8:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m.
Chairperson's Welcome & Opening Remarks

Jason Anthoine, APR, Senior Vice President, Brand and Talent
MSL ATLANTA

8:40 a.m.

Engage Or Entangle? How To Link Communications Objectives That Result In Employee Entanglement

The financial unrest in the past four years has led to later retirement. There are now four generations active in the workplace. And when all is said and done, the current workforce is the least engaged in history.

How does an organization successfully communicate with: four generations, a workforce that has Millennials as the most populous generation and women as the most populous gender? Will an economic recovery lead to high turnover in firms with disengaged workers? Why do managers like engaged workers and leaders like entangled staff?

The answers are critical for workforce/organization alignment and can be solved with effective communication tools.

Targeted for communications professionals, human resource professionals and leaders, this session will help you to:

• Clarify the damage of unengaged staff
• Define the productive and profitable difference between engaged and entangled staff
• Reveal methods of entanglement used by several award-winning employee centric organizations
• Illustrate communication instruments that speak from staff to staff

Tom Walter, CEO & Founding Partner
TASTY CATERING

9:30 a.m.

How To Engage Employees On Day One To Align Your Workforce To Your Business Goals

It’s no secret that an effective onboarding program gets employees engaged, primed and ready to help your organization reach its goals, while increasing their productivity and speed to contribution.  But, it’s also no secret that onboarding usually falls in the lap of the HR function. So what role do communicators play in this process?

At Molex, it’s an important one. Responsible for more than 35,000 employees around the globe that help make more than 100,000 products, the Molex corporate communications team was faced with the task of getting newly-hired employees ready to work for their company. It seemed simple: introduce their company’s leaders, teach their business and manufacturing processes, share their culture and values and describe their rich, 73-year history—in under one hour, no PowerPoint, in multiple languages—on day one.

In this presentation and demonstration, the Molex corporate communications team will show you how to:

• Engage employees the moment they walk through the door
• Develop an interactive learning module that places emphasis on learning
• Create a consistent message that your HR professionals can deliver
• Re-educate and align your current workforce to your business goals
• Transform a static, 20th century presentation into a dynamic program for the 21st century

10:20 a.m.

Break-Out Blitz! Network And Discuss Employee Engagement Challenges With Your Fellow Conference Attendees

This session will open the conversation by connecting you with other conference participants and gain greater understanding into many similar issues, concerns, and challenges that your peers are also facing.  Become acquainted with your fellow conference attendees in this fun and fast-paced forum!

11:20 a.m.

How To Leverage The Latest Social Media Tools To Drive Employee Engagement Across Your Organization

Most organizations find it difficult to communicate, collaborate, or even share ideas or best practices.  Most companies have very specific goals that they are trying to accomplish to foster innovation and improve communication. To overcome these challenges, they are attempting to leverage social media tools to engage their employees.

1. What they developed and why
2. How they learned about their own culture and discovered that it’s not what they thought they knew
3. That culture is culture whether you like it or not

Finally, we will outline how they used collaboration tools to change the way they do business and highlight what worked, what didn’t, and how your organization can take hold of what they discovered and apply it to your own emerging social media strategy.

12:10 p.m.

Enabling Employees To Effectively Converse And Collaborate In The Digital Age— And Reap The Benefits For Your Organization

There’s a digital conversation going on right now. All over the globe, individuals are sharing information, expertise, making decisions, building relationships, and more, without even leaving their seats. Sentiment and knowledge are being created around topics that could have a direct impact on your business. Are you out there? Are you part of the conversation? Are your employees? Are your competitors’ employees?!

In today’s digital world, the employee and the relationships and conversations that employee has in the digital space, is defining the brand. Because of this, we need to ensure that our employees have the tools they need to reach out so that they can effectively participate in it: from conversing about topics they are experts in, to relationship building, to globally collaborating on projects with other employees, partners, clients, peers, and the general public. The more digitally active your employees are both inside and outside your company, the more current, credible and responsive your company will be viewed.

Using examples from IBM, you will learn lessons on how to:

• Enable employees to build and share their expertise inside and outside the company
• Generate, aggregate and promote social conversations of interest to your company
• Create a globally collaborative employee culture both internally and externally

Kevin Winterfield, Social Systems and Digital Influence
IBM

1:00 p.m.
Lunch On Your Own -- But Not Alone!

