The Local IPMA-HR group, primarily but not exclusively for those in the public sector, will have their spring breakfast Chapter meeting on Thursday, March 25th at 8:30am at the Smallwood Activities Center (formally the Parma Senior Citizens Center). Dr. Karen Gilliam, Organization and Employee Manager for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, will deliver a presentation on Change Management. Cost is $10 for members and $15 for non-members which will include breakfast.

Please RSVP before noon on Monday, March 22nd, by email:

esiegfried@cityofparma-oh.gov

I mentioned yesterday the Central Region of IPMA and their conference. If you are interested, they do offer a scholarship for the conference. 

The Central Region Conference will be held in Middleton, Wisconsin June 6 – 9, 2010. This year’s conference theme is “Human Resources: Adapt, Grow and MOOve Forward”. The Conference Program is designed to provide participants an excellent opportunity, through conference sessions and networking opportunities, to learn how to cope and effectively manage human resources in challenging economic times.

 There is a scholarship, which provides one free conference registration and reimbursement of up to $500 in expenses for a Central Region member. This provides an excellent opportunity for those members who would not otherwise have a means of attending the conference to attend. The scholarship application form is available at http://dinnerin.com/IPMA-HR-CENTRAL/scholarship.htm. Applications should be sent to Mr. Joseph Lubin, IPMA-CP, 6154 Mayfield Road, Mayfield Heights, OH 44124 and must be received by April 16th 2010.

I have a lot of news items and other trivia in my inbox that I will be cleaning out this week. First on the agenda, if you are interested in public sector HR, there is a new website for IPMA-HR Central Region. Plus, this will have information on the upcoming conference. You can find it here http://ipma-hr-central.org/

This comes from the International Public Management Network Listserv.

For anyone interested in the role of leadership in economic growth and development, you may wish to take a look at a new paper from the World Bank Institute (WBI) that links theories of leadership and organizational change in the context of development, and offers a new analytical framework for improving our understanding of how leadership actions create space for change and reform.

DEVELOPMENT AS LEADERSHIP-LED CHANGE

A Report for the Global Leadership Initiative and the World Bank Institute (WBI)

Matt Andrews, Jesse McConnell and Alison Wescott (February 2010)

http://www.ssrn.com/abstract=1551375

From the abstract, you can download the paper.

Arrangements are now underway for the 74th Annual IPMA-HR Central Region Conference at the Madison Marriott West in Middleton Wisconsin.   Mark your calendars for June 6-9, 2010.

The OFCCP is a federal agency that enforces employment discrimination laws for those organizations receiving federal funds. The Center for Corporate Equality (CCE) has released its annual report summarizing enforcement results developed by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) on their equal employment and affirmative action requirements. The report, A REVIEW OF OFCCP ENFORCEMENT STATISTICS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008, offers a detailed analysis of the agency’s fiscal year 2008 enforcement results that resulted in $67,518,982 in back pay and annualized salary and benefits for 24,508 American workers who had been subjected to unlawful employment discrimination. In addition, this report includes a comparison of enforcement results from FY 2007 to FY 2008. The in-depth results of this analysis provide useful information about OFCCP’s enforcement programs that the agency does not make publicly available. The report is available on CCE’s website at www.cceq.org.

There is a local chapter of IPMA-HR in Northern Ohio. They currently meet quarterly at various locations in and around northern Ohio. Cost of membership starts at $25 per year and is tiered based on the number of eligible employees in your agency. If you have questions about this group, you should contact:

• Jose A. Caraballo, PHR
• caraballoj@neorsd.org

For the more technically oriented reader in the audience, with a specific interest in advanced topics in assessment – there is a new blog out there. It can be found at http://www.assess.com/blog/. It is a product of Assessment System Corporation. They do a lot of good work in the area of computerized testing.

In order to give this rant some context – it was in response to an exchange regarding testing, and possible faking of responses, in public sector employment testing. Thus, leading to my complete change of topic and rant:

Educated – by whom? One of my great fears regarding testing, is that the problem is getting worse rather than better. Due to standardized testing pressures in the schools, from 1st grade on, or even before, school children are now being taught by their teachers that tests are bad, unfair, do not assess knowledge, and are otherwise full of testing tricks. The situation does not get better when students get to college, in Introduction to Psychology classes, students are taught about the evils of testing including the inherent biases against most cultures. The government can point to SIOP members and argue that there is no consensus that ability tests are really valid and free of bias, even if one could argue there is as much consensus as there is in the medical community regarding drugs or surgeries.

My esteemed colleague Winfred Arthur often asks the question as to whether if a test could be 100% accurate, would people want to use it or see the result? I fear we know how most people would answer that question.

We have met the enemy – and it is testing.

Of course, this problem is not limited to psychological tests for employment purposes. People often cheat or fake on clinical psychology tests, usually to fake bad rather than good (and see for example the huge controversy recently over the release of the Rorschach on Wikipedia). People cheat on drug tests. People cheat on medical exams.

And believe it or not, I am an optimist regarding human nature.

The local IPMA-HR Chapter meeting has been set for Thursday, October 22nd at 8:30am at the Brecksville Community Center. Karen Seidman, R.N., M.P.H., consultant to the Cuyahoga County Board of Health, will review the basics of seasonal flu and pandemic flu and share current information about vaccine and antiviral medicine. Cost will be $10 for members and $15 for non-members which will include breakfast. If you are interested in going, you should contact esiegfried@cityofparma-oh.gov by this Friday, October 16, 2009.