Conferences

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WI SHRM 2023 
State Conference

October 11-13, 2023
Kalahari Resort, Wisconsin Dells, WI


 

 
 

 

 

2023 State Preconference Speakers


Gregg Potter  |  Jessica Jones  |  Harriet Redman & Lynn Gall  | 
Bob Gregg, Jennifer Mirus, Brian Goodman & Storm Larson



Wednesday, October 11, 2023 – Gregg Potter
1:00 – 4:30 p.m. 
"Deconstructing Collaboration"

Polarization and people not being able to collaborate is one of today's largest obstacles to creating the real productive spaces. However, we see successful collaborations every day in our lives. How can we go to the grocery store, plan birthday parties, or host a holiday dinner successfully including all the diverse people we do this with and not have the same ease when doing what our conscious minds consider collaboration? By taking lessons from how we successfully collaborate every day, we can be more impactful in our intentional collaborations. Collaboration has three repeated skills that help us as we work together. These are transformational leadership, conflict resolution, and facilitation skills. When we develop these skills, specifically for formal collaborations, then trust, space making, empowerment, team agency, and good communication are present… AND, with all of those working together, we are creating a better place for all of us to live and thrive.

Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do and how we function as humans. This laboratory experience will create space to have conversations and practice slowing down our formal collaborative processes while illuminating opportunities to lead and design more impactful and effective collaborations. The opportunities that we commonly miss due to resources, urgency, and other outliers do not have to be overlooked. We will practice using our muscles so that intentional collaborations happen as smoothly as unintentional collaborations. Additionally, we will examine how our transformational leadership, facilitation, and conflict resolution skills create space that fosters trust, agency, support, and miraculous change beyond the expectations we set. Collaboration is how we create the best work environments possible. This lab will be the perfect place to play in the fun and creativity of it all.
 
Learning Objective 1: To become more friendly with collaboration as we are in our daily lives. We will do this by first examining a common way we all collaborate successfully every day. Using that example, we will attach it to The Life Cycle of Collaboration and provide us with a framework to continue through the rest of the workshop.
 
Learning Objective 2: To slow down how we design and lead intentional collaborations in the workplace while highlighting ways build systems that allow focus on the collaboration. Doing this will identify moments we often speed through. We will practice slowing down in these moments, work out the muscles needed to adjust in real time, and to create a foundation for collaboration to flourish.
 
Learning Objective 3: To apply transformational leadership, facilitation, and conflict resolution skills at important moments in the Life Cycle of Collaboration. These skills allow us to hold space for all actors through the entire collaboration process. If the entire team feels supported and have a framework that everyone follows, intentional collaborations will be more impactful and effective.

Gregg is an international collaboration coach and the Founder and CEO of Project Kinect; a marketing and logistics firm in Madison, WI, USA. He also serves as the Regional Field Director of Southern Africa for Peacework International. Additionally, he supports as a Lead Facilitator and Marketing Specialist for Step Up: Equity Matters in the Workplace. Gregg spends most of his time supporting leaders and companies to create stronger collaborations. Gregg believes that we must deconstruct how we collaborate. This means getting down to the foundation of space creation, humanity, and trust. When we've done that work, we then can work on our transformational leadership, facilitation, and conflict resolution skills to lead and design highly impactful and effective collaborations.



Wednesday, October 11, 2023 – Jessica Jones
1:00 – 4:30 p.m. 
"HR: An Advocate for Employee Mental Health"


Attitudes about employee mental health have dramatically shifted. The fact that more organizations are acknowledging the important connection between workplace conditions and well-being is an encouraging shift. But are HR professionals equipped to support the growing mental health needs of their employees. However, most of us lack the skills and mental health literacy needed to properly address these complex issues. By increasing your awareness of mental health in the workplace you can become an advocate for your employees and help evolve your workplace to create an environment that values employee mental health ... including your own.

