The information below is from the completed 2022 event. Check back in the spring for 2023 updates.

Strategic HR at Mt. Washington: October 22-24 in Bretton Woods, NH

 

Monday, October 24, 2022 | THE MUSIC HALL

8:00 am - 4:00 pm
Registration Opens

Check in, get your badge, and get ready for a day of networking & big ideas at The Music Hall.

8:00 am - 8:55 am
Breakfast & Live Music

8:55 am - 9:00 am
Opening Remarks

Program Faculty: Tracie Sponenberg

9:00 am - 10:00 am
Let's Talk, HR

The stage door opens with three “big idea” conversations to spur your HR imagination

Certainty Inspires Action, Laura Gee, Associate Professor of Economics, Tufts University

  • Fight. Flight. Or, most likely, Freeze? When faced with economic uncertainty – many people become extremely risk-averse, to the point of inaction. In her talk, Laura asks broadly, “Can we design our organizations to influence individual behavior?” Or, more tangibly – how can our organizations provide workers and job seekers the certainty they so desperately crave? With our eyes to the current labor shortage, we’ll focus on how newly available data affects job seekers’ search for work.

Your Privilege is Showing, Lillian Medville, Artist, Game Designer, and CEO

  • Whether our organizations readily acknowledge it or not, race, class, gender, sex, and age impact how we move through the world daily. And, it often falls on the shoulders of HR to advocate for marginalized groups in the workplace. However, when the time comes to broach these topics, discussions are often stifled by fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. At a point of frustration, today’s presenter Lillian thought, “I want to be having these conversations. I just don’t know how.” So, she designed a new – and surprising – framework for navigating the uncomfortable, difficult, and sometimes painful, reality of privilege and bias, which she’ll unveil on our stage.

Work Responsibly: Your Environmental Ethic, Courtney Seard, Head of Diversity, Learning and Inclusion – The Americas

  • The best organizations look to the future, a window that extends for generations. Our third Big Idea this morning discusses this horizon in the context of your company’s environmental footprint. How does HR gain the appropriate knowledge of your company’s products, services, and practices to play a role in the development of environmental practices and standards? What is the relationship between a strong environmental ethic and your ability to be a talent magnet? And how does this help do right for the sustainability of the planet AND the sustainability of your organization?

Approved for SHRM credit and HRCI Business Credit

Program Faculty: Courtney Seard, Laura Gee, Lillian Medville

10:00 am - 10:30 am
Break

Grab a cup of coffee, snap a new headshot, enjoy live music, and expand your network.

10:30 am - 11:30 am
"I Left My Job In San Francisco"

Where the Workforce Is Moving and Why

In March of 2022, Forbes reported that 18.9 million Americans (nearly 10% of the US population) plan on moving, in addition to the 4.9 million that have already relocated. We know that the workforce is migrating – but where are they going? We often hear about a mass exodus from city centers – New York and San Francisco, most notably. But on the Northern New England home front, the search for workers in the rural areas and small towns seems just as fruitless. To provide you with insight into the challenges you face, our panelists take a look at the migration patterns of the working population from three angles: economic, cultural, and environmental.

Faculty: Derek Lundsten, LifeGuides; Greg Lindsay, Journalist, Urbanist, Futurist; Richard Bilodeau, Professor at the University of Southern Maine

Approved for SHRM credit and HRCI Business Credit

Program Faculty: Derek Lundsten, Greg Lindsay, Richard Bilodeau

11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Your Privilege is Showing

Doing the DEI Work

In this interactive hour, Lillian Medville will take volunteers through a modified version of her critically acclaimed social justice game. We’ll use real-life scenarios to prompt challenging discussions related to equity and the various types of privilege. Volunteers will engage each other’s perspectives, delve into their own, and utilize personal knowledge and experience to practice how to have these conversations in productive ways. Get ready to get comfortable with the uncomfortable as we build awareness of our own unconscious (and conscious) bias.

Approved for SHRM credit and HRCI General (HR) Credit

Program Faculty: Lillian Medville

12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
Lunch

Enjoy lunch catered by a local eatery, live music, and networking.

1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
PANEL DISCUSSION | Your Work; Your Life

A Strategic Focus on Mental Health, Creating Purpose, and Workplace Cultures that Mesh with Employee Values

Headlines are touting Mental Illness as “The Next Pandemic” to surface in the wake of COVID-19. In 2021 the CDC reported that 41.5% of U.S. adults exhibit symptoms of anxiety or depression – not just from diagnosable mental illness, but also from the mal-adjustment Americans faced during these past two years. With increased isolation, a housing crisis, and a lack of childcare, it’s no surprise that this cultural moment has taken its toll on workers. And, with numbers so staggering, it is critical that employers take a strategic look at the relationship between workers’ well-being and employee performance. Our panel will discuss the dynamics at play and provide tools and resources to support employees through some of the modern worker’s largest stressors as we search for the ever-elusive “work-life balance”.

Faculty: Mim Minichiello, HUB International; Suzi Benoit, LCSW, HR Consultant; Laura Gee, Tufts University.

Approved for SHRM credit and HRCI General (HR) Credit

Program Faculty: Laura Gee, Mim Minichiello, Suzi Benoit

2:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Break

Grab a cup of coffee, snap a new headshot, enjoy live music, and expand your network.

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Closing Keynote: Work Responsibly

HR Meets CSR

Most organizations practice corporate social responsibility in broad terms. Aiming to ‘do good’ for humankind, the earth, and their immediate communities, companies create initiatives connected to charitable giving, volunteer days, community engagement, DE&I, and environmental sustainability and ethics. Often after conception, these programs run through rounds of committee input and atrophy for a variety of reasons. How does your organization determine the relationship between your CSR goals, business goals, and values? What support structure is required and what is HR’s role both in terms of leadership and boots on the ground? In this talk, we’ll hear from an organization that’s got it right – and learn how a well-coordinated CSR strategy bursts into action.

Faculty: Richard Bilodeau, Professor at the University of Southern Maine, Courtney Seard, Head of Diversity, Learning and Inclusion – The Americas

Approved for SHRM credit and HRCI Business Credit

Program Faculty: Courtney Seard, Richard Bilodeau

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Cocktail Reception

Unpack the day with hors d’oeuvres and sparkling conversations.

Sunday, October 23, 2022 | AC HOTEL – PORTSMOUTH Monday, October 24, 2022 | THE MUSIC HALL