Over There: An Englishman at the SHRM Global Conference

As a first-time British visitor, the first thing that struck me about the SHRM convention was its size. With 11,000 delegates, it dwarfs all other HR events worldwide, including the UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, whose much smaller annual conferences I have attended in every one of the past 15 years.

Then there’s the location.

San Diego, on California’s Pacific coast, makes quite a contrast with the genteel Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate – the venue for the CIPD‘s conferences for 14 of those 15 years. I have to say that steaks and beers in San Diego’s gas lamp district make a welcome alternative to weak tea and scones in Betty’s tea room.

And then there’s the California sunshine, which I would take any time (even through the clouds) in preference to the Harrogate or Manchester drizzle that inevitably accompanies the CIPD conference, though admittedly that does always take place in the Autumn (Fall).

Also on the positive side for me was evidence that SHRM is beginning to open up sooner and better than the CIPD to the possibilities of social networking sites and social media – both to enhance an event and to amplify its proceedings to the outside world. I appreciated @shrmsocmedguy and other SHRM tweeps’ participation on Twitter prior to the convention, the official blog squad was a great idea, as was the SHRM / Monster tweetup on the Monday night.

Of course, we social media types are never satisfied and I don’t think the potential of social media was anywhere near fully realised at the convention. For one thing delegates were asked to switch off all mobile devices during the sessions, although I’m glad to say that many ignored this and went ahead and tweeted their quotes, comments, thoughts and reactions anyway. Which was great for me as it enabled me to engage in some of the sessions I couldn’t attend as well as those I could.

I arrived on the red-eye from London via Chicago on Saturday night, which gave me an opportunity to adjust to the time zone and wake up in time to watch England beaten 4-1 by Germany in the World Cup – not a good start to my visit.

To cheer myself up I rode the trolley to Fashion Valley and bought an iPad at the Apple Store – a long planned purchase as Apple stuff is much cheaper in the US than in the UK.

Back in my hotel I had a dilemma: do I unwrap the iPad and fire it up, or do I go to Steve Forbes’ opening keynote? OK, actually not a dilemma. There was no way this baby was staying in its plastic wrap a second longer than was absolutely necessary. After all, once I had downloaded the Twitteriffic app I could follow Mr Forbes’ presentation on my iPad via the #shrm10 hashtag on Twitter. Which is what I did, and judging by the majority view, I didn’t miss much.

I did manage to put the iPad down long enough to go to the exhibition as soon as it opened on Sunday afternoon, though, and here I did notice a similarity with the annual CIPD event. People treat the exhibition in both countries as a great opportunity to load up with free swag from the exhibitor booths. I would have done this myself, but I was limited by my decision to fly with carry-on bags only.

I was very impressed with Al Gore on Monday morning. Whether or not you agree with his politics, it is always good to see a political speaker who appeals to the intelligence of their audience, relying on the power of argument rather than emotion. I liked the way he focused on the challenges facing human resources professionals rather than giving some generic stump speech. And I appreciated the way he moved from sustainability of business models and management practices to his closing riff on environmental sustainability. He deserved his standing ovation and, in my view, was a good choice by the event organisers.

One area where I found more in common with the UK experience than I was expecting was in the focus on legal compliance and the huge interest and attendance at sessions in the legal stream throughout the event. Looked at from a European perspective, the US is often portrayed as a hire-and-fire labour market with limited regulatory framework for employers. It didn’t take long in some of the legal sessions, on issues such as health care reform, to make clear to me just how far from the truth that is. Compliance is clearly just as much of a headache for US HR practitioners as it is for their UK counterparts.

Interestingly, the session that I found most engaging was one that I didn’t actually attend but followed via Twitter. This opened a great debate on employers and social media, about which I wrote two blog posts (here and here) in quick succession after returning to London.

Finally and above all, I met some great people and had loads of interesting conversations. As much as I’m a fan of social media, it is always good actually to go to places and meet people. So I’ll see you next year in Las Vagas.

David Shepherd is @oldshep on Twitter. He blogs sporadically at www.XpertHR.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence and is Group Editor at www.XpertHR.co.uk