A Great Half Day Learning About Aligning Career, Corporate Culture and Communications Styles

Jill high resolution
On November 21, I attended the half day “Master Series” offered by TSHRM – the Triangle Society for Human Resource Management. The session was titled ““S.H.A.Z.A.A.M…..Your Career, Your Culture and Your Corporation, Aligning Personal Career Pathing, Employee Engagement & Leadership Communications” – yes, a long title. The speaker was Jill A. Kopanis, who in addition to being an inspirational speaker is a proven successful HR leader for a graphics and digital solutions firm in Ohio.

Jill covered three major themes, a whole lot of territory, in a very well organized and dynamic fashion:

THEME 1 – the importance of first effectively driving your own personal career development. She used the acronym of “SHAZAAM!”

S – Setting your own goals, priorities and dreams Shazaam
H – Hold backs not allowed
A – Attitude will determine your altitude – how high and far you will go
Z – One check, are you staying in your comfort zone? Why?
A – Adjust your sails, your direction, if need be to reach new heights
A – Apply yourself and begin to soar
M – Make it happen!!

THEME 2 – As Human Resource Professionals, once we are in control of our own careers, we can lead the work to greatly impact employee engagement within the companies we work. Instead of demanding a seat at the table as HR leaders , we must earn that seat at the senior leadership table by providing extraordinary value add. Jill used the acronym “Race Toward Engagement”
• Recognize the value, the importance of engagement
• Acknowledge each individual employee
• Champion a culture of engagement
• Engage the entire workforce
I myself have frequently blogged about how personnel is often the largest investment and competitive differentiator within a company (see blog on this discussion), and I offer my unique Total Engagement Career Mapping services to energize employees through engaging them in career development based on successful examples from within their company.

THEME 3 – Effectively Using Communication Styles. Jill ended the session by reviewing four very different communication styles that people have. The critical learning from this session is that if we understand our own communication style, and then the various styles of others, we can then make the necessary adjustments to more effectively lead, build bridges and establish a culture of trust.

*****

TO CONTACT JILL: As a speaker, Jill combined both an engaging and entertaining style with well organized, meaningful, practical content. To explore her as a speaker, contact Jill, SHAZAAM Communications, at [email protected]. Note – Jill will be a speaker on Employee Engagement at the 2014 SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) National Conference on Wednesday, June 25, 2014. Link to her session info.