2011 Milliman Breakfast

Thank you to Milliman USA, specificly Stephanie Eng, for the invitation to the 2011 Milliman USA breakfast held at Safeco Field. It was a pleasure to see Stephanie and the other consultants from Milliman, including John, Greg, Larry and Connie. It was also great to see friends from the Northwest Compensation and Rewards Forum and from past and existing project work. The panel was very informative and the audience asked good questions of the panel members.

My main take away is that merit budgets continue to remain conservative and the trend is that those budgets will continue to remain tight for the next few years at least. My second take away is that while pay and benefits remain very important, especially in recruitment efforts, the culture and work experience are key in motivating and engaging existing employees.

I look forward to the Northwest Compensation And Rewards Forum meeting in October. It's great to get out and visit with other like minded professionals.

nextcompTV - Episode 15

One final video from the WorldatWork show in San Diego. A few shots of the walk to the conference center and the 8x speed up booth take down. Next up on nextcompTV is a discussion of Total Rewards and what I learned at the conference.

nextcompTV - Episode 13

Setup day at the 2011 WorldatWork conference and exposition in San Diego with the 8x super speed booth setup and an interview with Audrey Johnson, Visibility Manager at WorldatWork.



Be sure to follow @nextcomp on twitter to get ongoing updates from the Expo.

I'll also be at the social event this evening on the Midway.

I hope to see you there!

2011 WorldatWork Expo

I just finished booking my flight and my hotel for the 2011 WorldatWork expo in San Diego starting on Monday, May 23rd and continuing on Tuesday, May 24th.

I'm excited about the show this year. I'm looking forward to seeing friends and meeting new people. I'm also really happy that it's in San Diego. I love the city and the surrounding areas. I'm especially looking forward to walking around the Gas Lamp district, finding a local coffee shop and maybe poking around in some galleries.

The first ever WorldatWork show that I went to as an exhibitor was in San Diego back in 2003. That makes this my 9th exhibition. I have to say that there have been a lot of changes in nine years. The biggest shift has been the focus on total rewards. It was right around this time, maybe 2004/2005 that WorldatWork unveiled their total rewards model. In 2003 there were mostly compensation, benefits and technology related booths at the show. In 2010 at least half the booths related to performance management, work-life, and career development. I think this is a good direction for our profession. It recognizes all the aspects of the employee value proposition.

I'll be in booth #227 for the expo. Stop by and say hi if you're going to the show!

Here's a link to more information about the expo

http://www.worldatwork.org/waw/sandiego2011/attendee/index.jsp