Heather Clara Young’s Post

As you prepare for our 31st Annual Conference for Administrative Excellence, it’s important to remember that your presence represents more than just yourself—it reflects your company’s commitment to growth and excellence. When companies send their administrative professionals to our event, they’re investing in not only your personal development but also the future of their brand. This isn’t just about attending sessions; it’s about fully engaging, learning, and bringing back valuable insights that will impact your entire organization. In my latest blog, I explore 'The Power of Presence' and why being mentally and physically present at conferences like ours is crucial. By eliminating distractions, actively listening, and making meaningful connections, you can elevate both your career and the reputation of the company you represent. This conference is a unique opportunity to grow professionally and to bring that growth back to your workplace in a way that benefits everyone. Read more: https://bit.ly/3MW3uRX

Conference season coming up - how do you win the battle of securing budget to attend? In our latest session of PerchPeek Pods, Paul Bennett had the pleasure of sitting down with Becky Woods, SHRM-SCP,GPHR , Senior Director of Global Mobility at ADP. Becky shared some great tips and tricks to navigate budget approvals and optimize conference attendance. Becky outlined these important insights: - Plan conferences at least three years in advance to optimize attendance and budgeting, ensuring that important events are covered consistently. - By combining conference attendance with other business trips, your team can reduce costs and maximize the value of each trip. - After conferences, presenting a summary of key takeaways and potential program improvements is a great way to demonstrate the value of attendance. Tune in to PerchPeek Pods #26 with Becky Woods, where we dive into “Driving Efficiencies in Large-Scale In-House Mobility Programs”. Link in the comments! #relocation #globalmobility  #conferenceseason  #budgetapproval

My Facebook memories showed me that it's been four years since I started hosting webinars. ❗ Back in March 2020, I had just started working at CPHR Alberta (again) when the pandemic happened. HR professionals were suddenly in the spotlight, being asked to do all kinds of things that no one had ever done before. There were no policies, no precedents, and the employment law landscape was changing daily. I was never a fan of virtual offerings, but suddenly there was no other option. We knew that our members needed support, so we created a lunchtime webinar series. We launched in late March, offering two free webinars a week at lunchtime for the months of April and May. That first week we had over 1000 people attend the two webinars. I hosted and my team did tech support (thank you Nicole Bourgeois, RPR and Bailey Beauchamp). None of us were Zoom experts, but neither was anyone else. I would log on and watch the participant numbers climb. The Q and A box would start to fill with questions before we even started. I would say, “Welcome everyone. My name is Janice and I’m here in Calgary. Wherever you’re located, I hope you’re safe.” We had people from across Canada attending every time. We sent out a request for guest speakers and the community stepped up. It was incredible to see the support. Most memorable was the day our lawyer guest speaker said that he couldn’t answer a legal question because the legislation was so new. I never saw a lawyer be speechless ( 😄 just kidding). The pandemic created a positive change in the way CPHR Alberta offered services to its members. Virtual may not be as fun as in-person, but it’s way more accessible. I learned that there’s value in doing whatever you can to support other people. Even though these webinars didn’t feel like much, they provided a sense of community and stability in a time when we all needed that. 🌻 #growth #connection #memories

