Conference Topics To Meet Every Need - Part 2

Editor's Editor's Note: Today's post comes to us courtesy of guest contributor Chris Dobyns, as Part 2 of a two post series where he shares his impressions and takeaways - and particularly his top picks for breakout sessions - from the WorldatWork 2019 Total Rewards Conference and Exhibition, recently held in Orlando, Florida. Did you miss Part 1?  

The WorldatWork 2019 Total Rewards Conference and Exhibition wrapped up last week, hosted at the Rosen Shingle Creek facility in Orlando. The conference attracted approximately 2,000 attendees, comprised of speakers, practitioners, academicians, consultants and exhibitors.

The Breakdown On The Breakouts

The breakout sessions that I attended were all uniformly above average, or better. There were a couple of sessions, however, where the workshop title, the actual content – or both - deviated from the title on the official schedule or the original session summary enough that attendees were left wondering if they were actually sitting in the right room.

This “variance” is probably due to either a misinterpretation of the expected content by attendees or, more likely, that “things” (content, speakers, perspectives, etc.) changed in the six months between the conference and when the original workshop proposal was submitted and accepted. These things just can and do happen.  

The Top Three 

Of the approximately 85 individual breakout presentations offered this year, I made a concerted effort to attend one session in every available timeslot. Even so, that only allowed me to assess (and “rate”) about one-tenth of the actual presentations. Given that small sample size, these are my top picks for 2019. 

1.  My 1^st place pick was, The Lens of the Future: Transforming Total Rewards into a First-Class Service, presented by Antonis Christidis from Mercer, Inc. I was initially worried about this presentation, as one co-presenter had been pulled away at the last minute for work-related reasons, leaving Antonis to carry the whole show. Ultimately this session was successful through some artful story-telling, a novel concept and the use of an illustrative and highly-relatable graphic. 

• This workshop reflected Mercer’s speculation on the future use of Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) as the basis for better valuing (and paying) for skills based on the sustained strength and frequency of formal and informal asymmetric relationships that exist in an organization
• This would be in clear contrast to the prevailing practice of paying for jobs relative to a person’s placement in a vertical hierarchy.
• Less clear was how to account for the “quality” of the network relationships and how to factor in any aspect of individual performance. Regardless, I thought this was one of the most novel and well-presented concepts I saw at the conference this year.

2.   Next up was the hugely fun Pay Equity, Privilege, and Unconscious Bias, presented by Bryan Briscoe from Interface, Inc. This session was part of the first-time Power Half Hour presentations, to demonstrate that some conference content lends itself better to a half-hour format.

• Apparently benefiting from a mix of urban legend, “crowdsourcing” and je ne sais quoi, this session drew a huge audience well north of 500 people.
• This was a super presentation that struck just the right balance of respect for the importance and seriousness of the topic, juxtaposed by a series of humorous interludes that provided the perfect balance of comic relief. 

3.   My third pick was Comp Nerds Play with Data: Meaningful (and Fun!) Analysis for the Rewards Professional, presented by the now familiar team of Bryan Briscoe and Paul Reiman from Commvault.  

• This session began with some insights into what differentiates Nerds from Geeks . . . and which category is more “marriageable” (it’s the former) – which purportedly includes Paul and Bryan.
• This presentation was an informative and fun mix of all-too-common statistical and data visualization missteps and how to avoid them.
• The funniest example of the danger of attributing correlation to causation was how increased ice cream sales during the year is directly correlated with an increase in the number of shark attacks. Just don’t ask.
• The funny/edgy quote comparing artificial intelligence to teenage sex made a repeat appearance – and was even requoted by presenters in two subsequent workshops at the conference. Imitation. The sincerest form of flattery.

Double Your Fun

Doing justice to attending all the relevant workshops at the conference realistically requires a 2-person team. Understandably, organization budgets do not always allow this luxury. Whether just one or many, conference attendance provides an excellent opportunity to see and hear about leading edge practices and to make valuable industry contacts that can expand your professional network. Maybe equally important, the conference provides a chance to refresh, reenergize and have some fun, because there’s literally something to meet every need at these conferences. 

Everyone probably has a different perspective.  What’s yours?

Chris Dobyns, CCP, CBP is currently employed as a Human Capital Strategic Consultant for the Office of Human Resource Strategy and Program Design for one of the largest U.S. intelligence agencies. The Office of Human Resource Strategy and Program Design is responsible for organizational effectiveness, personnel assessment, compensation and incentives, occupational structure, recognition and rewards, HR policy, human capital program design, implementation, evaluation and assessment and internal consulting. Chris has worked in the area of compensation for more than 35 years, and has been employed in various compensation-related positions by a number of large, private sector companies including, Sears, Roebuck, Arizona Public Service and Westinghouse Savannah River Company.

Original "Conference Themes" image adapted from WorldatWork by Chris Dobyns.

Comments

[Kurt Nelson]

Chris, I’m sorry that I missed your session this year as well as these - they seem very interesting. Hopefully I’ll get to see them next year.

[Chris Dobyns]

Thanks Kurt, but I'll openly acknowledge that you didn't miss much (well, anything actually) - since we were taking a year off from presenting anything at this year's conference.

Not in any attempt to dissuade folks from submitting workshop topic proposals, but candidly there is some upside to just being "audience" vs. a presenter at these conferences.