2011 Gulf Coast Mobile SHRM Conference - Friday, November 18, 2011

The event is scheduled for Friday, November 18, 2011 at the Mobile Convention Center, located in Mobile, AL from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm (check-in begins at 7:30 am

Conference Registration Fees for Mobile SHRM Members:

• $99.00 through September 1
• $109.00 after September 1

Conference Registration Fees for Non-Mobile SHRM Members:

• $109.00 through September 1
• $119.00 after September 1

Registration fee includes all includes all sessions, admission to the trade show, continental breakfast, and lunch.

Registration Information:
To register and pay by check, please download the attached conference registration form, complete, and submit per instructions. If you'd like to pay with a credit card, please register online (below). Please note that a 6% convenience fee is added for online payments.
For More Information please contact Candice Swiger at conference@mobileshrm.org or Scott Dwelle at conferencecochair@mobileshrm.org.

The Mobile SHRM – 2011 Annual Conference is now on Facebook!  Just search for “Mobile SHRM – Annual Conference” when using Facebook.  Be sure to “like” the page.  This will be a great way to keep up with what’s going on in regards to the 2011 Annual Conference.

Mobile SHRM Newsletter Sponsor

2011 Meeting Sponsorships!

Would you like to have an opportunity to market your company’s products or services to a captive audience of HR professionals?

Sponsor a Mobile Society for Human Resource Management chapter meeting and you’ll have an exclusive opportunity to do just that! For only $400, sponsors may have an exhibit near the check-in table, place literature on each table, and have an opportunity to speak briefly about their companies during the meeting agenda. What could be better than that?

Wanted - HR Internships and Co-op experiences

Students majoring in HR would like to complete internships this summer and fall. Students must work approximately 150 hours for course credit. Fewer hours are possible without course credit. IRS regulations discourage the use of unpaid internships.
Pay ranges from minimum wage to $10 per hour. If your company needs an intern, please contact Dr. Marjorie Icenogle, micenogle@usouthal.edu (251-508-6491)

Mobile SHRM Thanks!

"Thank you for all of the door prizes donated at the Jujy meeting".

Employment Screening Services
Managed Healthcare

We appreciate your support of our chapter and our mission! ** All Door Prize Donors will be recognized in our Monthly Newsletter **
For more info contact Becky Lovgren at becky.lovgren@expresspros.com
(Door prizes are needed for future meetings)

Diversity Organizations

Diverse Workforce Is 'Key to the Future'  By Kathy Gurchiek 

Organizations today are seeing three major trends—a rapidly diversified workforce, an aging workforce and an influx of military veterans—Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Chief Global Membership Officer Janet Parker, SPHR, said during opening remarks at “The Workforce Mosaic.”
SHRM underwrote the National Journal policy summit, held July 12, 2011, at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

“Our 260,000 members face these three issues every day in organizations, whether they’re large or small, across our nation,” Parker said. “We all know that it is important to have the right strategy in place; it’s essential for us to move forward,” she noted, but believes having the right people in place is essential. Organizations that are considered leaders recognize that there is value in having a diverse workforce and that this is “the key to the future,” she said.

Parker referenced SHRM’s 2010 Workplace Diversity Practices Poll, which found that nearly 70 percent of the 402 SHRM members surveyed had diversity practices or were conducting diversity training.
“From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, they have no choice. A diverse workforce is the most effective, innovative and productive workforce,” Parker said.
A diverse workforce comes with challenges, she noted, including managing intergenerational conflict as five generations work side by side; addressing issues caused by older workers remaining in the workplace longer than expected; translating skills of returning military personnel into the workforce; and helping veterans adapt from a hierarchical military structure to the “fluid environment of the civilian workplace.”

During her remarks, Parker referred to SHRM’s micro site, www.weknownext.com, and SHRM’s July 2011 Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) report, which reflects employment trends. LINE’s findings include data showing that in June 2011, landing candidates for key jobs remained an HR challenge.

Changing Face of the Workforce

The summit included an interview with U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and a discussion by a panel whose members included demographer William H. Frey, senior fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution.
Frey shared 2010 census figures that show the aging population, the declining birthrate of white children and the growing Hispanic population will change the face of the U.S. workforce.
“The Ozzie and Harriet family is almost nonexistent,” Frey said. “This means that people in the labor force will have all kinds of family arrangements. These are some of the major changes … that undergird some of the issues” discussed at the summit, he said.
He pointed to what he called “sharp demographic shifts” in the U.S. that include many black workers relocating to the South, creating much of the new labor force in states such as Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Florida.

Additionally, while the number of white workers in the U.S. declines as that population ages and retires, there is a growing shift in the racial makeup of people under age 18. The population of white children is declining, while the population of Hispanic and Asian children is growing, according to Frey. By mid-2020, about one-third of young adults will be Hispanic, he said, citing census projections.
“This is the pipeline that’s going into the workforce,” he said. “This is a huge change, and it requires a lot of emphasis on how we prepare for the workforce.”

The wide-ranging summit discussion also explored why jobs go unfilled despite a 9.2 percent unemployment rate, the need to update the K-12 educational system to better prepare students for the work world, and the importance of job training programs and workplace flexibility.