OCTOBER 2015

OCTOBER 2015
Message from
the President
I am so excited about two inaugural events we have
coming up this month.
One is CAHRA’s Payroll Group Meeting. The Jackson
Mississippi area currently does not have an
American Payroll Association group and as a
chapter, we do not adequately meet the needs of
our payroll members. This group will assist in
bringing those payroll professionals together. The
first meeting is Thursday, October 22nd from 10:00
am to 1:00 pm at Southern Farm Bureau Life
Insurance Company.
The second is the HR Young Professional Group
Kick-off Meeting. The purpose of this group is to
help members under age 35 establish a foundation
in the HR field through resources and educational
opportunities relevant to the next generation of HR
Leaders. The meeting will be Friday, October 23
from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm at Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company.
You will find more information regarding both
meetings later in the newsletter. We need your
participation for the success and relevance of these
groups.
Congratulations to Melissa Robbins our new
Treasurer. Melissa has served several years in
CAHRA as Membership and Publicity Chairperson.
She will do an awesome job as a member of the
CAHRA Board.
If you did not attend our Annual Night Networking
meeting at Burgers and Blues, you really missed
out on a lot of fun and fellowship. Thank you to
all that attended and participated in the silent
auction. We raised over $600 for the SHRM
foundation which provides scholarships and
educational resources to HR practitioners and
students.
The 6th Annual Healthcare Summit is Tuesday,
October 13th. This year’s summit has a great
line-up of speakers and topics to help you
navigate the Business of Healthcare. It is not too
late to register for the summit.
We have a lot going on, so please stay engaged
and participate.
In your service,
Shonda
Monthly
Meeting
Information
Speaker:
Topic:
The October 8th CAHRA meeting will be held at the Hilton Hotel
located on County Line Road, Jackson, MS. This meeting will be
held in the Penthouse. Lunch begins at 11:30 a.m. and our
speaker will begin at 12:00 p.m.
To register to view via the web, please click the following link:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2346076708424358402
J. Randall Patterson- Shareholder with Baker
Donelson
Social Media at Work: Consideration &
Complications
Bio:
J. Randall Patterson is a shareholder in the Jackson, Mississippi, office and concentrates his practice in labor and
employment law. He represents employers before the EEOC and other state and federal agencies, and advises
employers on many topics including policies and procedures, reductions in force, wage and hour issues, employee
handbooks, drug testing and employment contracts. In employment litigation, Mr. Patterson has experience in a full
range of employment related claims including: sexual harassment; age, race and disability discrimination, FLSA
collective actions; retaliatory discharge and employment related defamation claims. Mr. Patterson has litigation
experience in ERISA litigation cases involving the denial of employee benefits, breach of fiduciary duties and related
claims, and in antitrust and white collar criminal defense.
Guest Speaker:
Topic:
Senator Dean Kirby
District 30 - Rankin County
Mississippi Legislative Update
CAHRA’s First
Payroll Group Meeting
Thursday, October 22, 2015
10:00 a.m.—1:00 p.m.
Southern Farm Bureau Life
1401 Livingston Lane
Jackson, MS 39213
Purpose: CAHRA’s Payroll Group seeks to bring local payroll professionals together to
network and discuss relevant payroll topics and best practices.
Qualifications: A practicing payroll professional engaged in the processing and/or administration of the payroll function. You do not have to be a CAHRA member to attend
the first meeting.
The first meeting will be a round table discussion of payroll topics. If you are interested
in attending the meeting, please contact Shonda Kines at [email protected] or (601) 9815332, extension 1793.
The deadline to enroll for this meeting is Friday, October 16th.
Lunch will be served.
Friday, October 23, 2015
11:00 a.m.—1:00 p.m.
Southern Farm Bureau Life
1401 Livingston Lane
Jackson, MS 39213
Jackson, MS 39213
CAHRA’s First
HR Young Professionals
Kick-off Meeting
Friday, October 23, 2015
11:00 a.m.—1:00 p.m.
Southern Farm Bureau Life
1401 Livingston Lane
Jackson, MS 39213
Purpose: CAHRA’s HR Young Professional Group seeks to help members under age 35
establish a foundation in the HR field through resources and educational opportunities
relevant to the next generation of HR Leaders. This group will also build mentoring
relationships with current leaders in the HR field and provide a network of resources in
the local area.
Qualifications: A practicing HR professional engaged in a human resource related
function (i.e. recruiting, benefits, compensation, employee relations, etc.). You must be a
member of CAHRA to attend this meeting.
The first meeting will be a round table discussion of relevant topics to Young HR Professionals. If you are interested in attending the meeting, please contact Shonda Kines at
[email protected] or (601) 981-5332, extension 1793.
The deadline to enroll for this meeting is Friday, October 16th.
Are Gender Diversity Programs Hitting a Brick Wall?