Join a group of your colleagues for lunch with an informal discussion facilitated by one of our expert speakers. Take this opportunity to join others in a small, interactive group setting to network and brainstorm solutions to your most pressing employee engagement concerns.

2:30 p.m.

The Power Of Values, Choice, Transparency, Idea Sharing, And Innovation Through Social Media And Employee-Driven Strategic Planning

New Belgium Brewing Company was often said to be born from a bike seat. Before the company’s start, an aspiring young home brewer rode his mountain bike with "fat tires" through European villages famous for beer, and soon, his first brewed creations were crafted in his basement.

From there, the company’s owners created what is now an alternatively-empowered, employee-owned, and very successful beer brand, which resulted into a fun-filled, story-telling, sustainable business model that is founded on a strong value system that the New Belgium Brewery coworkers live by to connect, collaborate, and engage in company culture, community, strategic planning, project management, and beyond.

This session will demonstrate how to use and explore social media in the workplace to ensure that there are multiple avenues for your employees to use their voice and instigate change and innovation. In this session, you will take away lessons learned from this growing corporation on how important it is to implement a communications plan. Specifically, you will learn how to:

• Create a path for your employees, allowing them to engage with one another
• Be an active part of your company’s overall success
• Design a corporate culture that contributes to the success of your team

When you let your employees be a part of your company’s story, you might be surprised what can happen!

3:20 p.m.

Afternoon Refreshment & Networking Break

3:35 p.m.

Staying 'Intouch' With Associates: How To Connect To A Rapidly Growing Workforce And Value Their Belonging To Drive High Performance And Results

Intouch Solutions is a leader in digital integration for pharmaceutical marketing. They have the ability to bring awareness of the brand to consumers through websites, e-mail content streams, display media, search marketing, social media, mobile media and interactive applications. So it only makes sense that they use similar multimedia tools in place internally for their own associates.

• Understanding the challenges and obstacles that lead to a breakdown in communication from an HR perspective
• Learning what basic information was needed for HR to enhance communications across the organization
• Seeing the 5-step strategy that was created to introduce different roles, responsibilities and resources throughout the company
• Viewing the additional tools in the works to continue to meet communication needs as the organization continues to grow and expand geographically

Laura Simcox SPHR, HR Director
Intouch Solutions

4:25 p.m.

Using Employee Engagement And A Powerful Brand Platform To Invigorate Your Visual Identity

As the world’s largest manufacturer of coins— gold and silver investment, as well as commemorative— the United States Mint plays a crucial role in enabling commerce.

Some critical components of the bureau’s strategic mission include increasing sales of collectible coins, encouraging the use of the dollar coin, and boosting public understanding that the U.S. Mint is the only legal manufacturer of all American coins. In 2010, the U.S. Mint decided to invest in a new identity platform to improve public perception and to meet the challenges of these goals.

The key to strengthening the U.S. Mint’s visual identity was to reposition itself with an emphasis on employees. The public's understanding of what it does and sales of collectible coins were two areas that needed improvement. Working with Siegel+Gale, leadership at the bureau came to the conclusion that new employee-focused communications and activities could greatly influence its culture and ultimately, how it is perceived externally.

Siegel+Gale developed an informational and inspirational video to enliven the Mint's story and make it known across the organization. The firm created a new intranet for U.S. Mint, and also implemented a Train-the-Trainer program for key stakeholders.

During this discussion, you’ll hear the strategies that can help your organization reposition their brand and develop their story-telling techniques, which turn employees into advocates. Specifically, you’ll learn about ways to:

• Engage employees using strategic “touchpoints” to reach and activate
  this important audience
• Help your organization understand and use its true voice to drive cost
  savings through one consistent visual framework
• Raise awareness and excitement about your organization by
  engaging key stakeholders
• Use clear and elegant visual communications
• Take advantage of new digital tools to help organizations realize their true potential

Mike Stojsavljevich, Former Chief Strategy Officer
U.S. MINT

Matt Huss, Senior Strategist
SIEGEL+GALE

5:15 p.m.

End Of Day One

5:20 p.m.

Networking Reception: Please Join Us!

We invite you to join us for a drink as you relax with your peers. All conference attendees and speakers are welcome to join us for this special opportunity to continue networking. Don't miss this chance to benchmark new ideas over complimentary drinks!

Sign up during the day for dinner with a group. Take advantage of Chicago’s fine dining while you continue to network with your colleagues.