The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently awarded the Northern Indiana Human Resource Management Association (NIHRMA) its prestigious EXCEL Silver Award for the Chapter’s accomplishments in 2015.
The award is part of the SHRM Affiliate Program for Excellence, which aligns individual chapters and councils’ activities with SHRM’s aspirations for the HR profession. The award recognizes accomplishments and strategic activities and initiatives that enhance the human resources profession.
“SHRM rewards chapters and councils that demonstrate a strong commitment to advancing the human resources profession through service to the community, local networking and professional development activities,” said Henry G. (Hank) Jackson, president and CEO of SHRM. “Advancing the HR profession is at the heart of what SHRM does and NIHRMA’s work this year helps us further showcase that mission.”
The EXCEL award can be earned at four levels: bronze, silver, gold and platinum, and each level has a prescribed set of requirements and accomplishments that have to be met. NIHRMA will receive recognition in SHRM publications and conferences, a certificate of recognition, and a special banner to display at its meetings and events.
2015 was another great year for NIHRMA. Not only did we see a record 27% increase in Membership, but we continued to provide comprehensive support to our community professionals through education and collaboration. Membership of the Northern Indiana HR Management Association is primarily made up of professionals supporting companies in Economic Growth Region 1, and specifically La Porte County. A common complaint of our company leaders- Presidents, CEOs and HR Directors- was that they were unable to find the quality and quantity of employees they needed. Our goal was to better understand the problem and develop a plan to bridge that gap. As the Human Resource professionals, we are the Subject Matter Experts for our business community and NIHRMA has become the premier resource of information for our HR population.
One of our board members is a workforce strategist and studied the demographics and economic impact of the workforce in our region. She and several others attended an Economic Briefing offered at Purdue North Central. As we looked at the workforce stats for La Porte County alone- while our population continues to increase (by +4% annually), our labor force continues to decrease at almost twice the rate (-9% annually). We studied further and realized that the unemployment rate in La Porte County has been higher than the state unemployment rate every single year since 2004. Our region also ranks 2nd in poverty in Indiana. To address poverty- and specifically its effects on our workforce- NIHRMA hosted an additional meeting spotlighting "Bridges out of Poverty" and invited all members of the community to attend. Bridges out of Poverty is a community support program that provides a comprehensive approach and concrete tools for reducing poverty in your community (www.ahaprocess.com). After better understanding our poverty level and the challenges of ill-equipped or underequipped job seekers- we wanted to provide both tangible and immediate assistance to potential candidates.
Over the course of the year we held a professional clothing drive. NIHRMA members were asked to donate new and gently used professional and business casual attire. We not only collected the clothing at Member meetings, but also set up drop off sites at 4 additional businesses and government centers. The clothing drive culminated at our Fall Conference in September where we were able to donate multiple car loads of professional and business casual attire to Keys to Hope Resource Center in Michigan City, IN. The clothing will provide underequipped candidates with an appropriate outfit for their job interviews.
In addition to the tangible assistance, we wanted to make an investment. Many representatives from our board as well as general membership participated in the Future Careers Expo held at the AK Smith Center for Career and Technical Education. Over 400 Junior and Senior level students had spent the previous few weeks preparing resumes and learning proper interviewing techniques. On February 11, 2015, business professionals and members of the HR community conducted mock interviews and provided valuable feedback in order for the students to be better prepared for college scholarship interviews and job interviews.
We set a goal to deliberately engage and improve the workforce- and future workforce- in our area. By doing this we are not only able to see immediate returns to our business community, but also residual improvement in our workforce and business climate.
For more information on the award visit www.shrm.org/communities/volunteerresources/resourcesforchapters/pages/award_info.aspx.