SHRM – San Diego June 27-29
HR.com sent minimal representation to this year’s SHRM show following last year’s dismal results. It was great to see registration numbers almost double from the 2009 event and the tradeshow floor well trafficked.
HR.com usually leaves travel and hotel to the last minute and are a huge fan of priceline., however; this year our events team pre-booked accommodation in April with the SHRM Hotel Network. So you can imagine our dismay when we arrived at our hotel around 10 o’clock on Sunday night to find our reservations had been canceled that day and there was no accommodations available in the hotel. We quickly found alternative arrangements and are working with SHRM to get a rebate from the prepaid room we booked in April.
The general consensus from attendees was that they were still concerned about
SHRM’s agenda with several people offering commentary such as:
1. The executive is made up only of white males
2. Concern over the departure of key personnel that were widely respected such as China Gorman
3. The lack of understanding of community, social networks, and new media by their executive
4. Is the political lobbying still critical or in tune with what the membership really requires
On Monday, I was tasked with starting at the far end of the exhibit hall introducing HR.com to all of the vendors while looking for new innovative ideas. To cover 18 of the 36 rows of exhibitors in two days was virtually impossible. In fact I only effectively covered the first four rows but it was enough to get a general sense of the economy, a couple new products, and the general HR landscape.
In talking with relocation firms, they are universally declaring themselves as a leading indicator to a recession coming, they indicated that their business started to pick up November of 2009 and are now back to levels of 2007. Although business has not reached its peak, it is healthy.
In the small space I did cover I found several vendors that were focused on healthcare for seniors. Traditionally sold as EAP benefits, these services offered ease of mind and stress free handling of difficult situations we often find ourselves in when dealing with our parents. Firms such as My healthcare manager help families in managing relationships remotely by improving communication, identifying areas of risk, educating all parties involved in the proper care, handling, and insurance. Other firms such as the
Crisis Care Network handles 50,000 crisis response cases nationwide each year with 5,000 specialists trained in handling things such as work place violence, murders, accidents, hurricanes, and 9/11 attacks.
Bloomberg was doing something interesting with their edge program. It’s the first time I’ve seen a traditional print publication combine subscription with lessons learned and thought-provoking content – import it into a package or courseware to help businesses with key learning objectives.
Job boards are back with a vengeance. They hosted the largest parties, have the largest booths and sent hundreds of staff members to cater to an audience that is traditionally a generalist. But there were a couple new announcements this year in the staffing vertical.
Careerbuilder announced two new products; hireINSIDER which gives consumers more education on why they may have got the job or not got the job. Insight into
the quality of education and experience of others applying for the same position is one example. Careerbuilder also launched a survey product that helps HR professionals track how candidates were processed and handled through the application process.
Monster was focused on their 6thsense search engine, which is currently offered as a premium model. When speaking with analysts we all agreed that the new search was good , but not record setting and frankly just put them in the same league as many of there competitors who already offered that functionality.
Job.com probably had the best giveaways and remain focused on the low-cost job board model. Companies can buy slots and put as many positions in those slots over a one-year period from $399 and up. Job posting slots include resume database access per month. With the unemployment rate still so high many job boards have seen significant increases in traffic which have helped some of the less known job boards as they’ve benefitted from this increased traffic.
Dice launched a talent network more or less a social network for job seekers.
The Ladders launched a FitFinder product that included 40 specialized recruiters finding the top 10 resumes per free (over 100 K) and sending the recruiter prequalified preselected candidates at no cost. A very high touch model and offers an extreme amount of service in today’s self-service model. I also had a great talk with the CEO and founders of
simplyhired who where working on their social media strategy with in-depth integration to both Facebook and Linkedin.
Once again the poor economy has helped aggregators such as Simplyhired and Indeed in getting traffic to their sites as they work through their pay per click model.
Notably absent was Jobbing.com who made such an impressive showing a few years ago, as well as
Jobfox, and some of the larger staffing firms such as
Kelly, and
Manpower.
Now for the 4 most interesting finds in the four rows that I did visit:
1.Service Valet by a firm called N. E. W. Customer Service Cos. Inc. (
www. Newcorp.com). They offer warrantees to employees across many appliances, computers, and consumer electronics for a very small fee. They will arrange replacements or fixes for these products with one phone call. No more standing in line at BestBuy - I love this service which unfortunately is not available in Canada as it seems like all my cameras, computers and appliances break each year and I spend too much time trying to get them fixed.
2. CSI (
www.computerizedscreening.com) and the product health vault.
It is more or less a glorified kiosk that can put anything from half of a 10 x 10 space that includes key measurement instruments such as blood pressure, weight, temperature, etc. From this kiosk you can also print prescriptions, video chat with a doctor and watch health videos. Think of it as a permanent health fair onsite with just in time doctors on call to help employees 24/7 without leaving the office.
3.
OrangeHRM is an opensource HR Management system with many talent management features built right in. Of course they make their money from services and the hosted version.
4. Livestrong Survivor Plan by Transamerica and Consortia offers education, resources and benefits to advance wellness in the workplace and support if a cancer diagnosis occurs.
Other notables:
The laugh of the day was when this guy asked me if we had a corporate lactation policy… (no we do not)
And…
This was the first time in 11 years at HR.com that we did not have a booth at
SHRM. In our 11 years in business SHRM has never called us in regards to sponsoring any of their shows, they have never asked us for advertising and they never send us press releases. Regardless we have sponsored events, attended many shows and occasionally bought advertising. I truly wonder if they treat all their members this way?
