What's So Cool About HR?

Every year, I get to talk with a group of medical center leadership candidates about the HR department. I present, they ask questions and, because it is a small group, we have lots of time to interact.

This time I want to connect.

I want to flip this whole "department overview" idea on it's head. OUT with understanding a little more about the complexities of Federal HR and IN with coolness. HR is one of THE coolest departments in the building and when I get through with them, the leadership candidates will be climbing over each other to get onto our team or going back out to their teams and singing our praises {this is you applauding me and no, I am not sniffing anything this morning!}

Hold your judgement when I tell you that, yes, I have been using very un-presentation Zen like PowerPoint's with staffing structure, lists of functional areas etc {this is me hanging my head in shame}. Not very cool. Not very cool at all.

I need your help. I am looking for anything you've got (slideshares, ideas, reasons, pictures, phrases, quotes) that I can use to get the word out to our leadership candidates that "HR is Cool." Now that I am thinking, I could probably use a boost myself. And so could my department.

Hit me in the comments, contact me, @ or DM me in Twitter, connect on LinkedIn, etc with whatever you got. I promise to put whatever I get to good use and I will share too.

So, what's so cool about HR?

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Photo credit iStockphoto

Do You Read HRMagazine?

This is a cover of the latest issue of HR Magazine. Do you read it? I don't. When HRMagazine is delivered each month, I glance through it to catch the quote boxes and side bars on my way to staff mailboxes to route to my staff. Many of my staff read it cover to cover.

I used to read HR Magazine. Early in my career, my interests were in developing a solid foundation of "how to" and "why we have to" and SHRM resources were life-saving to me. I had web pages bookmarked, white papers document protected and the knowledge center on speed dial. I read HR Magazine cover to cover and dog-eared page after page.

My interests now are on the broader role of HR in providing leadership and on engaging in real time discussions with others about emergent issues. HRMagazine is solid and meets a real need but it is a magazine for the masses. I am in search of the niche. I want real-time, speed-of-light, broad-range-of-perspective kind of interactions. I look to the 50+ blogs in my Google Reader, Alltop, HR networking sites HRM Today and HR Presence Network and, of course,Twitter for my daily fix of interaction and information.

I am a card carrying SHRM member. Yes, I am a expectation meeter at heart, but I don't maintain my membership year after year to make others happy. I maintain my membership each year because, as Laurie at PunkRockHR so finely stated, "there are tremendously talented men and women who work to make HR a more credible and visible profession."

So, do you read HRMagazine? Why or why not? China Gorman, SHRM COO, is on Twitter and she really wants to know. Won't you share your thoughts with her?