Breakout Session Descriptions

The Journey of a Lifetime – 12 Lessons in Leadership

Ann Marr
Former Executive Vice President, Global Human Resources, World Wide Technology

Throughout my career, I’ve had the great fortune of working alongside so many amazing leaders at World Wide Technology. In addition, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with many more wonderful leaders outside of my organization to achieve various common goals. Each and every one of these leaders had the ability to motivate and inspire. They were visionaries and architects. They were creative, strategic, and engaging. They exuded leadership in every dimension. Join me in this session where I will review my 12 lessons learned in leadership.

Preserving Culture, Quality, and Reputation During Periods of High Growth

Chris Hoffmann
CEO, Deutschmann Lane Holdings

Hoffmann Brothers has sustained a compounded annual growth rate of over 30% over a 7-year period, while remaining focused on ensuring culture, quality, and reputation remain strong. Their people-centric culture emphasizes the importance of hiring, retaining, and developing leadership talent, particularly among front-line leaders. Join us for a deeper look at how Hoffmann Brothers has scaled leadership alongside their rapidly growing organization.

Improvisational Leadership: How to Pivot and Thrive in Any Situation

Steve Hughes
Principal, Hit Your Stride; Author; Award-winning Speaker

As you go about your day-to-day activities, there’s no script for how each moment plays out.
You need to improvise every step of the way. But what if you were able to lead people so that every action you took made them feel listened to and valued? What if you could bounce back and flourish no matter what came your way? You can. All it takes is a simple shift in mindset and changing two words in your vocabulary. In this hands-on session, you will learn how to harness the untapped EQ you already possess and channel it towards new and exciting ends. Borrowing insights from positive psychology, improv performers, and the science of happiness, you’ll walk away empowered and inspired to elevate your leadership and generate tangible results. Here’s your chance to invigorate (or create) a culture that everyone wants to be a part of, and no one wants to leave.

Attendees will discover how to:

1. Think better on your feet.
2. Elevate the way people see you.
3. Make decisions with more conviction.
4. Create a more positive and inclusive environment.

Adding Simple Communications to a Leader’s Toolbox: The Why

Scott Parres
Senior Training Consultant, AAIM

According to a recent Gallup study:

• In 2023, only 33% of employees were engaged at work
• Not engaged or actively disengaged employees created about $1.9 trillion in lost productivity
• The percentage of actively disengaged workers has declined to 16% in 2023

A major theme of that declining workforce engagement is related to a lack of clarity of employee expectations. As a result, employees still feel more detached from their organizations and are less likely to connect to the company’s mission and purpose or to feel someone cares about them as a person.

What constitutes meaningful conversations between managers and employees? Gallup found that those conversations include recognition and discussion about collaboration, goals, priorities, and employee strengths.

The purpose of our Adding Simple Communications to a Leader’s Toolbox: The Why breakout is to discuss three leadership communication survival skills that will provide immediate value and improved engagement for both your Leaders and their Teams. We will cover these three topics:

• Consider how to set Expectations with your Employees
• Discuss keys for Communicating Remotely
• Address all Communication Styles in Team Meeting Settings

2024 Retention Strategy Checklist

Tanya Zion
Business Advisor & Executive Coach, Business Manager, Engagement Services, AAIM

Are you worried about employee retention and engagement in 2024? In addition to the mobility of today’s workers, workplace trends like quiet quitting and “bare minimum Mondays” make it increasingly challenging to operate a high-performance workplace. Together we will explore solutions to help you retain more engaged workers and review some of the latest trend data. You will leave with a solid checklist you can implement in your workplace.

Plotting Success: Strategic Team Mapping for Leaders

Chuck Simikian, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Senior Consultant, Alliance HR Partners; Author; Podcaster; Senior HR Consultant, AAIM

This breakout session focuses on a key managerial exercise: plotting employees’ performance based on their skills and attitudes. It emphasizes that while some team members may have high skills but lower attitude, others might exhibit the opposite. It is important to have a strategy for each employee.

