Maine Human Resources Convention

Welcome! Convention registration remains open throughout the day. You may also visit the Owl & Turtle Convention Bookstore and the Internet Cafe hosted by MyJobWave.com. A special thank you today to: Convention sponsor – MEMIC. Keynote sponsor – JobsInME.com. Reception sponsors – Maine State Chamber of Commerce and Concentra Medical Centers. Breakfast and dessert sponsor - Salvatore Bonetti Financial Advisor. CEO Day Sponsor - Lebel & Harriman. HR Awards and Hall of Fame sponsor - Pro Search, Inc. Evening entertainment sponsor - Northeast Delta Dental. Workshop sponsor - Conseco Insurance.

Three choices for those who thrive in the early morning. We'll have coffee and a snack ready to go, and you'll still have a 30-minute break before the keynote.

1) 2010 Maine Legislative Review with with Allie McCormack (Taylor, Frame & McCormack). 

2) HRCI Q & A. Gayle Dahlman from HRCI will be here to answer your questions about the certification and re-certification process for PHR and SPHR.

3) What better way to start your day than with a morning ZUMBA exercise session in the Samoset Health Club, starring our very own HR Zumba Professionals - Cheryl Winslow and Jan DiMauro!

Thank you Wednesday breakfast and dessert sponsor: Salvatore Bonetti Financial Advisors

Employment Branding 2.0. Keynoter Ryan Estis joins us from Minneapolis, Minnesota. His employment branding session at last year’s SHRM national conference in New Orleans was a smashing success. He now wants to tell our Maine audience “Employment Branding 1.0 was a monologue. Employment Branding 2.0 is a conversation.” Learn the eight steps to Employment Brand Architecture and understand the evolution of a communication strategy in a Web 2.0 World. Using global trends and forecasting, Ryan also will demonstrate why the employment brand is central to progressive talent management. Ryan is an expert in employee engagement, HR communications, and employer branding, and you are sure to acquire insights from this session that will lead to actions in your workplace.

With special thanks to keynote sponsor: JobsInME.com

Track A: Employee Management and Development. If HR ruled the world, all workers, of any age, would be welcome at our worksites. Since HR does not quite yet rule the world, how do we address the imbalance in Maine where the workforce is getting older with greater numbers of workers approaching retirement age, yet fewer younger workers are available to replace them? Bill McPeck (Director of Employee Health & Safety for the State of Maine) describes the drivers behind Maine's aging workforce. He offers us the opportunity to discuss the implications of the aging workforce at our organizations as he identifies age-related issues inherent in the jobs at our workplaces. As a take-away, you’ll leave this session with a specific list of strategies you can implement to attract and retain older workers.

Track B: Legal Compliance and Risk Management. If HR Ruled the World... there would be one simple, clear set of rules for managing and tracking leave time, making it easy to determine who is out of work, why they are out of work, and what rules apply. Until that day, join this session with Larry Winger, author of the "Maine Employer's Handbook," as he walks you through the latest developments in federal and Maine FMLA issues as they relate to a host of specialty leave laws in Maine. Understand the latest Guidance from the EEOC. And, hear the presenter's perspective on fundamental fairness and consistency, which should be applied in addition to any requirements of the leave laws. Bring your tough leave questions, and come away with answers.

Track C: A Strategic Role for HR. To gain and maintain a seat at the management table, HR must learn to speak the language of finance and to analyze and package data to make a compelling case for action. You must turn data coal into intelligence gold. Learn to frame the questions that spring from analyzing that data into a business context. Our presenters hail from Mercer: Catherine Veinbachs (HR Effectiveness), Holly Collins (Senior Health & Benefits), Bert Kingsley (Retirement), and David Young (Workforce Communication & Change). They will demonstrate the data already available, how to access it, how to determine the issues to address as a business partner, and how to present the data as information that offers valuable insight into your organization. They’ll provide the tools to help you shift the focus from a purely HR perspective to that of a strategic business partner.

Track D: HR Skill Building. The most important conversation may be the one you are not having. High impact conversations are about people and relationships. Fran Liataud of DialogueWorks and Jennifer Comeau of I-Amplitude, LLC will introduce a 5-step framework for achieving easier, more effective partnerships with co-workers, staff, and upper management. Participants will take part in an exploration process to help uncover the limiting beliefs that prevent fruitful conversations. You will be immersed in practice exercises on the use of ‘right language’ to ensure that conversations achieve the desired outcomes. And, you will leave the session with a series of take-away tools, pocket cards, and the skills to effect workplace conversations that lead to peace and productivity.

Track E: Compensation and Benefits. MaineGeneral Health demonstrated $1.4M in medical savings in 2009. How did they achieve this? Becky Lamey, Senior VP of HR at MaineGeneral, and Denise Dumont-Bernier, Director of MaineGeneral’s Workplace Health, will demonstrate step-by-step their own workplace wellness success story. Key factors to their story include how on-going annual HRAs, biometrics, and health coaching can reduce health risks, improve productivity, and reduce costs to an organization. They also describe how benefit plan design can motivate employees to make better personal health choices for themselves and their families and how a long-term strategic plan to encourage, engage, and influence employee health produces results.

Track F: Bring Your CEO to the Convention! Thank you CEO Day Sponsor: Lebel & Harriman and CEO Program Coordinator Deb Whitworth.

