What’s Cooking in my African Pot for #SHRM18

“Use these days in Chicago to build your career, invest in yourself, its more than a party, much more than a networking event, hold us accountable for ensuring that you have a meaningful experience” these are some of SHRM’s CEO, Johnny Taylor’s words from an encouraging Facebook live chat, that was held for bloggers by Andrew Morton. These words kept ringing in my head, they really had me thinking seriously about my trip to Chicago, taking time off work, if I say I am “self-investing” with this entire initiative. What then is the tangible ROI, what are the goals, are they attainable, how will I measure them. How will I know that this specific conference was worth all the resources that I have put into it, and how exactly will I apply my take away’s in real life.

These questions are answered carefully in a very useful tool that a colleague shared with me, a one pager “Post Event and Conference Contract”. It sounds like a cute little thing to do, but it’s actually quite serious. It’s a Learn2Learn document that can be found on the internet. It had me thinking, and reviewing my SHRM18 program schedule.

Basically, the contract requires the user to answer pertinent questions like:

o What will your take away’s be, who will you share them with?

o What will be your post conference commitment, define three new actions and habits?

o Who will support you?

My conference goal is, to learn more about certification and to empower myself with the knowledge I need to design my five year career plan. The challenge is that the role that I have pictured in my mind does not exist in South Africa, yet. There are elements of it within the Marketing and Communications space. My electives for SHRM18 revolve around Culture (diversity, inclusion, cognitive & implicit biases), their impact on Employee Value Proposition, and Talent Branding & Marketing Strategy. So, I will be spending a bit of time at the Smart Stage, starting with the “Five Tips to Navigate SHRM18” on the first day, followed by the “Developing Strategies for Managing Cognitive and Implicit Biases” session with Paul Meshanko, I am not missing “Beyond Diversity” with Jennifer Payne, and I am super excited about Steve Brown’s mega session “Cultures that ROCK! Five Proven Ways to Develop and Sustain a Phenomenal Workplace”, not because Steve always big’s me up on twitter, but because I know that people hardly leave great places, if the environment is conducive, talent retention is a walk in the park.

Thankfully there is also a session on how to achieve Certification through the SHRM Learning System, as a global member this will be highly useful to me. I have a lot of questions to ask and hopefully I will be able to roap map my certification journey. The conference has so many sessions, the schedule makes it so easy to focus on my goals. All my electives are in line with my career and personal aspirations. I need to make sure that I take away global practises that can be applied locally, and to fully understand what my membership can do for me on a daily basis.

Outside of work stuff, I am really excited to be participating in the fit bit challenge, I know the Highsteppers are going to win, I am looking for a Pound class in Chicago, so that I can clock 7000 steps in an hour. Apparently, I have to have a sundowner at Hangcock Towers and cannot leave Chicago without going to the Cheese Cake Factory. I am really grateful to SHRM for what promises to me awesome experience!

#SHRM18 #SHRM18Blogger #ProudlyAfricanBlogger #8MoreSleeps #HRConference

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Yo, Happy Afrika Day!

Growing up speaking English with a Sesotho accent was sometimes a struggle, a few times we were judged for not being African enough, accused of not wanting to be African, too much judgement from people of the same continent. Surely we could find a reason to love, to stop the hate.

It bugged me sometimes, I won’t lie. Until I heard Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame speak at a conference, I was fully emancipated when he reminded us (people from different parts of Africa) that most of us were colonised by different colonist’s, and as a result we have adopted different ways of living, our respective cultures’ have been diluted. His thing, was that to move forward, it didn’t make any sense to continue fighting each other, trying to prove who is more African that the other, he said it didn’t matter who spoke with what accent, who knew which languages, who was male or female…what we ought to do was to take what we have, and collectively move forward.

So, Africa, your eclecticism, nuances, all these crazy differences, they make you beautiful!

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds” –Marcus Garvey

#HappyAfricaDay #Africa #25May2018

Inspiration

image borrowed from lifehack.org/author/jelly-wong

Inspiration is defined as” the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative”

Two weeks ago, I published my first blog post, I was both excited and nervous at the same time. I am grateful for the positive feedback I have received. I have been meaning to write again, but I think I might be swamped.

But thanks to my colleague, who said the most profound thing to me, said she found my writing style very easy to read, she likes the flow of things, and asked me to write a book (LOLS), who knows, I might just do that. What touched me the most about Dima’s commentary is that, she said my story made her feel like all things are possible, she felt inspired not to give up on herself, he dreams, her visions, to continue on any chosen path, no matter how rocky the road may seem, because sometimes it does feel like we are never going to overcome.

So, this is my ‘give thanks’ piece to all the people that have been inspired my journey, the fact that you told me how you felt, actually kept me going. It’s worth so much to hear that someone was inspired to be better, to do more, to set and smash their goals. Inspiration is never to be undermined, it’s the source of magic. I always say, the best jobs I have had, are those where I was led by inspirational leaders, they managed to keep me engaged and passionate about what I do.

Love, peace and happiness!