Learning Objective 1: Become a Mental Health Advocate in the Workplace: As an employee advocate, increasing mental health literacy in the workplace is a key objective for your people and your organization. The current mental health landscape is improving with reduced stigma, but also at times feels overwhelming and confusing. What is the difference between EAP interventions and ongoing mental health therapy? As an HR Pro and Organizational Leader is this information important to know? And then how do we help our employees and their families to maintain productivity and retention goals? During this presentation and discussion we will answer these questions and more. We will convey the ROI and people metrics achieved when investments in mental health are made.
 
Learning Objective 2: Provide meaningful resources and tools to your employees: Promoting effective mental health awareness requires building trust amongst your employees. To instill a culture of mental health awareness, you must successfully bring the subject to the forefront of your employees’ minds. This can be done in a variety of ways. Exampling engagement options, tools, and resources. The ‘way it was always done’ is not good enough anymore. Our goal is to help our partners evolve their organizational habits and practice while staying true to the mission of your brand. Culture is by design or by default. We will help create intention and measurable results with tactics and efforts that you can start implementing immediately.
 
Learning Objective 3: Self Care for the HR Professional: Just as you would fix your own oxygen mask before helping someone else, the best way to support the well-being of others is by first taking care of yourself. We will give you personal tips and tricks for supporting your own mental health as an HR professional. What are your healthy habits? What is your Northstar? How can you enact change and push the organization forward from the HR seat? As part of the third component of this conversation we will answer these questions that are developed from our recent discussions with HR Pros and why it matters to you, your role, and your company.

Jess helps lead Business Development and Partner Relations. She focuses on building relationships that benefit clients, employer partners, and the Northstar EAP Team. Prior to Northstar Jess spent 15 years working at Northern Michigan University, 10 years in the NMU Foundation specifically as Director of Donor Relations and serving as a Development Office for Athletics, College of Arts and Sciences and acting as a liaison to campus leadership and the NMU Foundation team.

 


Wednesday, October 11, 2023 – Harriet Redman & Lynn Gall
1:00 – 4:30 p.m. 
"No Cost Strategies to Attract and Retain Working Caregivers"

Harriet Redman
Are you struggling to hire or retain workers? Are employees dealing with balancing caregiving responsibilities and work? Do you know how many of your employees have family caregiving responsibilities in addition to traditional child rearing? Did you know that in Wisconsin, more than three quarters of caregivers in the workforce said they missed work due to caregiving responsibilities? More and more evidence indicates that employers who are aware of the needs of employees providing care for family members (parents, grandparents, siblings, adult child with disabilities,
spouse, etc) can reduce hidden costs (turnover costs, loss of institutional knowledge, loss of productivity) and increase productivity, employee retention, and Lynn Gallimprove recruitment efforts. This presentation will share information from Wisconsin employers and employed caregivers that will provide resources and suggest low- or no-cost strategies to support working caregivers and help retain employees as well as attract productive employees.
 
Learning Objective 1: Increase awareness of the needs expressed by Wisconsin employees trying to balance work and caregiving responsibilities.
 
Learning Objective 2: Increase knowledge about how employers and employees can access local, accessible, often free resources from state and county caregiver programs, including how to host a free UW-Madison study of your own workforce to determine the extent of caregivers needs among employees.
 
Learning Objective 3: Learn about how several Wisconsin employers are seeing results in attracting and retaining productive employees through strategies supporting caregivers in their workforce.

Harriet Redman, founder of the nonprofit WisconSibs, Inc and Lynn Gall, Family Caregiver Support Programs Manager for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, co-chair a state-wide alliance to engage employers and working caregivers as partners in finding solutions to workforce shortages. Both presenters have personal experience being family caregivers while balancing the demands of job responsibilities. Along with UW-Madison researchers and partner organizations of the Wisconsin Family and Caregiver Support Alliance, the group studies Wisconsin trends and seeks to find methods to simultaneously support employers and family caregivers for a healthy and productive workforce. 

