SHRM WASHINGTON STATE COUNCILMINUTES

December 6, 2013

Radisson Hotel, Seattle WA

7:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Welcome: (See roster below) Ruth opened the meeting with an Ice Breaker. Everyone introduced themselves with their name, position on the Council and their chapter and the TV show they are most embarrassed about watching or is their guilty pleasure .

2013 Review and WSC Board Position Transition and Recognition: (Anne Raffetto)

Anne shared that the gifts that she had purchased still hadn’t arrived so she is going to be mailing them to everyone. She does have the certificates and she also bought everyone a scratch ticket. She then announced that the Council accomplished 15 initiatives this year and will be applying for Platinum status on the SHAPE program. Anne shared that Mary Nance had raised more money for the SHRM Foundation than any other year so far. Anne shared that Ruth and Josh were very successful in their membership drives, networking events, and also brought in 25 At Large members to become affiliated with the WA chapters. District Directors were successful with their initiatives. They were able to award the Leadership award to 3 chapters and then assisted with the When Works Work. Penny as our treasurer was very instrumental in helping clean up the books and getting our finances electronic. She has also assisted in getting our 3 year reserve started. Lisa Blevins as the communication director was instrumental in getting our website cleaned up and updated and has been able to get the calendar current. She also researched and found we may be able to get income from our website by having jobs posted on it. Theresa, conference chair,was instrumental in getting our first ever Employment Law Conference off the ground and it was successful given it was the first year we didn’t collaborate and do the conference with Dorsey Whitney. Julie, legislative director has been instrumental in getting our date scheduled for our 2014 Day on the Hill. Abbi is now working with our conference planner in getting our 2014 Employment Law conference and it is going well. Audi, workforce readiness director was very instrumental in getting the Veteran’s initiative together and was able to get all 17 WA chapters involved and in 2013 the initiative won the Pinnacle Award. Roshelle, social media, was instrumental in getting a powerpoint presentation together for all of the chapters on Social Media information and has been doing awesome in getting our information out on our FB page, tweeting things, and just keeping us socially connected. Deb McCormick stepped in the last portion of the year to assist with the College Relations and was successful in getting a networking event together for next year and has set it up for the incoming person to just implement. Nancy Slotnick worked really hard to get a Diversity conference together and did a lot of collaboration with several key players and built some solid relationships even though the conference wasn’t able to happen. Kristina Hyak, HRCI director was successful in providing several tools and resources that she shared with the chapters regarding information about HRCI and recertification. Tika and Carole, Global co-directors have continued to have their monthly Global workshops and they are free to all. They also were successful with their Global boot camp. All of the global workshops are all on the WSC website. Christine, secretary, did excellent with the meeting minutes and was successful in getting all of the meetings posted on the WSC website for everyone to view and which is also a requirement of the SHAPE. Mary then acknowledged Anne for all the work and leadership she did during her tenure as Director and pulling the Council together to work as a team, including getting the Pinnacle award through her leadership and support for the initiative.

Review of and approval of the last minutes: (Christine DeVere)

Ruth asked if there were any further corrections other than what had already been sent to Christine. There were none noted, but Nancy did indicate they were sent to the wrong email address and could they be resent to her. Christine will do that. Nothing further noted. Roshelle motioned to approve the minutes. Anne seconded.

Motion Unanimously passed.

WSC Structure, State Chapter Survey Results and Discussion: (Ruth Alstadt)

Ruth did a power point presentation regarding our WSC structure and affiliation with SHRM. She displayed the picture of the Council in our Green WA t-shirts with the $1,000 check for winning the Pinnacle award. She then explained the MAC which is the Membership Advisory Council and what their role is. She explained the MAC reps are very active in working with the chapters to understand what the member’s issues are and what they want and relay the information back to the Board. The MAC representatives are past State Council Directors and are appointed to these positions. There is one MAC rep per the 5 regions. Scott Washburn was the past MAC representative and currently it is Deb Horn and she is from California.

