Conference Schedule
Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Steve Fredlund (The Safari Dude) unveils the secret to building powerful, productive, and engaged teams:

Get the “Right Peeps in Your Jeeps”! Hear compelling personal stories from African safaris and learn how to find, attract, and onboard the right team members to become part of your epic organizational team. Unlock the power of employee behavior and discover the surprising root drivers of productivity, engagement, and retention. Create an epic adventure for your team and get ready for success and happiness!

After the talk, the audience will:
1. Discover the research that proved cultural alignment and connection are more powerful than skills, knowledge and abilities in driving productivity, engagement, and retention
2. Learn new paradigms for hiring, managing, and leading
3. Develop a strategic organizational strategy for selecting and onboarding the “right peeps for their jeeps” that will lead to success, happiness, and longevity
4. Discuss the tools necessary for leading these secrets up to your organizations C-suite and making them part of your business strategy.

Intended Audience: Private Sector / Public Sector

Steve Fredlund

Talent and workforce professionals speak with a louder voice now when the company/organization strategic growth goals and strategies are set. This session helps you focus on what external factors are influencing your firm’s desired outcomes, and more effectively frame discussions about its goals. We also give you info on how to influence the growth and expansion plans of your operation and be an effective expansion project team member.

• Use and Design of Strategic Scenarios in Business Planning
• Creating Implementation Plans versus Guiding Statements for the Business/Department
• Tools to Assess or Impact Talent Supply in Business and Growth Plans

Steven J. Dust

Burke is dedicated to bringing financial comfort and independence to the clients that he works with and serves every day. Working with his clients has become the most rewarding part of his career.

Burke started in the financial services industry in Sacramento, California in 1988 with Northwestern Mutual. He moved into a field leadership position while in Sacramento in 1994. Over the next 20 years, Burke served in various leadership positions in the financial services industry with major multi-billion-dollar companies.

He has held various certifications, including general securities representative, general securities principal, Registered Representative and Investment Advisor Representative, and he is currently a licensed insurance professional.

Burke Anglin
Director of Financial Solutions
Jennings Insurance Group

Developing and implementing an effective Wellness program will actually save employees money and foster healthier employees. In this session we will discuss the importance of Wellness Programs for both the employer and their employees.
• How to design and implement a wellness program to improve the culture, save money and improve the insurance benefits

Kent Friend
National Strategic Benefit Consultant
Bukaty Companies

Kent joined Bukaty Companies with 30 years of experience building, running and consulting for companies ranging from small to Fortune 500.

He understands what it takes to design an employee benefits program that is attractive to both employers and employees. With all his talents in the finance and operations world, Kent works diligently to provide solutions across the nation the many services Bukaty Companies can assist companies and executives with — Group Health Insurance, Commercial P&C, HIPAA compliance, COBRA administration and payroll, to mention a few.

By keeping the client’s needs as the driver, Kent implements a strategy that allows his clients to stay focused on what they do best.  His new clients have been averaging over a $1,600 per year savings per employee… and they now have better benefits.

Kent is a seasoned public speaker on multiple topics and is known a ones of the nation’s leading expert on Wellness programs, Contributions Strategies, Strategic Plan Design, Direct Contracting and Cost Containment programs. No one brings more passion to their clients than he does.  Kent and his team deliver a world class benefit / insurance experience -so his clients can stay focused on running their company. 

Kent graduated from the University of Missouri – Columbia, with a combined degree in Marketing/ Management/ Public Relations.

Licensed in Life & Health / Commercial Property & Casualty 

Verticals

 All companies over 10 employees – Associations, Auto, Banks, Churches, Construction, Distribution, Food Industry, Gaming and Hospitality, Manufacturing, Marine, Medical providers, Public, Schools, Utilities, 501-c3’s.

Innovation is a skill not a gift.

Great news because you can actually do something about that – you can help staff learn a skill! You may have staff who already have the skill and who are already using it. You may have staff who need to enhance their skill in innovative thinking and action. And likely, you have a team with both. Your role as a leader is to help all your staff enhance their innovation skill and shape the nature and success of their innovation efforts. In this session you’ll learn how to create a culture that encourages and supports innovative thinking and action. And then we’ll work on how to influence employees to produce innovative ideas, products, and services. Plan to walk away with powerful tools to influence your organization’s culture, leadership & performance.

Learner Objectives:
• identify the specific behaviors of innovation needed in your organization (or for a specific job)
• assess employees’ innovation skills against your need
• have immediately usable methods for enhancing employees’ innovation skills
• have ways to create the culture of innovative thinking and action your organization needs

Carolyn Thompson
President
Training Systems, Inc.

