Feb 11, 2014 | Blog

#HCIevents Day One: Data and the Secret to Executive Support

Optimize Your Talent Strategy

HCI is in Alexandria, VA for our 2014 Workforce Planning and Analytics Conference. Today presenters from ConAgra Foods, HCI, HealthSouth, the Joint IED Defeat Organization, Time Warner, Inc. and the MITRE Corporation shared stories and best practices for workforce planning to a room full of practitioners. 

An interesting and unique perspective came from the President and CEO of McGraw-Hill Federal Credit Union, Shawn Gilfedder. From the point of view of an executive, the audience of HR professionals learned how to communicate the urgency and importance of workforce planning and analytics to their C-Suite.

 

Some of Shawn’s tips included:

  • Think about the pain points for the executive and know what is on his or her dashboard
  • Understand that data is very important, but executives don’t always have the time to dissect information
  • “Data is not knowledge” and your interpretation of the data is critical
  • Know the value the initiative creates for the organization either in dollars or experience
  • Think like an owner/entrepreneur and be able to communicate succinctly and clearly
  • Practice sharing your value proposition, “What does your elevator speech look like?”
  • Don’t discard the importance of qualitative data for reporting the cultural outcomes 

Tomorrow we have presenters from Monster Worldwide, Inc., SAS, NCR, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and Human Capital Source. Professor Robert Reich (author and former Secretary of Labor) will deliver the closing keynote tomorrow at 3pm EST. You can follow us on twitter @Human_Capital and search #HCIevents for the latest conference updates. Or watch the action from your desk with a Virtual Conference Pass.