Ready for My Learning Vacation at SHRM’s Annual Conference!

My colleague, Jennifer Rufatto, recently posted a blog in which she used the term “learning vacation” to combine two ideas—taking time out to rejuvenate and continually learning in your area of expertise.

While preparing for SHRM’s national conference in Las Vegas (going on now), and in reading Jennifer’s blog I began to think about the conference experience in a new way. My time at the conference is a learning vacation!

With this mindset, I approached my learning vacation with planning and preparation, just as I would a personal vacation.

1. I began my “packing,” by thinking about what I wanted to get from the conference experience, as there are certainly many professional and personal benefits. By identifying specific outcomes, I was able to set goals for my conference attendance.
2. I reviewed the overwhelming conference brochure and created an itinerary for each day of the conference, outlining the sessions I would attend based on my goals. Fortunately, SHRM offers an online planning tool that allowed me to easily build and print my itinerary.
3. I met with my colleague, Linda Dausend, who is also attending the conference, to share my goals and itinerary. Together, we discussed our approach for attending the conference and agreed on the sessions that each of us would attend.
4. I reviewed and printed the presentation materials for each of the sessions that I had noted in my itinerary. In doing this, I discovered that some of the session materials were not aligned with the description and were not actually beneficial to me, so I was able to choose another session that was more applicable to my goals!

I thoroughly prepared myself to learn! I knew what I wanted to get from the experience and I had the tools to be successful. What awaited me was unknown, but I did my part in setting up a successful experience. With my plan in hand, I was off to Las Vegas! (Follow tweets about the conference @FlashPointHR #SHRM11.)

Andrea Moore is Senior Consulting Manager at FlashPoint; Andrea focuses on leadership development, training and performance improvement solutions, and one-on-one coaching.