Leaders Create Human Workplaces

I’ve worked with a lot of leaders. A few are card-carrying members of The Bad Boss Diaries  but most of them are decent people. In the workplace, I’ve found that even good people sometimes make really stupid leadership decisions. And this sucks the humanity out of the workplace.

So when an ad appeared in my Facebook feed for the WorkHuman Conference, I clicked it. Who doesn’t want the workplace to be more human?

Billed as a “New kind of HR conference” that “helps organizations harness the transformative power of emotional connections,” my curiosity was piqued. Frankly, I don’t attend conferences very often because they’re rarely worth the time, expense and hassle. I reached out to my HR colleagues and asked, is this the real deal? To my surprise, the WorkHuman conference got a resounding “thumbs up.”

It’s decided: I’m in! The plane ticket is purchased and I’m heading to Orlando, Florida in May to attend.

From my perspective, this isn’t just a conference for HR leaders, talent management professionals and chief diversity officers. It’s a conference that all people in senior leadership should attend.

Because really, who is in the position to influence whether or not a workplace is “human” or not? Yep, that’s right—the leaders. So I’ll be personally contacting my colleagues who hold key leadership positions to make them aware of this conference. If it’s as good as it purports to be, it will open some eyes. Who knows, maybe it’ll even take a few of those Bad Bosses and turn them into the Decent People.

The conference is organized by Globoforce, a leading technology provider that specializes in cloud-based rewards and recognition. I reached out to the conference organizers to learn more. Turns out, the folks at Globoforce are serious about their mission to help make work “more human.” They talk about creating a “movement” that people can join to help harness the transformative power of emotional connections among colleagues. Their first WorkHuman Conference was in 2015 and my colleagues who attended said it was top-rate. More importantly, it wasn’t a three-day sales pitch masquerading as a learning conference.

Want to join me? Register here. Use code WH16JV300 and you’ll get $300 off your registration fee.

I hope to see you in Orlando!