Deeply ingrained biases seem to keep women out of the C-suite
-By Dana Wilkie an online editor/manager for SHRM on 7/30/2015
- See more at: http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/diversity/articles/pages/google-womenceos.aspx#sthash.00GXznR7.dpuf
Submitted by Jackie Mack, Diversity Chairperson
Shortly after news broke that Google ads for CEO positions targeted mostly men, a leading academic journal
reported that some men are so threatened by female executives that they compensate by being aggressive toward
female superiors.
In an era when women are told gender equality will follow if they “lean in,” news and studies like these prompt
questions on whether bias against women in the C-suite is so deeply ingrained - so much a part of our culture that even the most proactive workplace diversity programs are fighting a losing battle.
“Bias is formed in our unconscious mind without our knowing,” said Sara Taylor, founder of deepSEE Consulting,
which provides organizations with diversity training. “We make decisions and believe them to be true because we
trust what our brains tell us. What we can do in our organizations is teach people how to recognize their bias,
question it, test it and bring the unconscious to the conscious level. You need leadership to not only support and
drive that work, but also to reduce their own personal bias.”
Google Bias
The Washington Post reported in July 2015 that a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University built a tool
called Ad Fisher that tracked how user behavior on Google influenced the personalized Google ads that each user
saw. The researchers used fake accounts representing theoretical job seekers who searched for employment
strictly online. Some accounts listed their sex as male and some as female.
The Ad Fisher team found that when Google believed the accounts belonged to male job seekers, those accounts
were far more likely to be shown ads for high-paying executive positions. Google showed these high-paying ads
1,852 times to the male group—but just 318 times to the female group.
Moreover, a simple search under “Google Images” using the keyword “CEO” shows dozens of pictures of men
before finally showing a female. And the female shown is not a human woman, but instead is a Barbie doll that
illustrates a decade-old story from news satire website The Onion titled “CEO Barbie Criticized For Promoting
Unrealistic Career Images."
“Unfortunately, Google's algorithms are indicative of much larger issues,” said Matt Brosseau, chief technology
officer and head recruiter at Instant Alliance, an HR staffing and consulting firm. “The system tracks behavior and
patterns across all its users, and the fact that an image search for CEO shows predominately men is a problem
with our perception of a leader, not a problem with the algorithm that shows it to us.
“A company like Google has managed to break ground in many ways, including gender issues, but until our society
changes, results like this will continue to be the norm.”
Taylor has done a lot of work around unconscious bias, which she calls the next frontier in HR’s approach to
diversity at work.
“The people at Google are like the rest of us … they have a human brain” Taylor said. “That brain relies on past
experiences to make sense of current reality. Think of it as our brain creating files about every subject we
encounter and storing those files in a deep locker that we don’t have access to. A subject like ‘CEOs’ comes up
and the unconscious brain accesses the file. If the folks at Google are like most of us, their past experiences with
CEOs have been that CEOs are male. When they create algorithms related to a CEO, they don’t realize that it’s
actually their unconscious brain that’s already decided what gender a CEO is.”
Continued on next page.
Study Shows Ingrained Bias
On July 10, 2015, a study appeared in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin titled On July 10, 2015, a
study appeared in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin titled “A Man’s (Precarious) Place: Men’s
Experienced Threat and Self-Assertive Reactions to Female Superiors.” Researchers from Bocconi University in
Milan, Italy, and from Northwestern and Washington State universities in the U.S., investigated men’s reactions to
women in superior roles.
They hypothesized that when a woman has a superior role in an organization, men in subordinate positions feel
threatened, which leads them to behave more assertively toward her and advocate for themselves. In two studies,
the researchers demonstrated that men feel more threatened by women in superior roles than they do by men in
superior roles and, as a result, engage in more assertive behaviors toward these women. In a third study, they
demonstrated that a woman in a superior role who displays qualities associated with “administrative agency”—that
is, she tends to be direct and proactive— elicits less assertive behavior from men than a woman who displays
qualities of “ambitious agency”—characterized by self-promotional and power-seeking behavior.
In short, the bias against a female boss is so deeply ingrained in some men that they find such leadership
threatening and start to advocate for their own self-interest more aggressively than when they have male
superiors.
Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO of CompTIA, a nonprofit trade association for the information technology
industry, said that the only thing that will break down barriers to gender diversity in the executive suite is a strong
commitment by boards of directors to do just that.
“They have the opportunity to force companies out of their cultural shells and provide a framework for gender
diversity—and cultural diversity, for that matter—in the C-suite,” he said, pointing out that minority players became
more prevalent as leaders on professional football teams only after the NFL’s governing board required teams to
start interviewing at least one minority candidate for these positions.
Getting Around C-Suite Bias
It can be tricky for an HR manager who answers to senior leaders to turn around and instruct those same
executives on why they should consider more women for top positions—especially if the HR manager is a woman
and most of those in the C-suite are men. Taylor said it’s possible to have this discussion in a nonthreatening way
if HR practitioners shift the focus from bias and instead focus on effectiveness.