Ruth then explained the relationship with NHRMA (Northwest Human Resource Management Association) which was here before SHRM and there was an agreement that was signed between SHRM and NHRMA. We are the only region that has NHRMA and they do educational workshops. They also do the student games/conference. For 2014 it is going to work out that the PW Region and NHRMA student games will be held jointly for the first time. NHRMA provides financial chapter support and puts on the annual NHRMA conference. Ruth then explained that we are in the Pacific Northwest Region which has 69 chapters. Dianna Gould is our Regional Director.

Ruth covered the State Council mission whose focus is really centered on supporting and helping our chapters. She discussed the State Council role which is to provide a forum for the chapters, facilitate information from the chapters to the national boards and MAC, represent SHRM, adopting programs to promote progress for activities of SHRM, state, etc.

Ruth then covered the governance. She explained we are an autonomous entity that operates as an affiliate of SHRM. We are a non-profit and every chapter president is a member of the WA State Council. Our state is unique as we are a 100% chapter meaning all of our members are all SHRM members and we are afforded benefits which include additional e-blast communications, we get three nights paid for Leadership conference for the Presidents and Council director. We also get chapter financial support of $25 per member. Ruth noted that we currently have a map which shows all of our 17 chapters and we were one of the first state councils to create such a map. She explained that we are currently looking into getting a larger and sturdier one.

Ruth provided an update:currently there are 4,477 members in SHRM chapters. This is an increase of 10%and 2,943“At Large members.” We currently have 9 student chapters in WA.

As the Council, we have state sponsored events such as the statewide conference, statewide communications, HR Day on the Hill, Global HR, and chapter events.

Ruth noted the following key dates for the calendar:

December 1st- the SHRM CLIF is due

January 31 - all Chapter SHAPE plans are due

January 31, 2014 – Chapter Leadership Award Applications due

State Council Meetingshaven’t been determined for 2014 yet

Student conference/games-April 4-5

Pinnacle Award submission – due in September

NHRMA Distinguished member nomination-Anne noted that our own Mary Nance was the recipient of this award.

Colleen shared that Scott Washburn has been student chapter president, chapter president, state council director, past director, NHRMA board, MAC rep and is now a Board of Director for SHRM. There were announcements regarding the other awards that chapters have received including the last 4 years in which a Washington state chapter has received the Randy Lundberg Northern Lights Award. We have had the South Puget Sound chapter win a Pinnacle award last year, the State Council won this year andthe Lake Washington chapter was nominated this year which was huge. Mary commented we have lots of winning teams on the WSC.

Chapter Survey: Ruth will have Christine email the survey results with the meeting minutes. The first priority was membership and that is going to be a big push in the coming year. HRCI was second. Ruth asked those who participated in the survey what it was about HRCI which put it so high on the list. The discussionincluded getting resources to provide recertification classes for members who are going to be sitting for the exam. Another reason was ensuring getting the recertification credits for meetings, workshops, etc. Washington State has a very high percentage of certified members and it is a very competitive field now. Some of the chapters have worked jointly together to provide preparatory certification classes. Anne shared that Alaska has created a virtual model that we can use as a model here in Washington and there isn’t a need to recreate the wheel. It was noted it would be cool to get HR data regarding certification and how important it is to employers for their HR professionals to have it. Also it was noted there is more compensation awarded if you have a certification.

Third highest in priority was college relations. Ruth asked to hear what the energy around college relations was. Discussion centered around how it is really good to have the student chapters and associate closely with them so that when they graduate and become professionals, they already are familiar with SHRM and they will want to stay connected.

Ruth summarized that membership and college relations go hand in hand and at the Leadership conference they noted the path forward to recruiting members is really through the young professionals, and students. These chapters can also be virtual. Dianna has more information to assist with that avenue. Mary talked about the different member types. The young professional, “at large”, members who are gung ho, members who aren’t super engaged and the emerging talent. The membership really needs to look at the memberships differently and not keep them all in one group. It is important to address a variety of methods to reach out to all of them.

It was noted that chapters don’t receive credit or financial monies for the student members so it is disadvantageous for the chapters, but it is also very important to connect with the students to engage them and keep them connected so they will stay more loyal. The largest group that needs attention focused on them are ones who come to meetings and join for a year but then aren’t engaged or connected and drop off. This is also an area that Josh was working on this year and that Dianna noted is an area to continue focusing on. Dianna and Josh worked on developing a web presentation to address this particular concern in 2013.

