SHRM held its 66th Annual Conference & Exposition at the Orange County Convention Centre in Orlando from June 22 to 25. The convention centre, which is one of the largest in the United States, is located on International Drive. The impressive array of keynote speakers included Anchor of ABC’s “Good Morning America” Robin Roberts, Thomas Friedman, author David Novak and Laura Bush former First Lady. The conference included a show by the prominent country singer, Tim McGraw who entertained a capacity audience of happy conference attendees.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) was founded in 1948 and is the world’s largest HR membership organisation devoted to human resource management. Representing more than 275,000 members in over 170 countries, the Society is the leading provider of resources to serve the needs of HR professionals and advance the professional practice of human resource management. SHRM has more than 575 affiliated chapters within the United States and subsidiary offices in China, India and United Arab Emirates.

The conference attracted 13,000 attendees. This figure included 620 exhibitors and 260 speakers. They were over 1,136 international attendees representing 91 countries. The Caribbean was well represented with 193 participants from 20 Caribbean nations including Bermuda. The following Caribbean countries were represented: Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Netherlands Antilles, Saint Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago and Turks & Caicos. The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) were well represented as were the countries of the European Union. Some of the other countries represented were as diverse as Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan and Korea.

As there were 200 concurrent sessions for participants to attend the conference organisers helped attendees select from this vast array of choices by breaking the sessions into the following six tracks: Benefits & Compensation, Business Management & Strategy, Employment Law & Legislation, International HR, Personal & Leadership Development and Talent Management. These tracks were further broken down into the following nine primary human resource competencies: Business Acumen, Communication, Consultation, Critical Evaluation, Ethical Practice, Global & Cultural Effectiveness, HR Expertise, Leadership & Navigation and Relationship Management.

The exposition, which takes place during the annual conference, is the world’s largest marketplace for HR products and this year’s was no exception. There were 620 exhibitors with 1,200 booths of various sizes. In the exposition there were numerous products, presentations, displays and networking opportunities to satisfy the most demanding human resource professional. There were also lots of gifts, including books, distributed by the exhibitors. Solutions were provided in the following functional areas: Awards & Incentives, Child Care, Elder Care, Drug/Alcohol Testing, Employee Compensation & Benefit, Executive Search & Recruitment, Health, Wellness & Safety, HRIS and Management & HR Consulting.

The opening keynote by Robin Roberts was excellent. Roberts is the author of “From the Heart: Seven Rules to Live By” (Hyperion, 2007). She’s co-author of the memoir “Everybody’s Got Something” (Grand Central Publishing, 2014).

She is well known for her successful struggle with cancer. Four years after beating cancer she noticed a lump on her neck when covering the 2012 Oscars. She learned that she had myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare bone marrow disease. Without a bone-marrow transplant her life expectancy would have been one to two years. She received a bone-marrow transplant from her sister.

She emphasised the importance of early detection and said it can save your life. Roberts also said “We’re all a little stronger than we think we are.” At first she hesitated to share her cancer story with other others but then she remembered the words of her mother “make your mess your message.” She received a lot of support from her colleagues at ABC. This was very important to her during her struggle. They emphasised that it was important “to focus on the fight not the fright.” She said “It takes strength to raise your hand and say I need help.” She is a wonderful example of a determined individual overcoming the odds.

Roberts talked about her involvement in sports and her career as well as her struggle with cancer. She came across as a charismatic speaker comfortable with her topic and her audience.

She loves sports and wanted to be a professional athlete. She played for Southeastern Louisiana University’s women’s basketball team. However, she knew she wasn’t going to make it as a professional player so she decided on a career in sports broadcasting instead. She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012. To obtain experience in broadcasting she took a job with a country music radio station and subsequently worked with ESPN.

Roberts provided the attendees with a lot of useful advice. She admits to being an optimist and said “Optimism is a muscle and gets stronger with use.” I think most of us can agree with that. Optimism helps us deal with the challenges of life that we all face. A number of years ago I wrote an article titled ‘The Pygmalion Effect” which appeared in a number of international business journals. It covers the power of positive thinking coupled with actions and a lot of optimism. The power of our minds is grossly underutilised. Just think of the placebo effect used to cure sick patients by medical professionals. So let’s put on our positive thinking caps and face the world with optimism.

Roberts said it’s important to be patient with others. Everyone has an issue, a challenge. “Everybody’s got something. The tragedy is not the suffering. The tragedy is we don’t take time to understand the purpose.”

She continued: “You never know what others are going through when you meet them. Maybe they’re having a really bad day.”

This reminded me of the expression my late mother had: “Everyone has their own cross to bear.” Roberts advised her audience to “always give people the benefit of the doubt”.

Many psychologists tell us that a display of anger is often a cry for help. Roberts said: “People will forget what you said. They will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”

This quote is attributed to the late Maya Angelou and is something for us all to bear in mind when we interact with others in our daily lives.

Other advice she provided: “Be willing to make the necessary sacrifices”; “Dream big but focus small” (ie concentrate on the little things that will get you closer to your goal); “Be true to yourself, be authentic”; “Never be afraid to be who you are”; “Everyone has something to give”.

Next year’s conference will be held in Las Vegas from June 28 to July1.

Paul Loftus is an industrial/organisational psychologist, an intercultural consultant and a freelance journalist. He has been conducting both public and in-company management development seminars in Bermuda for over 20 years. He can be reached at (514) 282-9111; ploftus@colba.net; www.paulloftus.ca.