6.7.23 > Tim Herman

It is no secret that there is an ever-growing challenge with finding good people for the now nearly 750,000 open Cyber Security jobs in our country.  Companies are scrambling to find new and different ways to tackle this mountain.  We are still seeing an impact from the Great Resignation across the entire workforce and HR leaders are being forced to revisit hiring criteria to find good talent. Information Security leaders are also having to tap their own networks to find people to join their team.

In my role as President of InfraGard MN and serving on the Summit Think Tank, I often find myself in the middle of conversations around challenges our members and leaders face.  I started talking to a few people specifically about their experiences with employment challenges and decided that someone needed to add this topic to the Summit for 2023.  Well, that someone turned out to be me.  As of today, a group of leaders spanning from HR to the C Suite are planning to address these issues head on at the 13th Annual Cyber Security Summit. We are planning an event for hiring managers, HR leaders, the C-Suite, and any one responsible for finding good talent for open positions.  This event will be a mix of mini–Ted Talks, panels, and keynotes.

Engagement Consultant Leah Phifer of WhyWork is helping organize this event with me.  One of the challenges she is seeing through her consulting practice in the job market is that we, as a nation are currently experiencing the fastest pace of labor force change since WWII. This event will look at and discuss the issues that affect companies’ ability to “Recruit”, “Retain”, and “Engage”.

Some common issues that come up in conversations about recruiting are around unlimited paid time off, four-day work weeks, ditching degree requirements, and the best work environment, in office, remote, or hybrid. Each of these issues do not have a perfect or definitive answer so we are putting together 4 separate panels to discuss and give the audience the best information to match up with their companies.  We are looking for additional panelists so reach out if you are interested.

When talking about how to best retain good people we will be setting more of a mini–Ted Talk style.  Ria Neuendorff from Online Business Systems will share about creating community in a remote work environment, and we will be hearing from other speakers on Upskilling, growth and development, and the importance of having a great onboarding process even with so many working remotely.  As we secure additional speakers these topics will grow as well.

Leah Phifer will be sharing about employee engagement vs. satisfaction and how to coach employees, those who think their job as just a job, those who think their job is their life, and those who think their job is their purpose.  She will also discuss issues of employee burnout and insider risk.

With all that is going on in the job market and the immense competition for great talent, we aim to make this event informational and give you real takeaways.

 

Tim Herman, President, MN InfraGard Member Alliance

Tim Herman is an Enterprise Account Director at Online Business Systems helping companies and organizations with Digital Transformation and Cyber Security.

Tim previously spent two years working closely with Transportation, Energy, and Mining companies helping with Cyber Preparedness through Tabletop Exercises and Incident Response Planning.

He is President of the MN InfraGard Member Alliance, which is an FBI Private Sector Partnership to protect our nation’s critical infrastructure. Tim also serves on the MN Cyber Security Summit Think Tank Advisory Board and spent three years on the MN Information Systems Security Association Board.

Tim is passionate about helping businesses and organizations be successful and previously worked with Class One Railroads as Business Development Executive at MBA Engineering, a firm that specializes in ICS/OT/IoT/IIoT/SCADA systems programming, integration, analytics, and cyber security.  He also spent time as vCIO- Director of Client Strategy and Success for an IT Managed Services Provider and over ten years as President of SBC, a business strategy, and consulting company.

Connect with Tim here at the Summit at https://www.cybersecuritysummit.org/speakers/tim-herman/

And on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/cybertim/