 72nd Governor, and now on the faculty of Bowdoin College, Angus has shown how to craft and deliver a message. On the Maine HR Convention stage, he has shared leadership lessons refined from the adventures of General Joshua Chamberlain, Explorer Ernest Shackleton, and Eugene Kranz from the mission control room of Apollo XIII. This year he will offer practical advice on public speaking based on his own experiences and those of Harriett Tubman, Teddy Roosevelt, and other figures from history.

With special thanks to Keynote Sponsor: Smith, Elliott, Smith & Garmey.

Track A: Employee Management and Development. Susan deGrandpre from Collaboration Consulting calls on her years of experience interviewing Maine businesses in search of “mentoring gems.” Sharing knowledge is power! Her presentation teaches, through give and take exchanges, how to transform the human instinct to be helpful into competitive advantage. HR is uniquely situated to install a culture of mutual learning that lifts productivity, develops technical and leadership skills, improves employee satisfaction, facilitates succession planning, and keeps knowledge capital in the organization. Participants will learn what a workplace mentoring system is and how to put one in place, hear success stories from Maine businesses, create a basic workplace mentoring structure for their organizations, and partner with each other to give and receive “mentoring.” Create a norm where people will exchange expertise and knowledge – be a mentor, seek a mentor.

Track B: Legal Compliance and Risk Management. Saying the wrong thing at the wrong time might put you on the proverbial slippery slope. Moderator Matt Tarasevich and the Bernstein Shur Players demonstrate a series of workplace scenarios that could create legal jeopardy. They cleverly engage you in risk avoidance – meaning learn how to say the right things, in the right place, at the right time. Scene 1 offers for your consideration a social media dilemma involving Facebook and a new employee. Scene 2 demonstrates some good and bad tactics for handling an employee with an attendance problem. Scene 3 shows you a performance review gone wild. Scene 4 acts out an in-house promotional opportunity that forces you to choose among equals. The Bernstein Shur Players include: Lori Londis Dwyer, Steve Gerlach, Glenn Israel, Linda McGill, Kai McGintee, Ron Schneider, and Pat Peard.

Track C: Strategic Role for HR. Succession planning creates pathways to succeed in positions not only at the top but throughout an organization. Seema Rafay, MBA, from Spectrum Performance Management in Orlando, Florida, engages the audience in this thought-provoking  seminar rich in research, anecdotes, and practical examples. She would have you design the HR role in succession planning much like a GPS device – creating a roadmap – providing resources, opportunities, and rewards for successfully getting individuals to the right place. Learn how to create benchmarking of positions for an effective succession plan. Learn how to best select L&D methods that prepare the next generation of leaders in your organization. Learn how to increase retention through job-matching for critical leadership positions. And learn how to get the entire C-suite to buy into this process.

Track D: HR Skill Building. Participants in convention focus groups asked us to create this program! Catharine MacLaren, LCSW, CEAP, SAP Qualified (Affiliated Healthcare Systems) and attorney Doug Currier (Verrill & Dana) and they have willingly taken on this task. Recognizing that the HR umbrella is huge - in the best of circumstances it is a challenge to know where to find HR solutions and create HR priorities. The problem is only magnified when you don’t have a department of colleagues with whom to confer. This workshop discusses the primary management and legal challenges of the one-person HR department, reviews some of the invaluable “go to” resources that can efficiently and effectively support someone in this role, helps you create a strategy for prioritizing multiple issues advantageously, and offers advice on common HR mistakes and how to avoid them.

Track E: Compensation and Benefits. If HR ruled the world, employee healthcare would most certainly look different than it does today. This session illustrates that if the patient is continually the focus, care, costs and access can be better aligned for maximum benefit. James Ward (President of Patient Advocates, LLC), Richard Borts (CFO of PowerPay), and Dr. John Erban (Director of Clinical Programs, Gillette Center for Breast Cancer) offer quantitative data, metrics, and first-hand accounts demonstrating that the best health care is the least expensive. They illustrate the cycle of care an employee and/or family member goes through when a serious illness strikes. Case studies illustrate the realities of today’s system and how a focused advocate and attention to case management can improve quality of care and ultimately reduce costs. This is a forum to discuss innovative health care choices provided by companies large and small.

Hope Springs Eternal in HR. This is a potpourri of Hope Mihalap's trademark stories about growing up in the South in a Greek ethnic family, marrying a Russian, and realizing that the most aggravating things that happen can be the funniest in retrospect. Her poignant personal memoirs are also based from her experience as private secretary to the famed Sir Rudolf Bing, temperamental head of the Metropolitan Opera. Hope holds two of the most respected speaking awards in the world: the Mark Twain Award for Humor, received also by such artists as Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Phyllis Diller and Erma Bombeck, and the Speaker Hall of Fame Award from the National Speakers Association – the Oscar of the speaking profession.

With special thanks to keynote sponsor Smith, Elliott, Smith & Garmey.

Please enjoy treats from the hors d’oeuvres table, connect with acquaintances, and make new friends. With special thanks to reception hosts: Broadreach Public Relations and Patient Advocates. You may also visit the Silent Auction tables during this time.

Most of the SHRM chapters in Maine will host Dutch-Treat dinners at restaurants in Rockland, Rockport, and Camden. Details will follow once you have registered for the convention.