 

Wednesday, October 11, 2023 – Robert Gregg, Jennifer Mirus, Brian Goodman, Storm Larson
1:00 – 4:30 p.m. 
"The Annual Legal Update from Boardman Clark"


Unusual Cases with Important HR Lessons by Attorney Robert E. Gregg
    • Some employment situations may seem outside the norm, even strange, but in HR you will eventually have something similar.   Learn about a few of this year’s cases and the useful lessons they can provide for avoiding problems and liability or coping with difficult situations.
Legal Update by Attorneys Jennifer S. Mirus and Storm B. Larson
    • Attendees will learn about recent, important developments in the world of HR law. The session will cover key takeaways from these new cases and how to incorporate those takeaways in a practical manner in the workplace. Among other topics, attendees will learn:
    • New developments in pregnant worker protections and wage and hour implications for employees with the need to express breast milk;
    • How religious accommodation requests should be treated in light of new case law developments; and
    • The legal future and enforceability of non-compete agreements.
 Legal Requirements Regarding Employees with Mental Health Conditions by Attorney Brian P. Goodman
    • This session is designed to help HR professionals navigate the uniquely challenging issues involving FMLA, ADA, and state laws when employees with mental health conditions face challenges at work.  The session will also feature hypothetical situations for HR professionals to work through, making the session more practical and interactive for attendees.
    • Attendees will learn to:
      • Assess reasonable accommodations for employees with mental health disabilities, including leaves of absence;
      • Administer state and federal FMLA leave for these employees, including its intersection with disability laws; and
      • Address performance, attendance, and conduct issues involving employees with mental health conditions.

Bob E. Gregg, Co-Chair of the Labor and Employment Law Practice Group at the Boardman Clark Law Firm in Madison, Wisconsin, represents employers in a wide variety of litigation, including discrimination claims, wage and hour suits, FMLA, ADA, equal pay, employment contract and compensation cases.  He has designed employment handbooks and effective workplace policies and procedures for numerous private and public employers.  Bob’s career has included canoe guide, carpenter, laborer, Army Sergeant, professional beer taster, social worker, educator, business owner, Equal Employment Opportunity officer, and employment relations attorney.  Bob has conducted over 3,000 supervisory training programs for managers and supervisors throughout the United States.  He is a member of the National Speakers Association, SHRM, the American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity, and served on the Board of Directors of the Department of Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute Foundation.  Bob is an honors graduate of West Virginia University Law School. Bob has been a Wisconsin SHRM member for 42 years and served on chapter boards and numerous state SHRM committees.  He presents programs for SHRM chapters throughout the state.
 
Jennifer S. Mirus is the Co-Chairperson of the Labor & Employment team at Boardman & Clark in Madison.  Jennifer was recently elected Chairperson of the Firm’s Executive Committee—the first female elected to that role in the Firm’s history.  Jennifer has been practicing employment law for over 28 years and represents employers in all aspects of employment relations, including hiring, discipline and terminations, wage and hour issues, discrimination, ADA, FMLA, and harassment.  Jennifer also has extensive experience drafting and reviewing employee handbooks, employment contracts, restrictive covenants, and conducts workplace investigations and human resources and management trainings for clients of all sizes.  Jennifer was recognized in the 2023 Best Lawyers in America voting for management side employment law.
 

Brian P. Goodman is an attorney and a member of the labor and employment and school law practice groups of Boardman Clark. He assists employers with a wide range of legal issues including, hiring, discipline, terminations, leave issues under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), accommodation issues under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), COVID-19 related issues, and many other day-to-day matters.   Mr. Goodman is a frequent writer and presenter on employment law matters. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School, magna cum laude, and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Mr. Goodman currently serves as President of the Wisconsin School Attorneys Association. Prior to attending law school, Mr. Goodman was a music teacher and received his Master’s degree in educational administration.


Storm B. Larson is an associate with Boardman Clark, Madison. Before joining Boardman Clark, he practiced at another prominent Madison defense-side law firm. During law school, he was an articles editor on the Wisconsin Law Review and a judicial intern to the Honorable William M. Conley at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin and to the Honorable Ann Walsh Bradley at the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Atty. Larson practices primarily in labor and employment law, civil litigation, and municipal law. He is licensed to practice in all Wisconsin state courts, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

 





 

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Conference Location:

Kalahari Resort
1300 Kalahari Drive
Wisconsin Dells, WI