David Pease, Director of Maine's SHRM State Council, will moderate a morning panel of CEO's who will share how their strategic human resources function has helped get their organizations where they are today.  Participating CEO's include: Colleen Hilton (CEO of VNA Home Health & Hospice and Mayor of Westbrook), David Howes (President/CEO of Martin's Point Health Care), and Fred Haer (CEO of FHC, Inc. in Bowdoin). Goals for this session: 1) Enhance participants’ ability to have a positive impact on their organization’s business results. 2) Learn how HR executives have made a difference with three featured organizations. 3) Understand the building blocks that position HR to become a strategic partner. 4) Understand how and why HR strategic objectives must be linked to the organization’s overall strategy and business goals. 

Enjoy lunch in the EXPO hall or Marcel's Restaurant. We'll also have several roundtables for attendees who wish to continue education through the lunch hour. Roundtable with Auta Main on "Innovative Employer Strategies to Promote Learning." Roundtable with Naomi Williams on "Community Outreach Initiatives." Roundtable on "Social Networking Issues" with Will Fessenden (Encompass Marketing). And a CEO roundtable with Deb Whitworth.

Maine's SHRM State Council has established an HR Awards Program, which will include: an "HR Person of the Year," an "HR Project of the Year," and an "HR Hall of Fame."

With the assistance of HR Awards Day sponsor Pro Search, Inc., the Maine HR Convention is pleased to host the first awards ceremony. Come see who among your peers will be inducted into the Maine HR Hall of Fame!

Jazz Improvisation in the HR World. What do a stand-up bass, drums, and a saxophone have in common with the corporate business model? More than you might think at first glance. “Jazz Improvisation in the HR World” will enlighten the audience, through sound and technique, to think of HR strategies in the jazz perspective. Michael Gold, PH.D., creator of Jazz Impact, and his jazz trio offer parallels drawn from both the world of business and the world of jazz. Discover connections that include team building, time management, creativity, listening skills, and working in a diverse environment. Michael spent 20 years as a freelance bassist and teacher of improvisation in New York City and earned his Doctorate in Performance from New York University. Michael has performed with the likes of Lee Konitz, Hank Jones, Warne Marsh, and Al Cohn.

With special thanks to keynote sponsor: JobsInME.com

Please enjoy dessert and time with our vendors, who make much of the convention you see possible.

With special thanks to dessert sponsor: Salvatore Bonetti Financial Advisor

Track A: Employee Management and Development. Change is difficult. Present management practices, even though they may have outlived their efficiency, are at least comfortable and familiar. Despite the apparent advantages of a new way of doing things, we resist change. This session, led by David Stearns (President, Dale Carnegie Training of Maine), will focus on the impact of organizational changes. He’ll help you avoid the most common change management mistakes, understand a model for change, define the type of change currently occurring in your organization, and show you how to manage yourself and others during organizational change. You’ll leave this session with a manual full of management tips identifying the eight most common change management mistakes.

Track B: Legal Compliance and Risk Management. Virtually every workplace has wage and hour violations. ‘How am I not in Compliance’? Eric Uhl, from Fisher & Phillips LLP, will count the ways and show how HR is underutilized in this arena. Eric will place emphasis on issues involving the misclassification of exempt employees, the incorrect paying of tips, and the misapplication of overtime rules. In the process he will demonstrate ways for HR to become the first line of review and defense in pursuing compliance. Participants will leave with ‘Ten Steps’ to quickly analyze whether there are any lurking wage and hour violations in their workplace and learn how to become more engaged in oversight and implementation of these areas of the law.

Track C: A Strategic Role for HR. In this session involving common ground, alignment, and human performance development , Jan Semba (Leadership Strategies) will provide a model for HR practitioners to connect their organizational mandates with the needs and desires of individual employees. There are key differences between strategic objectives and tactical initiatives, and in this session Jan will provide some tools for linking strategies and tactics. This session will ask you to view business metrics as a way to enhance organizational performance. Key components of this session include optimized communication, alignment, and motivation. In a nutshell: See how you (and your organization) can get what you want if you help other people get what they want.

Track D: HR Skill Building. Are you a fan of “CSI” or “Criminal Minds”? Then you understand what it means to profile a criminal suspect. In much happier scenarios, you can use this approach to create profiles of your most successful employees, thereby enabling your organization to hire the best candidates who fit the successful profile. JoAnn Kulish (HR Manager, Kidspeace, Inc.) will show you how to engage your managers and employees in the profiling process. Participants will get an overview of how to develop, implement, and evaluate a behavioral interviewing process, will learn how to create a profile for a critical position in an organization, and learn how to take the profile for a position and create a behavioral interview guide. While JoAnn can’t promise that you’ll rule the world, you may just create a loyal following of profilers at your organization.

Track E: Compensation and Benefits. Lisa Fuller, an elder care advisor with LifeStages, LLC, and Todd Grove, LTCP with LTC Financial Partners, team up to talk about elder care, an issue facing so many of your employees. On the docket for discussion: 1) population trends affecting the Maine workplace; 2) defining long-term care and what health insurance does and does not cover; 3) the cost of services in Maine; 4) demonstrating how employed caregivers are supporting their loved ones and ways HR can help caregivers reduce stress, improve health and morale, and increase productivity; 5) how to educate employees on long-term care planning issues; and 6) describing the resources employers can provide, including voluntary, non-ERISA LTC insurance.

A great networking event with fabulous hors d'oeuvres and musical entertainment. Visit our EXPO participants. Prizes!

Today's reception is hosted by: The Maine State Chamber of Commerce and Concentra Medical Centers.

The Golf Tournament Awards Ceremony also takes place at this time, with thanks to tournament sponsor: Standard Insurance Company.

Our keynote jazz trio performs live tonight in the convention concert hall.

Spinning the discs and getting you to kick up your heels.... our convention's favorite DJ - Greg Powers - is back!

With thanks to entertainment sponsor: Northeast Delta Dental.