The 2016 Annual Meeting for the Hawaii Employers Council was a great success.  The event was held at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel and featured two morning seminars by a distinguished panel of HR professionals, an annual report by Clayton Kamida, and a lunchtime presentation by a nationally-recognized speaker.  Approximately 85 people attended the morning sessions and nearly 300 joined us for the luncheon.  

 

Here is a quick recap of the great things you missed:  

 

Reshaping the Workplace

 

It's Different Now:  What Leading Companies are Doing to Hire and Retain Top Talent in Today's Market

 

The first morning session featured three leading HR professionals ? Sarah Guay (American Savings Bank), Ryan Kusumoto (PACT), and Sunshine Topping (Hawaiian Telcom) ? and was moderated by Emily Santiago (UHA Health Insurance).  The panelists discussed some of the challenges they are currently facing in today's market with regards to recruitment and retention of good employees, and offered some advice on how to overcome those challenges.  

 

The panelists provided a very informative session on several interesting topics, including hiring, working with millennials, employee retention programs, enhanced onboarding processes, employee/leadership councils, and exit interviews.  They discussed the benefits of using social media and employee referral programs for recruitment; offering generous and unique pay and benefits packages to attract and retain employees; and creating employee/leadership councils that keep employees engaged, provide attractive working conditions for employees, and develop the next generation of leaders.  

 

At the conclusion of the program, each panelist offered a bit of personal advice for the audience.  Guay stated that employee engagement is all about connecting with the individual; that it is less about "giant programs" and more about connecting on an individual level.  Kusumoto noted that HR professionals need to put in a lot of time and effort when working with employees, and that companies can always learn from what other employers are doing.  Finally, Topping offered that the role of HR is to help employees do the best job they can.  Our job is not to say "no" to people, but to figure out how to get a job done in the best way possible.   

 

Is Anything the Same?  How Traditional Employment Laws Apply or Evolve for the Modern Day Workplace

 

This program was presented by John Knorek and the theme of his speech was that employers must learn to "adapt" to the constant changes in labor and employment laws.   He started off his presentation by noting that employers have been challenged many times over the past several decades by new laws that have made doing business more difficult, and that each time, employers have adapted.  

 

For the modern-day workplace, he discussed some of the pitfalls associated with performance evaluations, telecommuting, mobile devices, employee/leadership councils, and wellness programs.  Knorek also offered some words of advice for each of these topics on how to make sure employers can benefit from the use of such programs without running afoul of the law.  For instance, employers may want to reconsider whether to continue using performance evaluations for their employees, especially when the workforce is generally productive and performing up to par.  In addition, employees should be made aware that telecommuting arrangements are temporary and constantly under review.   Finally, employee committees must be given authority they need to make decisions on their own or act as a management entity in order to avoid a violation of Section 8(a)(2) of the National Labor Relations Act, which prohibits employers from dominating employee committees.  

 

Annual Meeting Report

 

During the luncheon, Clayton Kamida, HEC President and CEO, provided us with his annual report.  He began his presentation by announcing that HEC's Senior VP and Director of HR Services, Bonnie Freitas, will be retiring from the council in early 2017.  He also announced that she will be replaced by Derek Kanehira, who is currently the Vice President for Human Resources at Hawaii National Bank.  

 

Kamida then provided a brief recap of the past year for HEC and businesses in general, and noted that 2016 was a year of legal "upheaval" in light of all of the new laws, rules and orders affecting employers (e.g. FLSA overtime rules, new EEO-1 form, and Executive Orders affecting Federal Contractors on topics such as paid sick leave, pay transparency, and minimum wage).  

 

Therefore, he discussed how HEC has been very busy providing our membership with seminars and training, including 50 seminars with over 2100 participants and over 300 hours of in-house training to member companies.  Such seminars have been instrumental in keeping employers up-to-date of legal developments and learning how to respond accordingly.   

 

Finally, looking ahead to 2017, Kamida provided a brief discussion on what employers might expect from an administration that is led by President-elect Trump.  He noted that although it is not possible to predict exactly what type of initiatives will be pushed by the next president, there may be some changes done to some of the laws and rules that have been implemented by the Obama administration.  

 

Managing the Generational Dynamics in the Workplace

 

Finally, the Annual Meeting concluded with a presentation by Dr. Jessica Kriegel that discussed the hot topic of generational dynamics in the workplace.  In her speech, Dr. Krigel noted that although a significant amount of research has been conducted to analyze generational preferences for the workplace, much of that research is contradictory and inconsistent with each other.  Therefore, she theorized that there are no true "trends" that can be applied to any particular generation.  

 

Instead, she offered that employers should look at their employees as individuals and not apply any general labels (e.g. Baby Boomer, Gen-X, Millennial, etc.) to their workforce.  By communicating with employees as individuals, employers can benefit from actually learning what type of work environment best suits their particular employees.   

 

Dr. Kriegel ended her speech with the following 7 Tips for Success: