Council Update

HR Strategic Issues Council Meeting

February 2-3, 2006
West Coast Meeting
Host: Chris Wells, XOMA
Beach House Hotel, Half Moon Bay, California

Agenda
Thursday, February 2nd

8:30 - Introductions and Brief update on HR initiatives addressing major business challenges/issues

10:00 - How Work Gets Done: People and Work in the Future
Guest Presentation: Bob Johansen, Institute for the Future, Palo Alto (see resume below)

IFTF Research: The Ten Year Forecast and The Future Map

Demographic trends and workforce implications – generational differences

How work in organizations will change

Implications for management and HR strategies

Discussion of Bob’s work with Deloitte & Touche (discussion with Stan Smith)

12:00 - Lunch

1:15 - Roundtable Dialogue on Future Workforce Strategies
Please come prepared to share your issues, research interests, experiences,and ideas

The implications of pop culture, video games, right brain thinking for future work, learning, and interaction – Books: Brain Candy, by Malcolm Gladwell (newyorker.com/critics/content/articles/050516crbo_books) and Got Game, by John Beck and Mitchell Wade (gotgamebook.com),

The implications of contingent workforce, outsourcing, offshoring on customer contact, productivity, building organizational capabilities, etc.

Success in fostering learning, knowledge sharing, and innovation through networks, communities of practice, peer assists, after action reviews, etc.

Responding to generational differences – and more specific individual differences (the workforce of one?). Organizational demands: from anytime, anywhere to all the time, everywhere, 24/7, burnout, stress, and future solutions

Role of boards, exec comp, systems for controls, transparency and accountability, ethics in the era of Sarbanes-Oxley

6:00 - Private dinner at Cetrella Bistro and Café on Main Street in Half Moon Bay. The Mediterranean/coastal California cuisine at Cetrella is highly regarded nationally. (www.cetrella.com). Spouses are cordially invited to attend (just let us know).

Friday, February 3

8:30 - Finding, Keeping and Developing Talent for the Future

Guest Presentation: Rusty Rueff, CEO of Snocap and former EVP of HR at Electronic Arts. He is author with Hank Stringer of Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business (Prentice Hall, 2006). (See resume below).

What Sticks? Lessons from Silicon Valley -- cultures, values, attitudes, teams, incentives/stock options, leadership, careers and life styles.

What Next? New workforce strategies after Employer of Choice, Best Place to Work, Retention, Commitment Surveys, etc.

1:30 - Adjourn - Informal Lunch

Arrangements

Our meeting and lodging will be at The Beach House Hotel at Half Moon Bay, California (www.beach-house.com). The boutique hotel has just 54 loft rooms, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Pillar Point Harbor.

XOMA has reserved a block of rooms for our meeting at a special rate of $214 per night. You are welcome to extend your stay over Friday and/or Saturday night at a rate of $305. Please let Jim Walker know which nights you would like to have a room (walker@walkergroup.com) as he will maintain the room reservations list. Do NOT call the hotel directly. You will give the hotel your credit card when you check in for payment of your room charges.

Half Moon Bay is just 30 minutes west of SFO (San Francisco Airport) by taxi or rental car, about the same time as it takes to get into San Francisco. Take I-101 South to 92 West. When you dead end into Highway 1, turn right and go 4 miles North. The Beach House will be on your left, just past “Surfer’s Beach.”

Early arrivals on Wednesday are invited to meet in the lobby at 6:00 to go together for dinner at a nearby coast-side restaurant.

For those interested in golf or other weekend activities, please contact Brian Hackett (bjh23@cornell.edu).

Fall Meeting

Our fall meeting will be on Thursday and Friday, September 14 and 15, 2006. Lisa Bender will host the meeting at the MITRE campus in Bedford, west of Boston. For the Thursday evening outing, she will arrange a bus into Boston. Bedford is about 40 minutes from Logan Airport.

About the HR Strategic Issues Council

HR leaders need to be able to network with peers across industries to stimulate their thinking about innovative solutions to rapidly changing business challenges. In response to this need, we created the HR Strategic Issues Council in 2000 to enable members to keep informed on critical people-related business challenges; such as, building strategic capabilities, innovation, knowledge sharing, talent retention, and leadership development.

The Council offers unique benefits to the individual and the firm:

A confidential and candid exchange of insights, best practices and lessons learned on key topics selected by members

A senior group of colleagues available to one another for benchmarking, knowledge sharing and counsel

Access to leading experts, sources of information and research developed by the Council

Member organizations are typically companies pursing rapid growth or strategic change. Companies based in North America and Europe are currently members, including 3M, Agfa, Avon, Bristol Myers Squibb, Deloitte & Touche, DoubleClick, Lincoln Financial, Lord Corporation, Mitre, MDS, Pitney Bowes, Sony, Southern Company, State Farm Insurance, and The World Bank.

There are many claims on the time of HR leaders so the Council's emphasis on practical, actionable solutions to real issues. This distinguishes it from other research and benchmarking forums. The annual membership fee of $5,000 per company allows for up to two members per company.

The Council meetings (February and September each year) and research agendas are planned by members, guided by a steering committee. While the emphasis is on interaction among the members, past meetings have included guest resources such as Jeffrey Pfeffer (Stanford), Peter Cappelli (Wharton), Mark Huselid (Rutgers), and Ed Lawler (USC). The winter 2006 meeting will be hosted by Chris Wells, XOMA in Half Moon Bay, CA on February 2-3.

Jim Walker and Brian Hackett are advisers to the council. The Walker Group provides administrative support to the Council (visit www.walkergroup.com/council).