Blog Viewer

Another Independent Energy Human Resources Association Conference has come and gone.  This year we met in the Entertainment Capital of the World, Las Vegas, NV.  The President and Chief Executive Officer of NV Energy, Michael Yackira kicked off the event.  He shared some of the cool ideas that NV Energy is using to help customers understand where and when they use energy.  Giving customers mobile and online options to view their account details and the opportunity to manage their energy use and costs is helping them to connect with customers and make a greater impact in their lives.  The program is called NVEnergize and they’ve done a great job of making the whole process interactive and educational.  I’m very happy to say that NV Energy is one of UECU’s sponsor companies and we’re proud of the initiatives they are making. 

Obviously, if I touched on every topic, this would be a ridiculously long blog post so I’ll stick to mentioning the ones I found particularly interesting.  I think I will save the Zappos Tour for its own post though!  Here are a few topics I enjoyed:

• Mark Taylor, M.S.W., Ed.D. gave two exciting presentations on the multigenerational workforce.  We now have the potential of four different generations in the workplace: Traditionals, Boomers, Xers, and Generation NeXt.  Each generation carries different values and working styles.  Your recruitment processes and benefits offered might attract one generation more than another.  Make sure you’re considering the differences in generations and what is important to each when recruiting and reviewing benefits options.  Generation NeXt might want more options like Pet Insurance and financial wellness than your Traditionals.  And if you want to recruit Generation NeXt, you better be on social media.  I enjoyed this presentation, and by the other reactions in the room, I think the majority of attendees did as well.

• Dick Finnegan, Chief Executive Officer of C-Suite Analytics spoke to the group again on engagement and retention.  This year he focused on how to get your CEO involved and backing your retention plans.  He explained that many CEO’s have a finance background and dollars will gain their attention.  We need to show them how much money losing an employee will cost the company.  He shared their turnover cost calculator with the group and the numbers he shared will certainly gain attention.

• Stu Pearman and Tina Krebs, Management Consultants from ScottMadden, dove into mergers and acquisitions.  Mergers and acquisitions in the energy industry can sometimes be hard to keep track of (trust me, I try) and human resource professionals play a huge part in a successful merger.  They did a great job of answering questions from attendees on creating a successful merger and HR’s role.

As you can see, we had a great group of presenters and timely topics this year (much more than I could touch on in this post).  If you’re in the industry I suggest joining the IEHRA LinkedIn page for updates on next year’s conference. 

Erica L.