HR Tomorrow 2007 Conference Schedule

7:30 – 8:30 A.M.
Registration & Continental Breakfast
Carlson School of Management (Atrium)

8:30 – 9:45 A.M.
Welcome
Morning Keynote Speaker
3M Auditorium

The General Mills Employment Brand: Current and Future
Scott Weisberg, Vice President of Compensation, Benefits and Staffing, General Mills
In this session Mr. Weisberg will articulate how General Mills systematically built their employment proposition over the past 10 years and how they view their future challenges. Through this case-study, conference attendees will be able to reflect upon the elements of a compelling employment brand and how to build one for their respective organizations.

9:50 – 10:50 A.M.
Morning Session 1: Breakouts (choose one)

Managing the Talent Pipeline: Best Practices in Succession Management and High Potential Talent Identification
Robert Barnett, Ph.D., Executive Vice President; MDA Leadership Consulting
HR executives consistently rank succession management and leadership development as two of their top five priorities. Why? Now, more than ever, organizations must get leadership right. Organizations are larger and increasingly more global, but leaner in their management structures. Leadership effectiveness has become an increasingly critical source of competitive advantage. Using case studies and new data from the Corporate Leadership Council, Dr. Barnett will discuss the reasons that most succession planning efforts fail to produce the results intended and, more importantly, how HR leaders can be more effective in managing the talent pipeline with an effective succession system that includes high potential talent identification and development.

The Impact of Immigration on Future Talent Acquisition
Rebecca Bernhard, Associate, and Edward Hayward, Partner, Oppenheimer, Wolff and Donnelly LLP
The presenters will provide an overview of current business immigration issues, including a discussion of the current successes and obstacles facing employers using temporary foreign labor and those seeking permanent resident status for their foreign employees. Ms. Bernhard and Mr. Hayward will also discuss immigration reform, including the status of various legislative proposals and their impact on recruitment and talent development.

Executive Incentive and Compensation Trends and Developments
Richard Ericson, Principal; Towers Perrin
Option expensing and other developments are spurring a restructuring of executive pay in the U.S. This session will provide an overview of current market trends in executive pay and leading-edge approaches to executive incentive design, including market pay trends, regulatory developments, long-term incentive mix, and incentive design trends, and financial methods used to design and test incentive plans. Mr. Ericson will provide an update on executive pay trends and developments, examine ways in which executive incentives can be used much more effectively, and examine a wide range of techniques and data sources used to create high quality incentive plans.

Mentoring the Future: Why Mentoring should be in your Talent Development Toolkit
Susan MacHolda, , Senior Director of Work Life and Diversity; Carlson, and Leslie Rapp, Program Vice President, MENTTIUM Corporation
This session will address the business case for mentoring as presented by Ms. MacHolda, a practitioner at Carlson, and Ms. Rapp, a Mentoring Consultant of MENTTIUM Corporation. The two will share real life examples and best practices about how mentoring works as a strategic initiative to support talent development and to advance business strategy. The session will allow for questions and interaction from the attendees

Leaders in Our Time: The Case for Purposeful Renewal
Laurie Schmidt, Consultant;The Collabrium and Nancy Hanna, Senior Vice President, Human Resources; Ceridian Corporation
The Gallup organization reports that 55% of the American workforce is disengaged, and another 19% is “actively disengaged.” Never before has it been so important for leaders to be able to mobilize, inspire and engage the people in their organizations. Yet, the rapid pace of change is also taking a toll on leaders, especially those in the boomer generation. The tools of goal-setting, time management, and work/life balance seem obsolete in this 24/7 world, where demands on today’s leaders are exceeding capacity. Drawing from the practice areas of emotional intelligence, sports psychology, and adult development, this session will describe a leadership development process that creates and sustains optimal performance in leaders. Participants will explore tools and practices that allow leaders to manage their energy to sustain high performance, manage their moods to build resilience and hope, and manage their attention to remain focused and on purpose.

10:50 – 11:10 A.M.
Break
Carlson Atrium

11:10 – 12:10 P.M.
Morning Session 2: Breakouts (choose one)

Training Isn’t Everything: What does it take to develop employees?
Valerie Howard, Manager, Manufacturing Learning Center; Thomson
Design, development and delivery of a training class is time consuming and can be frustrating when it doesn’t seem successful. This session describes ways to make training more effective with a long term view of employee development. One class won’t fix it all; with additional interventions employees can develop skills and abilities. Come and here what has worked at Thomson in the Manufacturing Learning Center as they work to develop their employees and leaders. Participants will develop a long range view of employee development, understand what it takes to help employees develop in the subjects that are hard to learn, and learn about other interventions that can make employee development more successful.

Catch the Next Wave in Compensation Trends: Variable Pay
Tom Lynch, Vice President, Compensation and HR Operations; Ceridian Corporation and Tom Sopcyzk, Senior Compenstaion Consultant; Ceridian Corporation
Given the flat surf in traditional compensation approaches, where are the good waves breaking today? Good news – the surf is up when it comes to the interest in variable cash incentive plans! The number of companies that have adopted broad-based variable incentive programs has grown by about 50% from 1991 to 2005. As employers look to compete in today’s global marketplace, variable pay plans represent the newest, biggest wave in employee compensation. This trend greatly expands the scope and complexity of the compensation professional’s role. However, with a thoughtful plan design process, top management support, cross-functional teams, realistic targets, and attention to ongoing details (including communications), there is every reason for employers and employees to realize the long-term benefits of variable pay plans. Mr. Lynch will provide participants with an overview of all aspects of the variable pay approach, covering techniques for assessment, implementation and communications.

Climate Assessments: Vital Importance in Employee Retention
Sheri Stolp, Director of Human Resources; Thomson West
Throughout the decades, employers large and small, public and private, union and non-union, have been trying to uncover what exactly runs through the minds of their employee base. It has been systematically proven that a productive, satisfied workforce will foster happy customers, resulting in strong financials and solid shareholder returns. The initial attempt to gain employee insights was through the survey method, but over the years, surveyed became more monotonous than useful. Enter the evolution of the climate or cultural assessment, aimed at fostering a deeper understanding of the employee base. Climate assessments prove valuable, as the tool targets a specific segment of the population (plant, department, region, etc.), depicting concern areas as well as “positive” pressure points to aim for. Through the use of probing techniques, the tool in general, provides the leadership team various insights into what makes employees tick.

Talent Management – Where Do I Begin?
Larry Voeller, Senior Director Talent Management; St. Jude Medical
St. Jude Medical is a highly successful and decentralized medical device company with over 11,000 employees. While some HR programs are at the enterprise level, many HR programs and processes, including leadership development, are unique to each division. As SJM has grown, so has a developing sentiment among senior leaders that leadership talent should be viewed as a corporate asset and that leadership deployment, development and planning should have an enterprise approach. How do you begin? Where do you focus? What attitude do you convey? How do you find the right line between the unique needs of the divisions and the advantage to be gained by an enterprise approach? The presentation will describe one approach to building a talent management infrastructure, and will include the rationale for design decisions and the lessons learned.

12:10 – 1:15 P.M.
Lunch - Sponsored by GE Commercial Finance
Carlson Atrium

1:15 – 2:15 P.M.
Afternoon Session 1: Breakouts (choose one)

Building the Foundation for Success Tomorrow – Today!
Jean Kriesel, Senior HR Manager; Select Comfort Corporation
Select Force Future is a vision for the Select Comfort retail workforce (Select Force) that will transform the Select Comfort organization to enable quantum growth. The Select Force Future encompasses new roles and responsibilities for the Select Force, new selection and hiring tools, defined career paths for sales professionals and store managers, new compensation structure, and learning and development programs. Ms. Kriesel will describe the changes that Select Comfort’s store managers are experiencing by realigning their focus on motivating, training, developing and retaining their sales force.

Building Your Bench: Ensuring Leadership Strength for Tomorrow
Holly Nordquist, Senior Vice President, Consulting Services; Right Management, Inc.
The presentation will build the business case for leadership development as a priority in 2007, as well as offer solutions to address this “leadership crisis.” A review of the issues affecting organizations today will include the aging workforce, lack of bench strength in most organizations today, recognition of dynamic trends in the workforce, and the risks to business continuity for not investing in leadership bench strength. Participants will gain a fuller understanding of the business reasons for investing in leadership development, learn about available solutions for implementing new or enhancing existing programs as well as develop techniques for enrolling senior leadership support.

How to Build a Strategic Talent Sourcing Plan
Kristina Parker, HR Director, Selection; Best Buy Co., Inc.
The presenter will outline how to build a strategy around hard to fill positions within an organization through knowing the key strategies, assessing the talent that is needed and moving toward action on sourcing the talent. In addition, Ms. Parker will talk about how to use an HRO relationship to build talent pipelines and take the tactical work off the recruitment team’s plate to focus on the best talent. She will share key principles of building a strategic talent sourcing plan: know it, assess it, and move it.

Using Compensation to Win Your Talent War: Tools to Attract, Develop, Motivate and Retain Quality Employees
Mark Sullivan, Consultant; The Stanton Group
This seminar will provide an overview of key compensation tools and their effective use with regard to attraction, development, motivation and retention. Mr. Sullivan will lead an in-depth discussion of highly effective tools, such as deferred compensation plans, and how they are most effectively used. He will also provide guidance on driving successful compensation programs to become an employer of choice in the marketplace. Participants will gain a basic understanding of compensation tools and their effective uses, further comprehension of highly effective tools and their uses, and methods than an HR professional can use to drive successful compensation programs.

2:15 – 2:30 P.M.
Break
Carlson Atrium

2:30 – 3:30 P.M.
Afternoon Keynote Speaker
3M Auditorium

The Leadership Imperative: A Candid and Personal Discussion
Kaye Foster-Cheek, Vice President of Human Resources, Johnson & Johnson
Ms. Foster-Cheek will engage the audience in a candid and personal discussion on leadership development. She will highlight the transformation journey of the global human resources organization that she leads and how this transformation will enable HR to become more efficient and effective in driving the company’s leadership and growth agenda.

3:30 – 5:00 P.M.
Reception - Sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, Inc.
Carlson Atrium

 

Please note: Session speakers and topics are subject to change.