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Discover Your Inspiration Why Attend?

When it comes down to it, HR is about people success and people success leads to organizational success. Whole-heartedly supporting your employees’ health & wellbeing is just the root of a people-centric culture. To be truly people-centric you need to go beyond basic benefits and workforce perks and consider how your people want to work and how to inspire them to perform their best. EPIC 2024 is your unparalleled opportunity to cultivate valuable connections and realize innovative and transformative opportunities that go beyond best practice to foster a thriving people-centric culture within your organization.

Cutting-Edge Actionable Content

On point and cutting-edge sessions and workshops are curated by our conference chair, an expert with more than 25 years of HR transformation experience, to ensure you receive real-world strategies and practical tips and not sales hype. Topics covered include, but are not limited to:

Identity, Activism and the role of HR
Fostering Innovation in Policies
Human-Centered Design for Your People
Asynchronous Work as a Driver of Inclusion
Championing Virtual Engagement and Well-being
Unlock Belonging to Drive Performance
Employee Resource Groups as Business Assets
Establishing a Culture of Learning
Supporting Working Parents
Creating Workspaces Honoring Emotional Well-Being
Optimizing Talent Health
Financial Care for Employee Wellbeing
Supercharging Your Employer Ratings
Employee Listening Programs
AI-Enabled Solutions for Emotional Wellbeing
Healthy Culture Habits of High-Performance Organizations
ESG Reporting and Transparency
Adaptability and Resilience Strategy at Work
The Employer Brand Relationship
Intentional and Meaningful Employee Experiences
Employee Value Proposition vs. Employee Value Experience
Humanity and People-Centric Cultures in the age of AI
Fluid Organization Design & Fungible Resourcing Trends
Tackling Social Wellbeing through Relationship Support
Forgiveness as a Business Imperative
Employee Separation Processes with Empathy
Removing Work Friction that Impacts Productivity
Preparing Managers for Mental Health Conversations

Opening Keynote

Adam "Smiley" Poswolsky​

Workplace Belonging Expert
and Best-Selling Author

Belonging in the Future of Work:

Creating Human Connection and Community in the Era of Hybrid, AI and Overwhelm

Wednesday, April 24 | 8:30 – 9:30 a.m.
In a lonely, nonstop, overwhelmed workplace; as time spent face-to-face has been replaced with wall-to-wall Zoom meetings, 24/7 Slack messages, and the rapid rise of AI and ChatGPT; workplace connection has withered. 43% of employees don’t feel a sense of connection to their coworkers, 38% don’t trust their coworkers, and 22% don’t even have one friend at work. And 70% of employees are disengaged from their jobs — with disengagement at a record high. Lonely employees are less productive and cost U.S. employers $4,000 per employee and $406 billion a year. Meanwhile, high levels of belonging can save a company $52 million a year and provide employees with greater resilience, well-being, personal and professional growth.
 
In this Opening Keynote, Smiley will share how you can attract and retain top talent, reignite human connection and increase team engagement by creating a culture of belonging for your employees. He’ll share actionable and easy-to-implement tools for fostering team engagement, psychological safety and supporting teams with the common experiences of disconnection, burnout and anxiety about the impact of AI and ChatGPT. In the end, you’ll have an easy-to-use toolkit to reimagine a collaborative, inclusive, people-first culture and become a industry leader in the future of work.

Wednesday Afternoon Keynote

Corey Bunch

Paula
Starr

Samantha Hendricks

Chief of Staff, Cherokee Nation

Chief Information Officer, Cherokee Nation

Executive Director Human Resources, Cherokee Nation

Leading with Purpose at the Cherokee Nation

Wednesday, April 24 | 3:00 – 4:00 p.m

Culture is what makes an organization unique and that is especially true at Cherokee Nation. Forbes has recognized Cherokee Nation as a Top 10 Employer in the state of Oklahoma based on its increase in internal minimum wage, focus on mental wellness and ensuring gender equality and family leave benefits. In this session, you’ll learn how their innovative and people-centered approaches- boost engagement and will improve the quality of life for the next seven generations of Cherokee Nation citizens.

Thursday Morning Keynote

Tiffany Stevenson

Tiffany Stevenson

Chief People Officer, WeightWatchers

Cultural Architecture: Scaling for Impact

Thursday, April 25 | 8:45 – 9:45 a.m.

It’s almost a rite of passage for CHROs to tinker with company values and culture. If we’re not careful, this important work can fade into the realms of fancy swag and cool wall art. But with a bit of engineering and intention, company mission and values have the power to transform your brand and drive great achievement for your organization. Whether you’re facing a change in strategy, positioning or a total overhaul, join this conversation to explore best practices and lessons learned to help scale your work. 

