GMA SHRM HR Link

By Belinda Weber, GMA SHRM President Elect

If you've read any trade publications or received any newsletters pertaining to human resources lately, you are well aware that recruitment, engagement, and retention are hot topics for HR professionals and the HR discipline at large. With the changing demographics, societal trends, and organizational demands to "do more with less", companies are looking for ways to attract qualified employees and keep them motivated in the work they perform.

As a volunteer organization, we deal with many of the same challenges and opportunities as does any other organization, whether they are private, public or not- for- profit sector. We are continually looking at strategies to recruit, engage, and retain good people to help our chapter succeed and to be able to sustain that success over time. Currently, in order to deliver on our mission, it takes the many dedicated hours of over 80 volunteers. In order to fulfill our goals for the future, and maintain or increase our level of services, we will need to be very purposeful in our approaches and solutions for these issues.

Over the past few months, in our continuing efforts towards improvement, the leadership team has identified a number of initiatives that support our commitment to inclusion, motivation/recognition, and retention for our volunteers. In addition to the wonderful efforts of the Board Liaisons and Committee Chairpersons, we have some chapter-wide plans underway. Many of these initiatives are in their early stages and won't be fully implemented until later this year or early 2006. They are, however, exciting to think about and I wanted to share some of them with you.

The Membership Interaction Committee is actively identifying ways to recruit volunteers, and is refining the processes used to link volunteers with committee activities and opportunities. They are coordinating both formal and informal recognition activities and events to let our volunteers know how important they are to our success and how much we appreciate their contributions.

The Communications and Marketing Committee is working with our chapter administrator to identify an infrastructure that helps us identify volunteers quicker and to provide the information about the volunteer opportunities available more consistently through the use of our website and chapter communications. In the future, HR InTouch will be continuously expanding and improving to meet the membership needs.

The Student Chapter Committee is very active and we are looking for strategies to align more closely with the future HR leaders, and potential future chapter leaders, this group represents. In addition, we are looking at ways to develop and educate our future leaders about the chapter, its goals, operations, and resources in order to support our volunteers.

And these are just a few examples of the work your Board of Directors is leading to support the work of our chapter through its volunteers. You will be hearing more about these efforts as they become realities. In closing, I think our collaboration & inclusion value statement says it best -
"Our members are the heart of our chapter. We value and encourage the active engagement and interaction of all chapter members". I encourage you to share your insights, your thoughts, and your talents to help us make GMA SHRM a great organization to belong to.