Agenda: 3 Great Sessions-all geared to helping HR professionals be Compliant and Inclusive! (Speaker Biographies’ Below)
Dr. Christopher Bauer on Professional Ethics- A Preventative Maintenance Approach
Anthony Arrington and Nick Ford on The Best Way to Recruit Diverse Talent? Stop Losing It!
Lew Montgomery-Fundamentals to Effective DE&I strategies for Workplace Cultures using “The Big IDEAs model”
Date: Tuesday May 9th
Time: 9am-1:30PM, Lunch is Provided.
Location: Mt Mercy University Graduate Center
Session: Professional Ethics: A Preventive Maintenance Approach with Dr Christopher Bauer
Goal: Provide HR professionals with immediately applicable ideas and tools to recognize often costly but often unseen or ignored risks for professional ethics difficulties in themselves as well as their colleagues, co-workers, and organizations. The emphasis will be on helping attendees learn how to develop and implement strategies to prevent ethics problems before they occur rather than – as is more typically done in most organizations – paying the steep price for catching problems after they have already occurred.
Outcomes: Participants in this session will be able to:
- identify at least four common but often unseen or ignored ‘red flags’ for ethics risks in themselves, others, and their organizations.
- identify a minimum of three areas requiring a consistent individual and organizational focus in order to create and maintain a culture that supports ethics. compliance, and accountability.
- articulate the practical, financial, and strategic value of effective ethics and values training for their organizations.
Outline:
- Introduction that provides a clear and easily applied set of definitions for ethics and values while delineating the differences between ethics and rules (e.g. why ethical behavior requires far more than simply following the rules, etc.).
- Delivery of a body of information outlining typical ‘red flags’ for ethics risk which often go unseen or ignored, the values most likely to encourage ethical behavior in organizations, and easy methods for monitoring of personal and organizational ethics risks. Information on the practical and financial value of ethics and values training will also be provided.
Methodology:
- The body of knowledge is delivered in an interactive presentation format.
- The presenter is both animated and engaging, making use of props, visual learning aids, and interactive activities to keep the audience fully engaged.
- The tone of the program is conversational, the style interactive, and the primary focus is on ‘real-world’ applications. These combine to increase the likelihood of attendees having a simultaneously enjoyable, personally meaningful, and practical experience with an essential topic (professional ethics) that many HR professionals presume to be dry, academic, and difficult to apply in a personally meaningful manner.
Speaker Credentials:
Christopher Bauer is a licensed psychologist by training with over thirty years of experience as a speaker, trainer, author, and consultant. Between coaching, speaking and consulting, he has worked with front-line workers to senior executives and everyone in-between. Clients of Dr. Bauer have run the gamut from small and medium sized businesses and organizations to every level of staff and management at Fortune 500 corporations. He speaks frequently to HR organizations and conferences around the U.S.
Although ethics and fun are not words typically found in the same sentence, Dr. Bauer’s programs have long been helping international audiences build and maintain great ethics while having a terrific time. His keynotes and seminars are frequently billed as “Serious Ethics Programs That’ll Make You Laugh!”
Dr Bauer’s articles on how to build and maintain great professional ethics have appeared in such journals as CEO Refresher, CFO Magazine, Financial Executive, and many others. The latest edition of his book, “Better Ethics NOW: How To Avoid The Ethics Disaster You Never Saw Coming” has been a business ethics Top Seller on Amazon.com and he publishes a free “Weekly Ethics Thought” seen by thousands of readers worldwide.
Because of his unique contribution to the prevention of ethics problems, Dr. Bauer has been recognized with the Certified Fraud Specialist designation by the Association of Certified Fraud Specialists.
Additional information on Dr. Bauer’s programs is available at his website (www.bauerethicsseminars.com).
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Session: The Best Way to Recruit Diverse Talent? Stop Losing It! with Anthony Arrington and Nick Ford
Summary of Presentation
Many organizations invest a lot of time and resources in order to obtain talent, yet cannot keep it. This may especially the case with targeted diverse employees. They function like a leaky bucket–they keep filling up the talent bucket by hiring a few Black, Brown, and Biracial people; a few women; a person with a disability; or people from other marginalized groups. These hires make the annual metrics look good—but when you look around the company over a short time, why are those employees not still there? If they are still there, do they feel welcome? If so, then why have they not referred others from their marginalized group to come work for your company? Why is the bucket still leaking?
We believe the answer starts with your culture. This session will dive into why it is so crucial before you consider recruiting more targeted diverse candidates that you first understand your current DEI&B culture and the root issues that may be negatively impacting your success at this effort. You will hear examples of how listening to your people on a deeper level and allowing them to “empty their cup” in a way that is more than a metric survey will impact your ability to truly understand the health of the DEI&B culture. We will give you some insight into how DEI&B facilitation can be impactful to your journey.
