Hey, Game Changers!
Yeah, I’m talking to you, Pritika Padhi (Game Changers Class of 2019), and you, Jason Hite (Class of ’16) and you too, Monica Sauls (Class of ’13) and Tiffani Murray, who was among the 11 recipients in our inaugural class of Game Changers in 2011.
We are launching a blog specifically dedicated to you, for you and by you! It will be a community blog that all Game Changers can post to. And it can be on any topic under the people management umbrella.
We now head into a decade of Game Changers, our awards program recognizing workforce management professionals under 40 who are pushing the field forward with innovative people-management practices.
For the first time in the program’s history, our judges selected 40 Game Changers in 2019. While the majority works in the United States, numerous winners also span the globe, from Nigeria to Norway to Bahrain, as well as several winners from across India.
The thread that ties this year’s winners with all past recipients is that their efforts engage employees and help their respective companies succeed.
And while Game Changers is a 40-under-40 program, our first couple of classes are pushing 50 years old now. Crazy to think how time flies.
No matter what year you were named, consider your area of game-changing expertise as a starting point. Think broadly about how HR affects the workplace, and how the workplace affects HR. What is unique to HR practices in your geographical area? Are there news issues affecting HR? Are there big-picture workplace issues you’d like to address? These are all topics to blog about.
Now, we have lost touch with a number of our past winners. Job changes, shifting from one content management system to another, lost Excel docs(who uses Excel anymore right? All about Google docs in 2019!). Whatever the reason we want to reconnect and maintain you as a Workforce thought leader.
We want to ask you, our vast audience, to help. If you have a colleague who was recognized as a Game Changer please let them and us know! Our contact information is below.
You Game Changers can blog up to once a week if you’d like, or as often as time allows, or even never. It’s just that as young, up and coming thought leaders in your field, this is an opportunity to engage and enlighten our readership (and do a bit of personal brand-building, as well!). As of right now we’re planning to title the blog simply “The Game Changers.”
The parameters are simple. Word count is between 450 and 850 words (if you have an amazing idea worth more words, just ask; we’re pretty lenient); no outright promotion of a company or product; write in a persuasive, op-ed style (first person is fine if you’d like); and have fun with it! Blogs are supposed to be engaging and spur discussion, so engage and spur some discussion!
When you file your blog, please send it to me, Rick Bell (rbell@humancapitalmedia.com), and my Workforce colleague Andie Burjek (aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com). In the email subject line please use: Game Changer blog post: (your name) and a 4-6 word descriptor of the content (i.e., mentoring can be beneficial to recruiting). Andie or I will edit and post as quickly as we can.
Oh, and please include tagline similar to this: Jennifer Benz leads Segal Benz, a national leader in HR and employee benefits communications. She was honored as one of Workforce’s Game Changers in 2013. Contact her at jbenz@segalbenz.com or follow her on Twitter at @jenbenz. Yes indeed, our esteemed “Benefits Beat” columnist is a member of the Class of 2013.
And by all means, we ask that you please share it on all of your social media channels once it posts.
We are planning to launch the blog the week of Aug. 10. Feel free to contribute in the next couple of weeks so we have a well of content going into the launch.
Any questions, comments or thoughts just drop a note to Andie and me.
Thanks, good luck and happy blogging!
— Rick Bell and Andie Burjek