DisruptHR Conference

I first heard of DisruptHR in 2017, when a friend of mine convineced me to be one of the speakers. The point of the organization is to provide a conference where new ideas and trends in the realm of Human Resources management can be discussed. I have been volunteering for it every year since then. My volunteer work is light for this event - just a one-hour coordination meeting prior to the event plus helping on the day of the event. So, it fits well with my crazy schedule, and it's a great group of people!

In past years, I have been working in the speaker room. This year I moved to "Team Back Door" to do attendee check-in. There were four of us controlling entry through that door, and everything went really smoothly!

 

 
Tasty dinner

 

When I was done with check-in, I attended the sessions.

 

 

 

 

 

The format is neat - each speaker gets 5 minutes and the slides auto advance every 18 seconds. My favorites were the ones on hobbies, negative emotions, and love language. The hobbies one went over how important it is for people to have hobbies and how workplaces can support people in that. That part of the disengagement in the workforce nationwide is that people give too much to work, and don't pursue hobbies that could help them relieve stress, explore new strategies, or build a sense of belonging.

The one on negative emotions was a guy who does behavior science talking about how problems brew when people in the workplace assume anything negative they feel is caused externally and must be squashed. In reality, anxiety can help identify risks and frustration can help identify organization flaws. So, it is important for leaders to accept that they are feeling negative emotions and follow the trail to see where things can be improved.

And the love language talk was applying lessons from marriage counseling to employee engagement. If you don't know an employee's love language, you can think you're doing nice things to reward them but are actually leaving them feeling unacknowledged. Of course, she cautioned that love language of touch shouldn't translate to physical touching in the work place but to more 1:1 attention from supervisors, etc . She recommended that people could employ the love language assessments to help teams understand each other in the same way they use personality tests.

Great group to volunteer with!

 

 

 

We changed the style of bracelets we used to show people had checked in and could get free food from the food trucks. I really liked my ribbon.

 

Last updated 15Jun2025