The HR Games, part of the SHRM Student Conference was held in Austin,TX on April 19th and 20th. The Thunderbird team consisted of Brittany Baria, Landon Petersen and Arun Thomas. We competed among a pool of 5 graduate level teams from Texas A&M, University of Utah, Texas Women’s University and University of Texas El Paso (who the Thunderbird team edged out in the final). Attached is the winning team’s picture with SHRM’s Chair of Member Engagement, Tara Fournier.
Teams were given 4 hours to read, prepare,write a 2 page report and create a presentation on an HR case. The case centered around concepts on change management, formalizing HR policies, succession planning, employee engagement, and the business impacts of the aforementioned. It was about a family run hotel company in Chicago looking to follow through on its vision of engaging customers and employees while trying to expand its operations nationally.
The first presentation where we pitched our approach was to a panel of judges who acted as the company’s managers who were reviewing consulting teams. The final presentation was to a panel of judges who played the role of the family who owned this business. Each of the two presentations ended with intense Q&A sessions.
The Thunderbird was accompanied by Dr. Ann Nelson and Jason Viken, who are the student relations representatives for Arizona SHRM.