HR Matters
Texas SHRM
Join us in Austin for this celebratory event and help honor the Best Companies to Work for in Texas.
Accommodations and awards night location: The Hyatt Austin is set directly on the south bank of Lady Bird Lake and facing the downtown Austin skyline. With a gorgeous pool, an expansive deck overlooking the lake, paddle boats, fresh sushi bar, fajitas to die for and a location within eye shot of the bats under the Congress Street bridge, we promise a memorable experience. A room block is reserved.
Awards Night Schedule (many more details to follow):
Photos with awards available: 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Cocktails: 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Dinner: 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Awards: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
No host after awards mix and mingle: 9 p.m. to 11:59 p.m.
What to Wear: Fun, Celebratory Cocktail Attire
For questions about the event, please contact Lori Buntin, lbuntin@txbiz.org or (512) 477-6721, ext 113. Click Register to get signed up!
Cost: $120 for individuals and $1,200 for a table of 10
Promote the SHRM Annual Conference via e-mail to all chapter members. ·
Be sure that you are maintaining your chapter affiliation requirement throughout the year. If there have been any changes in your volunteers, report them to your Regional Administrator.
Keep SHRM informed of any changes to volunteer e-mail addresses, contact information, and role changes.
Recommended Action Items:
Host a speaker on current/upcoming legislative issues (see governmental affairs best practices in the SHAPE planning workbook for other ideas).
Promote HR Certification program and encourage members to become certified. Set up or determine the feasibility of having a local study group or provide certification prep materials and available courses to your members.
We hope you will plan to join us for this 1 day State Leadership meeting focusing on leadership development. This meeting meets your SHAPE Leadership meeting/conference attendance critera and HRCI credits will be available for the day's presentations.
All official members of the Texas State Council, as well as all chapter board leaders, are encouraged to attend.
To register simply log on to http://texas.shrm.org
SHRM e-learning benefits HR professionals at all career levels. We provide the tools and education to elevate HR professionals and transform them into strategic business partners.
SHRM e-learning also provides online compliance training for your employees and managers. SHRM's compliance training courses help employers establish defenses to potential workplace litigation and emphasize both risk management and education.
As a user, you will benefit from a wealth of knowledge, an abundance of recertification credits and all the support you need. So log in, purchase some credits and redeem them for one of the most thorough and informed educational experiences you and your employees and managers ever encountered.
Click here for more information about registration.
Please use registration code: TXSHRMSC.
The El Paso Society for Human Resources Management (EPSHRM) Chapter established a scholarship fund in 2005 to help defray the cost of higher education for the child of a member. Three scholarships in the amount of $500 each were awarded in the Sons and Daughters category on February 1, 2013 during our Annual KickOff Event
Winners:
Natalie Alvarez attended St. Raphael Catholic School and was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. She joined the high school marching band and was involved in numerous competitions. She graduated under the Distinguished Achievement Program in the top ten percent of her class and is currently attending Angelo State University.
Anthony Camacho is a senior at Franklin High School with a 3.2 GPA and is also Captain of the Franklin High School Wrestling Team which is currently ranked 2nd in the state of Texas. He also volunteers at the Good Samaritan Retirement Home and Rescue Mission of El Paso. His career goal is to become a physical therapist.
Alec Kleinhans is a graduate of Franklin High School with a 3.2 GPA. He is a fitness guru who ran track in high school and climbed Mt. Franklin. He is currently attending UTEP and concentrating his studies in Pre-Pharmacy. His educational goal is to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin to obtain a Pharmacy Degree.
HR Houston had the pleasure of welcoming Alexander Alonso, PhD, SPHR, SHRM’s Vice President of Research, at the chapter’s February General Meeting. During his presentation, Dr. Alonso shared SHRM’s recently-released HR Professional Competency Model. Those in attendance received detailed information on the nine competencies included in the model and left the meeting with a "roadmap" for building proficiency within the HR profession. In addition to Dr. Alonso’s presentation, there were also sessions on a new approach to employee motivation and the essential elements of a strategic HR plan. HR Houston’s next General Meeting will be held on Thursday, March 7. Visit www.hrhouston.org for the chapter’s online Calendar of Events.
Alexander Alonso, PhD, SPHR (SHRM) and Craig Woolcott, SPHR HR Houston President-Elect.
TheUTA Student Chapter of the Society of Human Resources Managers (SRHM), was made aware of a wonderful organization who made Christmas a little brighter for some very sick children in the Dallas/FW metroplex.
Project HOPE, headed by two outstanding people from the Dallas/Arlington area began a program around 26 years ago to help sick and homeless children. A very charming couple dressed up as Mr. and Mrs. Claus, and then passed out a few stuffed bears at a local hospital. They did this simply to teach their children a lesson. While doing so, they witnessed a miracle. Every year since, they have devoted their Christmas to creating more miracles. Over the last two and a half decades, their efforts, support and impact have continued to grow. They’ve developed a following of elves, and have expanded their reach to all areas and floors of the Dallas Methodist Hospital, a nursing home, and the Turner Community Center in Oak Cliff (where about 1,500 homeless men, women, and children receive a meal on Christmas day). Last year they handed out over 1,300 stuffed bears (and other furry critters) at these locations. As their number of needs continues to grow each year they seek help from other elves to meet their ever increasing needs of gifts and give a ways.