I used to organize a 3,000-person convention for Microsoft. Ahead of next week’s HR Transform conference in Las Vegas, here is my advice on how to prepare for a big work conference: 1. Know why you're going: If you want to meet people in your industry, just focus on that. If you want to find a specific type of software, spend all your time on that until it’s done. If you just show up, you’ll come back home afterward realizing you didn’t get much out of it. 2. Comfortable shoes! These events are deceivingly huge; you will walk miles and don’t want to log them in heels or loafers if you can avoid it. 3. Manage your energy. Shows like this can be incredibly draining. If you get energy from meeting people all day and partying into the night, great. If you need time to go back to your room and recharge, prioritize that. 4. Get outside. Even if it's at the hotel pool or walking a couple of blocks from the hotel. It’s not healthy to be stuck inside all day in a convention hall. In Las Vegas especially, the casino is set up to nudge you to avoid leaving. 5. Be open to serendipity: Having a plan is great, but so is following your instincts. At my first HR Transform I wandered into a vendor's dinner still wearing some pool gear because I'd lost track of time. I'm glad I did, because I met some people who remain close friends today. A couple of Vegas-specific tips, since so many conferences are there : *Stay in another hotel on the Strip because 1) it'll be cheaper; 2) it'll get you out of the hotel; and 3) it gives you an excuse to get outside and walk. *The “preferential rates” offered by casinos are rarely much better than the rate you’ll get on Expedia for the same room if you book at the right time. Plus, it's nice to have a change of scenery. *My downtime recommendation: Go see the Cirque show Love by The Beatles. It’s one of their best and makes me cry every time and I've seen it at least 5 times. I’ll be there next week at HR Transform run by Samara Jaffe - if you’re going, say hi! #hrtransform

2hr Left: This Is Your FINAL Call for the Super Early Bird! Can you believe it? Only 2hr left until our Super Early Bird offer for the Speaker Summit is gone. This is it – your last call, your final reminder. I know life gets busy, and maybe you’ve been meaning to grab your ticket but just haven’t clicked that button yet. So, here’s a friendly nudge because I’d hate for you to miss out on this incredible opportunity over a forgotten click. Here’s a quick reminder of what’s included: - A Day Full of Learning and Inspiration: Imagine soaking up wisdom from Maria Franzoni, Rikki Arundel, Lovelda Vincenzi, Elliot Kay, Lucy McCarraher, and Simone Vincenzi. These are the kind of insights that can truly revolutionize your speaking business. - Networking with the Best: Picture yourself mingling with agents, bureaus, speakers and industry leaders who are just as passionate and driven as you are. It’s these connections that often lead to the most unexpected and rewarding opportunities. - An Unbeatable Price: Remember, when the clock strikes midnight, the price jumps from £147 to £497. That’s £350 that could be invested back into your business, simply by acting now. https://lnkd.in/e5YWnpFF This isn’t just about attending another industry event; it’s about taking a significant step towards the future you envision for your speaking business. And with only 2hrs left, now’s the time to make that leap. Join us and let’s turn your speaking ambitions into achievements.

I've tweaked my website home page - added a quote from an attendee at the March '24 Wellbeing at Work World Summit in the US. The graphic is from their '23 NYC Summit. I think this is an improvement on the old one with the Banksy graphic (much as I love that image) https://conferencebard.ca #emcee #conferencespeaker #spokenword #poetrynotpowerpoint

According to my LinkedIn feed, many colleagues and contacts speak regularly at conferences where people hang on their every word in glamorous surroundings. Not me. I spoke at one conference last year. I was reminded of it by the failed Willy Wonka Chocolate Experience in the news this week. I empathised with the Oompa-Loompa. Enough time has passed that I can now talk about just how badly it went. Here goes... I'm invited to be a panellist at an HR conference on reward (technically, it is about evolving compensation models in financial services). I say yes because I am flattered, it is near my office, you never know who might be in the audience, and there is a free lunch. My two fellow panellists and I meet with the organiser on a Zoom call two days before, to plan. It pays to plan. Usually there are 50-100 delegates at these events. We ask the organiser about attendees and he says there will be 25. Among the panellists there is a bit of Zoom side eye or, because of the way Zoom works, front eye. The day dawns. I get there an hour early to compose myself. A panellist approaches me. He says: "There are some things I need to tell you. "Right now, what you need to know is that a speaker has disappeared, we are up next and there are only ten in the audience." I give him some wide front eye. The session runs OK. 10% of the audience (i.e. one person) doesn't turn up but of the remaining nine people, three ask probing questions: a woman with an encouraging smile, a man with tattooed arms and a serious Scandinavian chap. Afterwards, the fellow panellist tells me: "I've worked out that six of that audience were here because they are panellists this afternoon." OK, at least three people PAID to imbibe my wisdom. Time for the free lunch. I work out that Tattooed Man is in IT sales and is here on a sales ticket to make IT sales and not to learn about increasing regulation in City compensation structures, the crazy fool. The woman with the encouraging smile works for the third panellist and was here on a freebie ticket to support her boss. I chat over lunch with the Scandinavian chap. Let's call him Erik, because his parents did. Erik has flown here from Sweden. He is the sole paying delegate. His mood is best described as Scandi Noir. I'm not staying for later sessions so I say to Erik: "I hope you get good value from this afternoon." I go to say farewell to the conference organiser who has not spoken with me since the first front eye incident two days before. I see him in the conference suite. Erik is berating him. When I hear Erik thunder "...and I want a full refund", I decide to slip out unnoticed. I never get thanked for appearing.

