Serving on the Board of the Dallas-Fort Worth Staffing Management Association as the VP of Professional Development and Diversity, I have a key initiative on my plate this year: I get to chair the annual Diversity Event panel, cocktail reception mixer, and silent auction. The event will take place Thursday September 16th from 3:30 to 6:30 CST at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center. And I know this may sound crazy, especially considering this is a volunteer/non-paid role, but I'm kinda excited about the whole thing.
This year, the SMA, which is a special interest SHRM chapter, is partnering again with Mid Cities HR and National Association of African Americans in Human Resources or NAAAHR to organize and execute the event. And great partners they are! Already, we have most of our panelists in place and several sponsors committed. Our mission is to showcase what top DFW employers are doing to ensure a diverse candidate slate for their hiring managers and why this is important to the business bottom line. So far our panel includes , Jim Schnyder of PepsiCo-Frito Lay, Jason Leonard of JC Penney, and Debbie Herd of Comerica. A few other panelists are being vetted by the committee as we speak.
As for sponsors, Insala, a talent management firm, has joined us an early sponsor. They understand the importance of diversity in the recruitment process and have in fact recently released a white paper that addresses the connection between diversity and real business results. Also sponsoring is Elevated Resources, which provides unique workforce solution/vendor management solutions.
The silent auction portion of the event, which takes place during the Happy Hour / Mixer after the panel discussion, will benefit the SHRM Foundation. So far, contributing donors are: Checkster, JC Penney, and QuestPro/QTEMPS.
If you're not a DFW resident, I am sure many other SHRM-affiliated chapters are conducting Diversity events in your own back yard. I encourage you to check them out! Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing my local brothers and sisters at this year's event. If you have questions or want to get involved, please contact me: alise (at) improvedexperience (dot) com.
About Alise Cortez: My day job is VP of Sales & Marketing at Improved Experience where our online feedback portal products provide subscribing HR/Recruiting customers data to make a business case for change or improvement in these areas: recruitment process effectiveness, employer brand, candidate experience, recruiter performance, early employee engagement, quality of hire, and retention. What can I say? -- it's fun!
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