Carolyn B. Thompson is President of , a customized performance improvement and HR consulting company dedicated to helping small and medium sized organizations enhance their ability to recruit, inspire and retain quality employees and improve performance
through training. also provides training design and delivery services to training companies, the training departments of large companies and trade &. professional associations. Carolyn is responsible for marketing and helping clients determine the best methods for achieving their performance needs.

She’s also thrilled to do lots of keynotes and her style is highly interactive, including many hands-on learning methods no matter how huge the group! Carolyn has facilitated sessions throughout the country for trade/professional associations and small, medium and large companies, both for profit and non-profit. Over the past fifteen years she has worked with tens of thousands of people from students to entry level staff to managers at all levels.

Conducting investigations is a regular occurrence for most human resource professionals. However, mistakes are still made. Reviewing best practices for conducting investigations is necessary in order to ensure your investigations are conducted effectively, while helping to create a culture where stakeholders feel comfortable bringing complaints forward, fostering confidence in the company’s process and decisions, and also reducing future civil litigation/damages.

1) Be able to identify a definitive process for conducting HR investigations;
2) Recognize common mistakes in the investigation process; and
3) Identify potentially difficult legal issues, requiring assistance.

Joe Wientge

Elizabeth (Libby) A. Stevenson

Training and development are at the heart of growing a powerful and productive team. The challenge arises when so many things are changing in your business. How do you keep up with all the things on which you need to train your team? Train to the Process, Not the Outcome will give leaders a new outlook on training and development centered on principles and process. You cannot know every circumstance your team will face. This session will give you the power to go beyond that and create an organizational team that can adapt, overcome, and win daily.

Objectives:
1. Understand the power shift when process becomes your training mantra.
2. Learn why principle is a more effective training method than tactics.
3. Learn the 4-step process to transform your organization to process-based training.
4. Develop a plan to make process based training a part of your organizational culture at every level.

David Porter
Attorney
Porter Law, LLC

In this session, we will provide a review of case law relating to the Americans with Disabilities Act (as amended), the Family and Medical Leave Act and Missouri’s workers’ compensation law. We will discuss their intersection and the implications of considering each in a vacuum, without regard to other statutory frameworks. We will also focus on the passage of recreational marijuana use in Missouri and a new law that prohibits employers from discriminating against or taking adverse action against an employee who has a valid medical marijuana patient ID card.

* Discuss managing today’s workforce in the context of medical leave and returning employees to work.
* Discuss updates on ADA, FMLA, Work Comp case law and how they impact managing medical leave.
* Work through fact scenarios to further understand the intersection of these laws.

This presentation will focus on recent union activity in America, including organizing trends and employer best practices, highlighting legal traps and strategies for keeping your workplace issue-free.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand recent developments in labor law and union organizing activity
2. Evaluate the impact a union can have on your workplace
3. Identify risk factors in your workplace that may cause employees to seek union assistance
4. Develop strategies for maintaining an issue-free workplace

Understanding and utilizing DISC as an on boarding and team building tool to enhance employee satisfaction and performance.

Learning objectives:
• Understand individual behavioral styles and how that affects communication and job performance.
• Discover the magic markers of pace and priority.
• Interpret the difference between natural and adaptive styles.
• Recognize conflicts between styles.

Measurable participant outcomes:
• Clearly identify and name the 4 primary behavior styles.
• Explain pace and priority and how it applies in identifying the 4 personalities.
• Identify potential points of conflict between styles.
• Recognize tensions between natural and adaptive styles.
• Create an action plan to enhance communication between the differing behavioral styles.

Intended Audience: Private Sector / Public Sector

Organizations have bold goals and develop tactics and strategies to achieve these goals. Then the organizations focus on day-to-day work takes priority. This session will explore how organizations can use the tools provided to recognize and shatter the Status Quo.

During this session we will explore:
1. The symptoms and causes of status quo
2. The forces preventing individuals, leadership, and organizations from moving away from the status quo
3. Actions Leadership and individuals can take to level-up – day after day, month after month, and year after year
4. Strategies organizations can take to:
a. Recognize where they might be accepting the status quo AND what can be done
b. Determine how to BE more and DO more with the resources it has RIGHT NOW – without creating chaos

In this presentation, we will walk through the top business immigration law issues we are seeing in the current climate. This presentation will examine the latest coming from the White House and related executive agencies affecting U.S. immigration. We will discuss the status of consulates, ICE and DOJ enforcement against employers, and recruiting and retaining international personnel.

* Global Mobility
* Recruitment and Retention
* Elimination of Bias
* I-9 Compliance

Please join us for an interactive session discussing Implicit Bias in the workplace. We will discuss the ins and outs of Implicit Bias as well as best practices to implement positive changes within your organization.