Diversity and Workforce Readiness were tied. Not a lot of programs or educational opportunities to use as resources or that can be used to assist our local communities. Ruth brought up a great resource. She shared that Joe Gerstandt is a presenter and has done workshops for SHRM at their annual and leadership conferences. Joe’s outlook on diversity is “Diversity of Thought” and geared toward leadership.

Workforce Readiness is another area where there is a big issue regarding the skills gap which is something that SHRM is focusing on right now as well. Even though we receive lots of resumes, majority of them are not qualified. Working with the skills gap issue, would be a great way to get out and lead the way.

Ruth noted that since Audi has moved to College Relations there is a vacancy for the Work Force Readiness director so if anyone is interested, let her know.

WSC Focus Areas: Global showed as the least important. It was noted that we have such a strong global program and there is so much available to our state that might be the reason it was not as high a concern. It was noted that several chapters don’t have global members especially on the east side but there are still several on the west side who work for companies that are global.

Communication was the most important. It is such a constant topic and it is hard in a voluntary role to keep up/stay up to date, especially with the social media. It can’t be delegated to just one person but it has to be a group effort because it is too much for one person. Some people are social media people and some that aren’t and it is such a broad topic. However, communication is more than social media. It has been split into two positions in many chapters including the WSC. It was noted it should be phrased as “how do we best communicate to our members.” But the question then became which group are we communicating to because they are all diverse and not one method will work for all. Anne discussed looking at developing a communication plan and using the SHRM PR department to help with this area. The SHRM PR department is free to our chapters. Kimberly Goodwin can probably get everyone in touch with the contact from the SHRM end.

Everyone is always looking for professional credits and it would be nice to have recertification credits during the council meetings. It was discussed that we could have an hour presenter on a hot topic and thenprovide the credit, This could also help to re-energize everyone. It was noted it would be nice to recognize a chapter member or something that elevates our talent and those that are a part of our membership. There is a need to be recognized amongst the community and then with our peers as well. It was suggested it would be nice to share the accomplishments of the chapters.

Budget and Treasurer Report: (Penny Roozdant)

Ruth is going to pass around the list of those whose names have been provided as potentials for the 2014 treasurer position since Penny will be stepping down. Ruth explained as well that all of the reimbursements that have been submitted to date have been paid. For today’s reimbursements, she proposed that the checks be paid in January however, if it is a financial burden and someone isn’t able to wait until January please let her know and they will deal with it on a case by case basis. They will be able to get a check cut today if necessary. (Update: Ruth spoke with the nominees for this position and announced at the conclusion of the meeting that Pam Gibbons had been receptive to joining the Council as the Treasurer and accepted the position. She will be at our next meeting).

There are still more expenses that we haven’t received. The expenses from the leadership meeting and this planning meeting today are still costs that we have and we are still collecting sponsorships from the conference. Ruth shared we are actually on target with our budget. The goal for the WSC is to build a reserve which will consist of their yearly expenses times 3 which a best practice for non-profits. For the WSC, this would equate to approximately$350k.

Ian would like to talk about anexact reserve amount and how much of the net reserve we are willing to use and then how much the council is willing to give back to chapters as part of the discussion prior to voting on the 2014 budget. It was noted these were valid topics and everyone was in agreement. Several chapter presidents requested some financial guidelines and resources for their treasurers. Ruth shared there are a ton of resources including the financial tools on the VLCR. The best time for the budget session would be to have as a face to face meeting versus phone meeting, so Ruth will work with Penny and figure out which date will work and then get something out to the WSC to review before that meeting.

Penny was unable to be at this meeting so it was hard to answer the questions without the details behind the budget. Ruth suggested that the questions and any further discussions regarding the budget be postponed until the next face to face meeting when Penny/the new treasurer would be present and able to address the issues. Ruth will have Christine send the budget out with the meeting minutes.

Ruth did explain the WSC does have a proposed budget and it is within $1k of being balanced but without a treasurer present we are not at a point to discuss the proposed budget or make any motions to pass it.