Learning Objectives
Participants should gain an increased awareness and understanding of:
- Why recruiting diverse talent is not alone the answer to your DEI challenges
- Why focusing on your culture will increase the retention of targeted diverse talent, who can become your best recruiters.
- How to effectively evaluate culture and leverage culture to recruit and retain talent.
Speaker Biographies
Anthony Arrington, CDE®, CDF, CCA (He/Him/His)
Managing Partner
Anthony is a Certified Diversity Executive (CDE)®, Certified Diversity and Belonging Facilitator (CDF), and Certified Culture Assessor (CCA). A native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he received his BA in Communication Studies from The University of Iowa.
He has over 25 years of leadership, training, and consulting experience across multiple industries, including a decade of combined recruiting and DEI&B consulting experience. Throughout his career he has been an advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Anthony has worked with organizations to motivate a change in culture through crucial facilitated dialogue and the desire to listen to understand. He skillfully uses facilitation, consulting, coaching, assessments, and storytelling to help organizations transform their thinking, understand the value of DEI&B, and embrace their role as intentional drivers of this mindset throughout the fabric of their organization.
Anthony volunteers his time serving on multiple boards and committees in his community, especially those dedicated to advancing the opportunities and voice of underserved populations.
Nick Ford, CDE®, CCF, CCA (He/Him/His)
Managing Partner
Nick is from Cedar Rapids, IA. He is a Certified Diversity Executive (CDE)®, Certified Culture Facilitator (CCF), and Certified Culture Assessor (CCA). After graduation from high school, Nick served 21 years in the United States Navy in their Nuclear Power Program. He started his career as an enlisted member and worked his way up the ranks and retired honorably after successfully serving as a Limited Duty Officer. With over 30 years of leadership and training experience, Nick became a Master Training Specialist while in the Navy. He gained valuable experience in root cause analysis and change management, key leadership skills that he parlayed into his passion for aiding organizations in transforming cultures through DEI&B. After several years working in the private sector, Nick went back to college and received a BA in Business administration with honors from Coe College. He is a Sigma Beta Delta national honor society member.
Nick has volunteered and served on several boards with various non-profit enterprises aiding and assisting in the development of youth in Cedar Rapids.
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Session: Fundamentals to Effective DE&I strategies for Workplace Cultures using “The Big IDEAs model” with Lew Montgomery
Summary of Presentation
Everyone is talking about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) – Diverse, fair, and inclusive cultures foster connections, increase acceptance and tolerance, create trust, and improves morale. All of these are important and beneficial. Several programs fail or stall due to the approach resulting in the spin-cycle of talent. In this session, participants will learn how to effectively use the IDEA framework to help increase team productivity, job satisfaction, and employee retention. Participants will learn how to establish a fundamental base and work from a bottom-up approach that support the cultural efforts of organizations. The framework transforms traditional DEI strategies into a more rational way of cultural change that encourages open and honest communication and improved employee engagement.
Learning Objectives
Participants should gain an increased awareness and understanding of:
(1) Improved employee engagement
(2) How to encourage open and honest communication
(3) How to foster a culture of continuous improvement
Speaker Biography
Lew Montgomery is known for his leadership on and off the field. His career background spans over 30 years, and includes senior leadership roles in Human Resource management, Cultural Engagement (DE&I Officer) and Community Relations. Over the course of his career, he has held roles at Coca-Cola Enterprises, Alliant Energy, ConAgra Foods, and ACT Testing. He is currently the Senior Human Resources Director & DE&I Officer at The University of Iowa and serves as the Big 10 Advisory Representative for the University of Iowa. Lew graduated with a degree in Communication Studies and has mastered his profession to become one of the leading professionals in DE&I and Human Resources.
As a respected community leader, his involvement with underserved youth has earned him a successful career as a motivational and inspirational speaker. He has earned several leadership accolades. He has lectured at the local and national level and continues to impress listeners with is tact and professionalism.
His career success is paralleled to his past athletic success. A native of Waterloo, Iowa Lew was a standout athlete in High School and College and is best known as an All-Big Ten running-back at the University of Iowa, where he a co-captain, under coach Hayden Fry.
He is CEO of Lucas Gear, LLC an e-commerce company specializing in active wear for athletes and business professionals. He also owns and operates Gridiron Solutions, LLC, which is a corporate consulting company.
He has served on multiple non-profit and community board organizations. He is a lifetime member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, and part of the National Association of African Americans in Human Resources. Montgomery and his wife, Stacey, have four children: Mariah, Chelsey, Hailee, and Lucas. He remains active with supporting high school sports, serving as a sports analyst for KCRG 9.2 television in the fall and enjoys producing music, kickboxing, and relaxing with his wife of 32 years and spoiling their six grandchildren.