Maintaining and enhancing a personalized focus as a large conference grows is often a challenge for associations.  Every organization wants growth, but not at the expense of quality learning and networking experiences for attendees.

That's the challenge faced recently by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the largest nonprofit organization of its kind in the world and the global voice of the Human Resource profession.

Driven by the human resource profession's unprecedented growth in recent years and consequent growth in its membership base (now totaling 145,000 individuals), SHRM experienced a 50 percent growth in attendees for its 2000 Annual Meeting - 20,000 attendees and exhibitors were involved.

SHRM's  professional development team is continually being challenged to make the annual meeting one of SHRM's most visible and popular deliverables, highly relevant and successful in terms of content and logics.  One of the greatest challenges is to support effective, one-on-one networking and to deliver quality education while simultaneously growing the number of attendees and exhibitors.  Evaluees have expressed concern about the size of the conference and wonder how it is possible to maintain the standard of quality.  "It is a good problem to have but it is still a problem," said one of the SHRM leaders.

The solution that SHRM came up with was to integrate interactive sessions and new programs into each annual conference. 

The primary thrusts of SHRM's mission are to:

• Be the primary influencer of workplace policies and practices that benefit our members and the organizations they serve;
• Build a broad and actively engaged membership that ensures dissemination of leading practices to the workplace;
• Be the major source for building strong competence and developing the talent and leadership of people in our organizations; and
• Ensure a solid financial structure that permits reinvestment in initiatives and learning that advances the state of the profession.

The balance has been carefully honed and molded over many years and works well from the point of view of education, information, motivation and business development for exhibitors.

Most of the educational sessions are not formally interactive, and comprise 75-minute blocks of programming.  

Over 200 education sessions cover topics including benefits, legal issues and employee incentive programs, to name a few.

Also, SHRM has built on a good reputation and makes an effort to develop new programs annually, which add value without changing the intrinsic nature of the meeting.

SHRM's conference success is based on a through training evaluation cycle and rests on the following pillars:

• Strong local volunteer support
• Through planning with onsite vendors
• Interdepartmental conference support teams
• Rigorous tasking and evaluation mechanisms

SHRM's annual conference is supported by a local group of volunteers.  The 2000 conference in Las Vegas received the on-site support of 700 SHRM members from the Western Region, led by a committee of 20 volunteers.  The volunteers are human resource professionals, supported by temporaries, as required to handle registration, greeting, introductions of sessions and speakers and book store set-up.  In return for their efforts, all volunteers are able to attend part of the program at no cost.

Successful interdepartmental teamwork is the key ingredient of SHRM's conference success.  While the concept of the interdepartmental teamwork is not new to SHRM, the collaboration has been formalized in a new, groundbreaking planning process adapted from the American Diabetes Association.  The timeline, tasking and evaluation components of this collaboration are rigorous, and the approach has led to dramatic improvements in customer service and overall conference management.  The timeline for conference preparation is as follows:

• 6 months prior: team leaders and staff begin meeting once a month
• 2 months prior: training sessions are held for all employees scheduled to assist
• 3 weeks prior: a "how to" session is held for staff, volunteers and key vendors

First time staff receive special coaching regarding expectations.

Some unintended benefits resulting from SHRM's conference management approach include:

• Overwhelming growth in exhibitor volume and attendance
• Development of "Mega-sessions" to accommodate overflow crowds
• Networking with non-competing associations to adopt successful program ideas

To avoid turning people away at its last conference, the SHRM conference team "worked the program" to secure sufficient space and collaborated with the education department to develop mega-sessions with unique speakers that drew pressure off some of the other sessions.  Also, SHRM's success is a testimonial to the generosity of the association community in sharing best practices.

Networking with ASTD and the American Diabetes Association has led to adoption of several successful conference components.

Growth and quality are the two primary criteria that SHRM measures to determine the success of its conference programs.

Member surveys, exhaustive analyses, anecdotal and qualitative meeting evaluation processes are used to develop the conference program.

Both member and staff feedback is essential for fine-tuning the program and logistics to meet member needs.

Here are some key conference statistics:

• Growth has more than quadrupled from 3,200 attendees ten years ago.
• SHRM hosted 13,000 paid attendees in 1999.
• 20,000 total attendees, including exhibitors, participated in 2000.
• The conference generates over $13 million in gross revenues.
• The on-site bookstore boasts annual revenues of $500,000.
• The exhibit hall has sold out every year for the past ten years.
• 150 companies comprise SHRM's current conference waiting list.

Here are some key lessons from SHRM's conference experience:

• Use of volunteer members for on-site logistics management is critical.
• Staff, vendors and volunteers - "the team" - know their roles and responsibilities.
• Effective internal communication within the conference team is vital.
• Effective communication between the conference team and education department is vital.
• Effective partnerships with venue management and food service providers are essential.
• Effective programming of luminaries such as Desmond Tutu and Jay Leno draws crowds.

While it is standard practice in the conference industry to work with vendors to "walk-through" the event to anticipate logistical issues in advance of the forthcoming meeting, SHRM goes well beyond this to develop synergies among various different service providers.  Communication and participation with vendors is a year-round exercise.  

SHRM encourages service providers to speak with one another and offers regular, on-site opportunities for these meetings to take place.

Overall, the conference management process involves constant evaluation and re-evaluation of logistical processes to determine areas for improvement.

The staff has developed an uncanny understanding for "knowing what needs to be changed and how" in response to unanticipated circumstances.

SHRM Case Study Featured At The Center for Association Leadership

The program described in this article is featured as an Innovation and Excellence case study in The Center for Association Leadership.  The Center for Association Leadership is a revolutionary new organization founded by the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives (GWSAE) and located in the Ronald Regan Building & International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.

Its vision is to be a catalyst for change within the association community, helping people create better futures for themselves, their organizations, and those they serve.  It offers learning experiences that foster innovation and excellence, creates and disseminates high-impact knowledge that advances the association profession, and nurtures a professional community that makes a difference in people's learning and lives.

It is both a physical facility (housed in the Marriott Learning Complex) and a virtual Center - accessible to constituents across the nation through an in-depth, knowledge-rich Web site.