Join us in this engaging breakout session where we delve into the art of plotting your team’s performance. Aimed at managers and HR professionals, this interactive workshop focuses on the strategic mapping of each team member’s skills and attitudes. The “Plotting Success” break-out session offers a unique blend of interactive learning and actionable insights.

Key Takeaways:

• Hands-On Plotting Exercise: Dive into an interactive activity where you’ll learn to plot your team’s skills and attitudes on a specially designed chart. This exercise illuminates the balance of strengths and weaknesses within your team.
• Guided Support and Collaboration: Benefit from on-the-spot guidance as you engage in the plotting process, with opportunities to address specific questions and scenarios relevant to your team.
• Strategies for Diverse Employee Types: Learn how to manage different kinds of employees, from high-skill/low-attitude to high-attitude/low-skill, and strategies for those who might be lagging in both areas.
• An Effective, User-Friendly Tool: Leave the session with a simple yet powerful tool that you can immediately implement in your organization. This tool will not only help you plot current team dynamics but also guide future decisions and strategies.
• Enhanced HR and Leadership Synergy: For HR professionals, this session provides a framework to support leaders in their team management efforts, fostering a collaborative approach to workforce development.

This breakout session is more than just a learning experience; it’s a practical workshop where you’ll acquire an easy-to-use tool that promises to revolutionize the way you view and manage your team. Whether you’re looking to refine your leadership skills or enhance HR support, this session is designed to deliver immediate and lasting impact.

7 Key Compensation Issues Impacting Employers in 2024

Michael Maciekowich
National Director, Astron Solutions; Senior Compensation Consultant, AAIM

In general terms, 2024 will be a year of rebalancing. Post-pandemic, we saw a great deal of disruption to internal salary structures, which made it harder for employers to attract, engage and retain great staff. In 2024, there will be a greater effort to balance budgets and restore compensation philosophies.

Michael will provide a best practice review of the following key compensation issues for 2024:

1. Salary growth will cool down
2. Higher starting salaries are leading to pay compression
3. Variable pay is above projections
4. Employees are concerned about external factors
5. Labor negotiations are becoming more common
6. Market matching is the biggest driver of increases
7. Pay transparency is becoming more common

Understanding the Genius of Your Team

Heath Luehmann
Leadership Coach; Senior Training Consultant, AAIM

Knowing the strengths and personalities of a team is most helpful when it helps you get things done. The Working Genius is 20% personality and 80% productivity and gives insight into how teams can be productive and energized while working together instead of feeling drained. After understanding the basics of this simple model, teams improve dialogue and directives in meetings, make quick and concrete adjustments to roles and responsibilities to better tap into one another’s strengths, and get more done in less time.

Leadershift: How to Adapt in an Ever-Changing World!

Shana Allen
CEO, SM Coaching

Leadershift is about revealing the shifts Leaders should make over the course of their career to keep innovating, improving, and influencing others to the highest levels of success in today’s unprecedented business climate. Change is so rapid today that leaders must do more than stay the course to be successful. If they aren’t nimble and ready to adapt, they won’t survive. The key is to learn how to LEADERSHIFT.

This session helps leaders gain the ability and willingness to make leadership changes that will positively enhance their organizational and personal growth. I’ll share some of the leadershifts that are required to stay ahead, see more than others, and see before others.
Each shift requires a change in the way you think, act, and ultimately lead so you can be successful in a world that never remains the same.

Unlocking Love for Monday Morning: Developing Leaders to Create Cultures of Engagement and Fulfillment

Tracey Wik
Business Advisor & Executive Coach, Tracey Wik & Associates; Senior Training Consultant, AAIM

Loving Mondays comes down to being engaged and fulfilled in the work we do. This session explores the importance of leadership in shaping organizational culture, emphasizing how leaders play a pivotal role in building collaborative and empowering workplaces. Yet, many organizations fail to train leaders to align employee and organizational goals, assuming they understand what their employees want. Learn effective strategies for implementing actionable steps towards cultivating a culture that propels sustained success where everyone looks forward to coming to work.