💭 Employers are rethinking big diversity conferences, which have long been considered vital for reaching #DEIGoals. As costs rise and conversions drop, new event strategies are coming to fruition. For example, many employers are opting for in-house events or adopting a more regional focus. Read our latest blog to learn more about the shifting landscape of diversity conferences and the new strategies employers are exploring: https://hubs.li/Q02x8MhJ0 #DiversityRecruitment #UniversityRecruiting #VerisInsights

I’ve been getting a lot of questions from first-time conference goers, so figured I’d share a few of my favorite tips for making the most of your next conference experience — especially as we enter the thick of HR conference season. 1. Know what you’re hoping to achieve. Believer it or not, most people show up to conferences not quite sure what they’re hoping to get out of it. And you can tell. Awkward milling about. Waffling over which panels to attend. Briefly stepping into a conversation with a nervous laugh only to wander away a few minutes later, not sure whether or not they actually got anything from the discussion. Think about whether your goal is to: build a network of people you can lean on long-term, gain a sense of community and validation, learn about innovative practices happening in the industry, or something else entirely. Once you’ve identified your goal, you’ll be much better equipped to make a game plan to optimize your conference time accordingly. 2. Know yourself — and your limits One of the most common mistakes when it comes to first-time conference-goers is to try to do all the things: Attend as many panels as possible, speak to as many people as possible, wake up early for the morning sessions, *and* go to sleep late after attending even the latest happy hour. But truthfully, that’s a surefire way to burn yourself out and ruin the experience. No single panel discussion or happy hour is going to be the thing that makes or breaks the conference for you. It’s okay to sleep in if you need it, and it’s okay to miss that 9 o’clock Happy Hour. 3. Treat conference days like PTO. And no, I don’t mean just sit around poolside doing nothing all day. Though that does sound fun. What I mean is: It’s wildly unreasonable — and just plain unfair to yourself — to expect that you can attend a conference and still do all the usual work you typically commit to on any given work day. Instead, do yourself a favor and set up an auto responder and mark your calendar as unavailable. I promise, those Slack messages can wait. 4. Networking doesn’t have to be awkward Truthfully, I’m going to have to make a separate post to give this topic the full attention it deserves — it’s a juicy one — but I’ll leave you with this helpful reminder: Everyone else literally volunteered to be here. Which means that people *want* to talk. Yes — even to you. So just shimmy on into whatever conversation you like. I promise, you’ll be welcomed into the discussion with open arms. Did I miss any particularly burning questions? Any hot tips I missed? What are your conference-going best practices? #hr #hrtips

Reminder: Events make the world go around. Truth: YOU, Meeting Planner, have a lot of INFLUENCE! Think about it. EVERYTHING is an event. From the day you were born to graduation and beyond-- these are marked in celebration and events. The work we do brings the WORLD together. I'm not talking just about attendees -- I'm talking about vendors, creating WORK, creating JOBS....creating IDEAS, sparking travel, hiring speakers and elevating VOICES. Touching communities and making a global impact. We truly touch just about every sector in our day to day work. So pat yourself on the back today, planner. You are not just a cog in the machine, you CREATE the machine. What will you do with that power today? #events #eventprofs #conferences #meetings #meetingprofs #weddings #womeninevents #globalreach #businessofevents #meetingplanner