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Afternoon Breakout Session Descriptions

Afternoon Breakout Sessions

Strategic Alignment

Robyn Berkley, Ph.D., SPHR

Professor of Business, Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville

Strategic planning is essential to good business and is an important skill set of successful leaders. Alignment of strategic plans with organizational activities requires trust, clear communication, and transparency from organizational leaders. This session will provide leaders with a toolkit to assess and implement organizational strategic initiatives.

At the end of the training, participants will be able to:

  • List the reasons why strategic planning is important to organizations
  • Implement strategic objectives consistently and in alignment with corporate strategy
  • Assist direct reports in goal setting and personal development plans

S.H.A.P.E. Others for Success

Rhonda Travers

Founder & President, Travers Training & Consulting

Employee retention within an organization is impacted by the rapport and relationship between managers and employees. Rhonda Travers, Founder & President of Travers Training & Consulting, will identify five key characteristics of a leader to increase employee engagement, create a collaborative environment, and S.H.A.P.E. your entire team for success.

Whether you are a newly promoted or experienced manager, you will:

  • Identify 5 key characteristics of a leader to increase employee engagement
  • Understand communication styles
  • Discover methods to create collaborative conversations based on communication styles

Using Reliability Statistics to Predict Employee Tenure and Attrition

Kevin Keller

Principal, Keller Statistical Consulting; Author

Average employee lifetime and its surrounding metrics can often pose challenges for HR personnel. How can one measure the average lifetime of employees while they are still working? As organizations create change to increase retention (hopefully increasing average lifetime), measuring effectiveness could take years. Or can it be measured faster?

Maintenance organizations use a branch of statistics called “reliability statistics”. How long before parts fail, given a certain time in service? What is the mean time between failures? What is the mean time to repair/replace?

Employee time in service data is a perfect application for reliability statistics. Knowledge of the distribution of employee data allows for better planning and budgeting associated with attrition. In addition, effectiveness of changes can be measured faster and reliably. Different populations of employees can be compared statistically to see if their employee lifetimes are statistically different (locations, job classifications, etc.).

Session Learning Objectives:

  • Measure Average Lifetime of the Employee Population While Employees Still Work There
  • Techniques to Evaluate if Differences Exist Between Job Classifications
  • Predicting How Many People Will Leave in the Next Period
  • How to test if new programs are effective in extending average lifetime

Filling Their Backpacks: Expanding Your Leaders’ Skillset

Scott Parres

Senior Training & Development Consultant, AAIM Employers Association

How can you create a competitive edge for your organization in an unprecedented market? Today, it’s critical to invest in your frontline leaders so they are equipped to help your Team Members achieve purpose, receive clear, timely communication, and assist with development. These prepared leaders will also become a key retention strategy as they regularly share the tangible benefits of your company’s culture.

The purpose of the Filling Their Backpack breakout is to discuss three leadership survival skills that will provide immediate value to both your Leaders and their Teams. These leadership development 2023 best practices will apply to both attracting and retaining your talent.

Using Emotional Intelligence to Amplify Your Leadership Impact

Andrea Nelson, SHRM-SCP, CDTLF

Principal, AND Consulting Group

Why do we call them Soft Skills, when they can feel hard? In this session we will explore the people side of leadership. We will introduce Emotional Intelligence and how it makes our roles as leaders easier. Participants will leave the session with some practical tools to practice these ‘soft skills’ so that they become core skills.

In this session participants will:

  • Understand the concept of Emotional Intelligence and how it applies to Leadership
  • Explore how their own Emotional Intelligence influences their leadership strategies
  • Learn strategies to integrate Emotional Intelligence into their leadership (make soft skills easier)