Learning Objectives
o Define and Provide Examples of Implicit Bias
o Discuss the Impact of Implicit Bias
o Best Practices for Minimizing Implicit Bias

Intended Audience: Private Sector / Public Sector

Discover the three areas inside a company that impact employee turnover the most and how your company can create a happier and healthier environment that retains and attracts the best employees..
Learning objectives
• Revealing the hidden reasons why employee turnover really happens.
• Why effective communication at all levels is the secret sauce.
• How different leadership styles impact your corporate culture.
• Learn to adjust your corporate culture and your leadership team to create a healthy and happy environment.

With an estimated 53 million informal caregivers in the US today, the caregiving crisis is here and growing. Caring for a loved one is rewarding but also challenging. One in five full-time employees are struggling to balance caregiving responsibilities with their workload, professional goals, and everyday life. Navigating these responsibilities and challenges has a negative impact on productivity, engagement, and overall wellbeing. As the need for caregivers continues to grow, now is the time to understand the leading causes to caregiver burnout, and to provide tools and resources so your employees can focus on what matters most – caring for their loved ones and themselves.

In this session you will learn methods to:
• support broader organizational people strategies and DE&I initiatives;
• drive employee engagement and productivity by identifying ways to support their caregiver responsibilities;
• reduce absenteeism and turnover by creating a culture to empower and support your working caregivers.

Learner Outcomes
At the end of each training session, the attendee will:
1) Know some of the behavioral, physical and emotional signs and impacts of drug and alcohol use on an individual as well as:
a) Recognize paraphernalia associated with the use of drugs
b) Become aware of the negative impact of various levels of alcohol concentration in the human body by using learning tools (e.g., beer goggles)
c) Recognize other signs of potential substance misuse/use in the workplace
d) Identify some of the dangers associated with the usage of drugs and alcohol
2) Learn different confrontation methods as well as documentation procedures
3) Understand current trends and how they impact safety in the workplace

Participants will also receive an informational manual for future reference. The manual includes
information presented during the workshop, a sample documentation form, and sample confrontation
wording.

Compounding stressors of the last 3 years have laid the groundwork for significant changes in the workplace.

Is your workplace prepared to meet the growing needs to emotionally support your workforce and develop them professionally and personally? Creating a healthy workplace is more than just training, but rather creating healthy policies that build upon foundations of rejuvenation and recovery that supports your workforce and their mental health needs. Participants will outline a policy they need to allow employees at all levels to feel supported emotionally in the workplace. Discussion will follow about best practices for workplace wellbeing. We will discuss strategies for challenging the status quo and thinking outside the box.

Learning Objectives:
1. Identify an emotionally healthy workplace
2. Create steps to introduce healthier policies in the workplace that enhance their own work wellbeing.
3. Brainstorm ways to have the conversation about wellbeing with other employees, subordinates, and supervisors and upper management.
4. Recognize the need for policies congruent to an emotionally healthy workplace

Almost all employers use “independent contractors” of some kind to assist in their businesses. However, the United States Department of Labor has proposed new regulations which will significantly restrict who can be classified as an independent contractor. Employers who fail to change their practices may find themselves subject to liability under the Fair Labor Standards Act. To prepare, employers should understand how the new rule restricts who can be considered an “independent contractor” and who must be treated as an employee, the typical relationships that are the focus of the DOL’s proposed rules, and strategies for complying with these new rules.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
– Understand the new DOL Rule defining “employment” for purposes of the FLSA
– Understand how the new rules will change existing analysis for who is an independent contractor.
– Understand how to identify relationships that may need to be changed after the new DOL takes effect.
– Strategies for complying with the new DOL Rule.

Are you finding it difficult to hire quality staff? Once you’ve hired them and trained them, do they take that experience down the street? You’ll learn that recruiting is a marketing and sales process, just like those you now use to let people know the services/products of your organization. In this session – which may forever change the way you approach recruitment and retention – you’ll learn to look at and care for potential talent prospects and the staff you ultimately hire with the same passion you do for customers.

You’ll also discover exciting ideas for targeting just the prospects you need and evaluating your organization’s current management practices to fit that target. In fact, when you leave, you’ll have a plan that’s half written!

Learner Objectives:
• discover and communicate the very specific qualities/skills/knowledge you’re seeking and have immediately usable ideas on where to find your target market of employees
• have wording that makes this specific target want to work with you and your organization have the recruitment plan half finished
• develop your recruiting plans as an organizational business strategy
• Learn to work interdepartmentally to determine specific operational needs.