Association Leadership - July/August 2008 - (Page 19)

A “seasoned” perspective From almost every education event I attend, there is at least one lesson to bring back of both personal value and value to the association. It is a mindset our organization strongly encourages. There are two key and fundamental growth opportunities in educational events: the direct learning from the instructor and developing of a network you can call on for problem-solving. Events, personnel (or supervisor), marketing and public policy are just a few of the key areas where it can be incredibly helpful to share resources, establish coalition partners or simply obtain a different perspective. Our association recognizes the value of both learning potentials and we budget – with employee input – for at least one seminar event per year per professional employee. An unfortunate fact of life, though, is the ﬁnancial resources in our particular industry vary greatly from year to year. As a result, we work to make a broad range of education available using a variety of delivery methods. Webcasts are an economical and time-saving tool. Our employees are all “lease employees,” where we have access to a broad range of online educational programming for most education needs. Education is provided at no cost to all employees. In those cases where there are enrollment fees our organization always pays the fee. There is little doubt in my mind that if your immediate supervisor recognizes the value you place on education, he or she is much more likely to support you. With that said, we believe in education strongly enough that it is budgeted and paid for by the association. Our policy is that we give time off for events, but do not compensate for weekends or evenings. It is curious, but the question of “time off” has been one of the few areas of dissent among employees. We have had employees attend a weekend educational event in conjunction with our national organization out of town. On their return they expected compensatory time off. The response is, “No, you are a professional and expected to work outside of normal ◆ hours.” Harry Savio, CAE Executive Vice President Home Builders Association of Greater Austin July/August 2008 | Association LEADERSHIP 19 http://www.therichardsonhotel.com http://www.ruidosoconventioncenter.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Association Leadership - July/August 2008

Association Leadership - July/August 2008 Contents Chairman’s Column Homepage 60-Second Solutions Cover Feature: Association Lessons Learned Perspectives Association Case Study TSAE Annual Conference CEO Strategies New Members Community Spotlight Government Relations: Resources Technology: Web Site Redesign Global Summit Photo Page Great Ideas Beaumont New Mexico Index to Advertisers Advertiser.com The Lighter Side of Associations

Association Leadership - July/August 2008

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