By Brenan German, Founder and President of Bright Talent
Like many of you, the pandemic halted my conference attendance routine. In the past five years I’ve only been to a handful of small, local events but not large conferences. Like a fitness routine, once stopped for an extended period, it’s hard to get started again.
Well, the SHRM Conference was hosted this year in neighboring San Diego, and an expo pass was generously offered to me by a colleague. My visceral reaction was funny when they asked me if I wanted an expo pass – it almost felt as if they had asked me to go for a jog. I haven’t jogged for a while, and my brain quickly deduced that it would likely be more pain than gain. After I got past my initial trepidation (which lasted 2 seconds but felt like 2 minutes), I said ‘yes’ but wondered if I meant it.
The next day, when I received an email with a pass to the expo, it felt like an exercise in accountability. I knew I had to go. I cleared my calendar for my planned expo visit. Then I pondered what I would drag out of the back of my closet to wear: business-casual with comfortable shoes, because I figured at the very the least I would get my steps in for the day.
Upon arrival I realized I had forgotten what 30,000 attendees look like. Probably the closest resemblance would be to a human ant hill with bodies going in every direction. The San Diego Convention Center is large, and the conference took up nearly the entire building. The Expo was equally large, running wall to wall with booths, people and swag in all directions.
I had four goals: look for new ideas/services, seek out competitors, find a prospective client and look for booths with cool messaging/branding (to copy later when we have a booth).
I started at one end of the expo and walked every aisle, up and down, all the way to the other side. As in years past, the smaller companies were on the outside perimeters – like fresh produce at the supermarket – whereas the well-packaged larger companies had massive displays near the center.
Leaning into my fitness routine metaphor, I started out with few expectations of myself other than to get started. Halfway through the expo, I had sweat on my brow and could feel my body shaking off the rust and finding a groove. I ran into some old friends, which helped mitigate some of my loneliness among all the people as I was finding my jam.
As I rounded the corner of the last aisle, it almost felt as if I’d stepped into M.C. Escher’s Relativity, because it resembled the aisle where I started. I knew this couldn’t be, but I started questioning myself… Did I walk too fast? Or was I experiencing symptoms of over-exertion? Every booth and person looked similar by now, nothing differentiated itself to align my bearings. Like searching for the stars at night for reference, I looked up and recognized a sign hanging in the center of the Expo and found my north star.
In any case, it felt good to get back in action and in my tribe of people. I realized I’d walked straight through lunch, so I hustled back to wait in line for a boxed turkey sandwich, chips, and cookie. Whew, there were still a few left.
I made my way outside to sit by the harbor, and I joined a group at a table. We made small talk and found a common topic to discuss: the challenges of using an HRIS after a bad implementation. We went old school and exchanged business cards instead of LinkedIn QR codes; perhaps we all felt it – there’s something about touching a business card that made it feel more real.
With all this said, I was able to achieve my four goals:
Looking for something new – Realizing this was a large, generalized conference covering HR, I didn’t find any new or disruptive ideas or services. It’s possible I missed a smaller company exhibiting somewhere on the periphery, but most of the expo exhibitors fell under the categories of compliance, payroll, L&D, assessments, employee recognition/retention and recruiting. Some bundled these, while others serviced these categories individually. It’s likely the innovators will be at HR Tech or other niche conferences.
Seeking competitors – We support mid-market companies, helping them optimize their people operations with solutions or subject matter experts across the employee experience lifecycle, including AI enablement. And, like my first goal, being that SHRM is a large, generalized conference, I didn’t find individual direct competitors, but I did find advisory groups inside the larger software platforms.
Find prospective clients – My lunch table group was awesome, and we had a great conversation. It so happened they all were experiencing software challenges that were burdening their operations. We parted ways committing to follow up after they returned from the conference. I don’t know if this will actually lead to business, but at the very the least I met some great HR people from the Midwest.
Unique messaging or branding – I am not a marketing expert, but I do know what I like and I’m a pretty fair judge of good versus bad practices. If you’re unable to convey your message within the few seconds someone walks by your booth, you’ll lose many people. I saw many smaller exhibits like this and wondered if they’d achieve their goals or any ROI. It was a good lesson for me. I did find one booth for a company our size that I liked as an idea for the future. I love the outdoors, and they carried an outdoor theme which caught my attention and the attention of others as well.
As for my overall observations about the conference, I’ll share a few:
The world does not need another payroll vendor. Or at least that’s what I thought, but I was proven wrong by the explosive growth of Deel and Rippling. It’s impressive how they’ve been able to steal market share from the old guard of ADP, PayChex, and Ceridian (aka Dayforce). I guess the old guard’s reputation for bad customer service is real. Perhaps they waited too long to adapt and left the window open for younger competitors. But – for real now – we don’t need any MORE payroll vendors.
Compliance remains the foundation of HR and an essential skill to keep our organizations and people operating well and safe. Every flavor and angle of compliance is now covered, as well as every type of business model that appeals to you. Like payroll vendors, the world has plenty of options for compliance support.
There is no shortage of swag in the world and no shortage of people willing to line up for it.
Would I exhibit at SHRM expo? Possibly, depending on the cost and strategy. I did find one of our vendors who validated a core reason for exhibiting. She said it allows them to see many clients at once. Clients look forward to seeing them, therefore they realize ROI from reinforcing existing relationships rather than trying to find leads. This was a good takeaway for me.
The number of exhibitors and offerings is overwhelming for attendees and, specifically, for the primary buyers – business owners and HR leaders. The goal for me, and any other HR service provider who wants to help these buyers, is to find the straightest path among the chaos, to help them select the right solution or combination of solutions. Being overwhelmed and concerned with the advancement of technology, it’s becoming more difficult for buyers to feel they’re making the right decision. The value we can provide is to simplify it for them by understanding their requirements for today while keeping an eye on the future – to help them navigate smoothly into tomorrow.
For those wondering, I did track my activity the day of the expo: I walked a little over a mile, calculating over 5,700 steps. Having decided to wear my “business shoes” it honestly felt like a lot more. But, most importantly, I got back into the routine. I have additional observations about technology and AI enablement, but I’ll save that for 1:1 discussions.
If any of my thoughts or observations from SHRM resonate with you and you want to discuss more, feel free to reach out to me directly.