Closing Keynote

Tony Martignetti

Chief Inspiration Officer,
Inspired Purpose Partners

Staying Grounded in A Chaotic World:

Harnessing Courage, Curiosity and Compassion to Navigate through Uncertainty

Friday, April 26 | 10:30 – 11:15 a.m.
Leadership in today’s world presents many challenges that require effective solutions. With the increasing complexity and diversity of the workforce, the challenges of leadership have also become more complex. Therefore, we need to prepare our rising leaders and entrepreneurs to be ready for what will come next, even if it is unknown by creating future-ready leaders who are able to stay calm in the chaos and grounded in their approach to leadership to thereby turn potential obstacles into opportunities.

Featured Sessions

Thursday, April 25 | 3:15 – 4 p.m.

Just as many of us make resolutions to improve our personal health and start new habits, couldn’t the same be done for organizations? There’s good reason to do so: high-performance organizations are 6x more likely to have “fit” cultures. i4cp analysis reveals that the health of a company’s culture is not only directly tied to financial performance, but also likely an indicator of what to expect in the future. So, is your organization’s culture “in shape”? In this session, Kevin Oakes, i4cp CEO and author of Culture Renovation®: 18 Leadership Actions to Build an Unshakeable Company, will share insights from the research to help you find out.

Thursday, April 25 | 3:15 – 4 p.m.

Workplace change is accelerating. Achieving job success will mean continuously updating skills and knowledge in new tech, data, learning and other areas. Working with several Federal Executive Councils, the CFO Workforce Modernization Executive Steering Committee has launched a 10-year initiative focusing on helping the more than 140,000 members of the federal financial workplace both thrive in their current jobs and advance through growth. Join an elite group of executives from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration, Department of Energy and Department of Commerce as they share their lessons from this groundbreaking initiative.

Friday, April 26 | 8:30 – 10:15 a.m.

We’ve all been to conferences with excellent content delivered by speakers who provide key takeaways, critical insights and detailed next steps. And each of us, at least once, has walked away thinking, “That’s great…but it will never work in my organization.” It’s time to bust the myth that change is impossible and convert your investment of time and money from EPIC into tangible results. In this highly interactive workshop, IA’s Kimberly Carroll and Mary Faulkner will help you harness your frustration into action through the application of techniques that have secured both the funding and opportunity cost to transform even the most challenging organizations. The key lies in telling the right story in the right way to the right people, making it memorable, actionable and immediate. 

Featured Speakers

Annalisa Adams-Qualtiere

Chief People Officer, Skoll Foundation

Dickens Aubourg

Founder and Managing Principal, Onup

Melissa Fugitt

Vice President, People Operations, BMF Health

Samantha Hendricks

Executive Director Human Resources, Cherokee Nation

Katie Kirkland

Director of Benefits and Wellbeing, Southern Company

Bernie Knobbe

SVP, Global Benefits and Well-being AECOM

Kevin Oakes

CEO and author of Culture Renovation®, i4cp

Eric Popiel

Senior Strategic Foresight Analyst, U.S. Office of Personnel Management

Justin Roberts

Senior Manager Financial Benefits, Amazon

Dr. Dieter Veldsman

Chief Scientist HR and OD, The Academy to Innovate HR

Hebba Youssef

Chief People Officer, Workweek

The EPIC Expo Experience

Where inspiration happens and relationships are built, the expo is the heart of the event where the EPIC community comes together and networks IRL! Not only will you have the opportunity to explore the latest solutions from 100+ leading solution providers to take your people strategies to the next level, but It’s also where you’ll hear high-energy, quick and fast moving 20-minute sessions on trendsetting ideas!

Schedule Of Events At-A-Glance

7:30 – 8:30 a.m. Breakfast
8:30 – 9:30 a.m. Opening Keynote with Adam "Smiley" Poswolsky
9:30 – 10 :45 a.m. Refreshment Break in Expo
10:45 – 11:15 a.m. Breakout Sessions
11:15 a.m. – 1 p.m. Lunch in Expo
1 – 1:30 p.m. Breakout Sessions
1:30 – 2:15 p.m. Refreshment Break in Expo
2:15 – 2:45 p.m. Breakout Sessions
3 – 4 p.m. Keynote with Cherokee Nation HR Executives
4 – 5 p.m. Pub Crawl in Expo

8 – 8:45 a.m. Breakfast
8:45 – 9:45 a.m. Keynote with Tiffany Stevenson, Chief People Officer, WeightWatchers
9:45 – 10 :45 a.m. Refreshment Break in Expo
10:45 – 11:15 a.m. Breakout Sessions
11:15 a.m. – 1 p.m. Lunch in Expo
1 – 1:30 p.m. Breakout Sessions
1:45 – 2:15 p.m. Refreshment Break in Expo
2:30 – 3 p.m. Breakout Sessions
3:15 – 4 p.m. Mega Sessions

7:45 – 8:30 a.m. Breakfast
8:30 – 10:15 a.m. Topical Workshops
10:30 – 11:15 a.m. Closing Keynote with Tony Martignetti, Chief Inspiration Officer, Inspired Purpose Partners

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