Review of the November 2019 DisruptHR Event.
DisruptHR is an event that occurs throughout the country designed to provoke thought. Their mantra is “an information exchange designed to energize, inform and empower people in the field of HR.” The lineup consist of 14 speakers who speak for five minute with a slide every 15 seconds even though I wasn’t counting!
I attended an event last week in Philadelphia. It was a great opportunity to learn and meet other professionals. While it’s focus is HR, any leader would find it beneficial to attend. Here were my top three takeaways:
- People with disabilities make up 17% of society but that number isn’t represented in the workforce since many aren’t getting opportunities to work. Their performance is the same as able body employees, they take less days off from work and are better at problem solving.
- Effective recruiting is a challenge because of the lack of process and the focus on likeability versus hiring the most qualified person. The speaker had an ah hah moment when she was not connecting with one of the candidates and realized that they were the most qualified. Clearly there was a problem and an opportunity with the hiring methodology. We often bring in more people like us and at times this works but do you have the diversity of thought and the best available talent.
- Recruiting was a theme with another speaker discussing the blinding of candidates to remove bias. There have been several studies and numerous companies have removed personally identifiable information from the resumes leading to a more diverse workforce.
There were a lot of interesting speakers, food for thought and, I learned a tremendous amount. Attend a DisruptHR near you.