“It’s much easier for [leaders] to engage in a conversation that’s about how they and the organization can be more
effective and successful,” she said, adding that when it comes to diversity, HR professionals need to make
executives understand that the organization won’t become more effective at diversity if they don’t first take a hard
look at themselves.
“We tell them that we’ve never seen an organization that is at a higher stage of development than its leaders. That
means that until they develop themselves, the organization can’t move forward. That not only makes sense to
them, but it’s also quite a motivator. I have seen leader after leader have that ‘aha’ moment.”
This week, Facebook released a series of anti-bias training videos, writing in a release that it hopes “to achieve
broader recognition of the hidden biases we all hold, and to highlight ways to counteract bias in the workplace.”
“We believe that understanding and managing unconscious bias can help us build stronger, more diverse and
inclusive organizations,” the release said. Anthony G. Greenwald, a University of Washington psychology professor and creator of the Implicit Association Test (IAT)—a well-respected tool designed to uncover hidden biases
about everything from race to gender to age—said he questions just how aggressively HR departments train senior leaders on gender diversity.
“I’m curious to know more about this training,” he said. “Are any of the methods being used ones that have been
established as effective via any scientific study? Is some assumption made that training intended to combat
gender bias is effective, even without empirical study? Maybe the thing to [ask] is the way in which these training
programs are used and evaluated—if at all.
”Thibodeaux said one approach is to present to boards and executives the statistical case for putting more women
in the C-suite. He noted that a January 2015 study by the management consultancy McKinsey & Co. found that
companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to have financial returns above their
respective national industry medians.
“If, as the McKinsey data suggests, companies that commit themselves to diverse leadership are more successful,
positive financial results may be the strongest argument yet for boards of directors to welcome more women into
corporate boardrooms and executive suites,” he said.
Congratulations Melissa Robbins!
New Treasurer and Board Member
Lydia Hamby
Mid South Banking
Melissa Robbins is a Human Resources Consultant at Southern Farm
Bureau Life Insurance Company in Jackson. She received her bachelor’s degree from The University of Mississippi. Melissa has earned
the SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP) certification and the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification. Other credentials
held by Melissa include the Certified Benefits Professional (CBP), Fellow Life Management Institute (FLMI) designation and the Associate
Customer Service (ACS) designation. With over ten years of experience, she is responsible for recruiting, employee relations, benefits,
and many other human resources related duties.
Melissa is currently the Publicity Chairman for the Capital Area Human Resources Association. She has also served on the board, including President and Employer Director, for the
Mississippi Association of Colleges and Employers.
Melissa is involved with her church, Pinelake:

Kindergarten Coordinator for the preschool ministry

Special Care Mentor (child loss) and “stork team” for the Great Expectations ministry

Community missions
She serves as the Chairman for the Make-A-Wish of Mississippi Evening of Wishes. Duties for
this event include coordinating volunteers in the efforts to have a successful silent and live
auction by requesting and receiving donated items from local businesses and individuals.
Melissa lives in Brandon with her husband Kevin and sons K.J. and Kole.
Upcoming Events
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
October 8th (Thursday): Monthly Meeting
November 4th: Monthly Meeting
Announcement of Christmas Charity
October 1— 16: Vote for Treasurer
October 13th: Healthcare Summit Meeting
October 22: Payroll Group Meeting
October 23: Young Professionals Group Meeting
DECEMBER
JANUARY
December 2: Christmas Meeting
Renew your Membership
Welcome New
CAHRA Members!
Terrence Black
CSpire
HR Business Advocate
Lydia Hamby
Mid South Banking
HR Coordinator/Analyst
Ray Grossman
DCCS Consulting
Consultant
Ella Shepherd
Mid South Baking Company
HR Assistant/Training Coordinator
Michael Shilling
Mobile Drug Screening
Director
2015 Night Networking Meeting
On Thursday, September 10th, We held our Annual Night Networking
Event at Burgers and Blues. As you can see, we had a great time.
Thank you to all who attended and made this a successful event!
Newsletter
Announcements
Do you have something you would like to
see in the next CAHRA Newsletter?
Maybe a promotion, new member, job
opportunity, etc.? If so, please submit
your information to the Publicity Chair,
Melissa Robbins at [email protected].
2015 Officers
President
Shonda M. Kines, PHR, CBP, CCP
Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Co
President-Elect
Jessica Kinard, SPHR
Miskelly Funiture
Vice President
Tamara Riddley, PHR
Jackson Heart Clinic
Secretary
Lindsey Hoskinson, PHR
RevClaims
Treasurer
Tracy Osborn, SPHR
Bomgar
Capital Area Human Resources Association
P.O. Box 16042 │ Jackson, MS 39211
Website: http://cahra.shrm/org │ Email: [email protected]