This year the UTA Student Chapter of SHRM combined with the Mid-Cities Human Resource Association to not only collect bears but to become some elves and help donate the bears to needee children. All the donations have been private from family and friends with no tax write offs while being collected all during the year. The collection of Bears consisted of 12 – 24 inch animals which will work to become the best for kids and patients. This event is kicked off Christmas Eve with a "drop off your Bears" get together to separate the bears in order to meet each specific need. Then, the morning of Christmas Santa, Mrs. Claus and a few elves arrive at Dallas Methodist Hospital, with bags loaded with Bears, to be taken to the preemies, children, cancer ward, adults, and visiting children on each floor until every bear (furry friend) has been delivered. The last few years project HOPE has delivered over 1,000 bears each Christmas. It takes approximately three hours non-stop. In addition, each nurse and doctor received a small gift of candy canes or chocolates.
This year the UTA Student SHRM Chapter and the Mid-Cities Human Resource Association combined to donate 349 bears to the drive while having six students help the give aways at the shelter. We were extremely pleased with the generous out pouring of bears from our students and friends to make this project a wonderful success!
They’re Here!
On January 8th, the legislature convened for the 83rd legislative session. Did you know that there are 31 Senators and 150 State Representatives in the Texas Legislature? Your Government Affairs/Advocacy team is on the ground and tracking legislation that could have an impact on the way you do business. The Texas State Council has a leadership team comprised of two great legal minds, Lon Williams and Kristin Bauer and me – I’m what Lon likes to call "boots on the ground" in Austin. We use several resources to get information about pending legislation and then we push information out to any chapter who wants to be on our ‘group’ list.
I would like to share with you how you can be kept up to date on legislation of interest to you.
First, go to http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/. This is a link to the Texas legislature on line. You can track bills by bill number or by key words. Try a few, it is pretty fun. You can also track committees, read the bills, find where they are in the process and even see who testified on, for or against legislation in committee.
Next, I’d like you to look in the upper left hand corner of the site and go to "My TLO". In my TLO you can: ·
Track Legislation With Bill Lists
Receive Bill and Meeting Alerts
Subscribe to RSS Feeds
View Content on Mobile Device
Saved Bill, Text, Amendment Searches
I like to enter the bill number and a brief message of why I am tracking it so that when I get the alert, I’m tuned into why I was tracking it in the first place. For example, today I received an alert on some bills I am watching and here’s the alert with the comments I set up in my alert in bold.
Texas Legislature Online Bill Alert
83(R) HB 298
Relating to prohibiting employer retaliation against employees who seek recovery of unpaid wages and procedures in wage claim hearings conducted by the Texas Workforce Commission; providing administrative penalties.
2/11/2013 H Referred to Business & Industry
Retaliation bill - too broad
View all actions
83(R) HB 372
Relating to establishing the Workplace Fraud Prevention Act; providing penalties.
2/11/2013 H Referred to Business & Industry
worker misclassification bill - setting bad precedent A typical legislative session in Texas generates about 5,000 bills.
This session the leadership has said their main focus areas will be:
Budget / Finance
Education
Transportation
Water
Energy
But, don’t be lulled into thinking with these five focus areas that HR is out of the woods, there are plenty of bills already filed and more coming that could relate directly to how you do your job, report or comply. If you would like to stay up with current pending legislation in Texas, email me and I’ll put you on our group list.
The Texas Legislative Round Up is the premier HR Legislative Conference in the state of Texas, presented by the Society for Human Resource Management – Texas State Council (SHRM-TSC) in partnership with the Texas Industry Liaison Groups (ILG’s) and the Texas Association of Business (TAB) and will be held on Thursday, April 4, 2013, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Austin, Texas.
Highlights include: State and Federal Legislative and Governmental Affairs Updates * Trends in EEOC and OFCCP Regulatory and Technical Compliance * Hot Topics, Including Healthcare, Retaliation, ADA, FMLA * Meetings with Legislators * Networking with Leaders in the Human Resources and Related Professions.
Our distinguished presenters from throughout the country and state include: ·
Mike Aitken – SHRM, Vice President Government Affairs ·
Tommy Simmons - Legal Counsel to Chairman Pauken, Texas Workforce Commission
Devon Herrick - Senior Fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis
Mickey Silberman - Jackson Lewis, Senior Counsel for National ILG
Shafeeqa Giarratani - Fulbright & Jaworski,
Counsel for San Antonio and Austin ILG’s You won’t want to miss this event!
Register at www.texashrlaw.org
And if you attend and want to meet with your legislator, I’ll personally accompany you if you are a first time visitor to the capitol. See you in Austin, April 4th, 2013. Pamela Bratton, Co-Director Governmental Affairs/Advocacy 2013 pbratton@meador.com
