In my staggering almost-two decades at Cornerstone OnDemand, the company has been on a mission to transform how organizations hire, manage and empower their employees. In that time, work has evolved significantly—technology has changed the way people work and what their expectations are of their employers. So since about 2015, our vision has also evolved to center specifically around helping clients' employees realize their potential.
Helping employees realize their potential is important in today's job market. In fact, 33% of employees look for another job simply because they don't feel challenged at work. But understanding potential is just step one in our vision. Step two? Put this understanding into action.
This year, our annual customer conference Convergence (June 3-5, 2019, at the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina in San Diego, CA) will bring this vision to life, focusing on the "Power of Potential" and explaining how organizations can harness the potential of their people to drive clear, tangible business value.
Our CEO Adam Miller will kick off the event with a keynote presentation sharing our approach for unleashing workers' potential, namely through learning and development. And he will discuss our 5 for 20 Challenge—an initiative inspiring organizations to enable the potential of their people through continuous L&D. Following Miller's keynote, various thought leaders will hit the stage to introduce unique perspectives on today's workforce, all with the goal of helping our clients understand how to unleash employee potential at their organizations.
In our busy world of work, it's easy for employees to get stressed, but empowering them to be more mindful can help. Today, many Fortune 500 companies offer mindfulness training to improve focus, learning and collaboration in high-performance cultures. But it's time for all organizations to get on board. That's why we've invited Joe Burton, the CEO of Whil, a digital training platform that helps employees prioritize wellbeing, to deliver a keynote presentation on what mindfulness means and how to apply at work.
The important advantage of mindfulness, as Burton will discuss, is that it enables employees to think more freely and critically not only about what they're working on, but also how they work on those things. This kind of self-reflection gives employees the mental freedom to assess skills or productivity gaps, opening the door to proactive learning. With the right mindset, employees can identify areas where they need to improve, closing the ever-growing skills gaps that hamstring our industry.
But to ensure that learning happens in the most effective and efficient way possible, it's up to managers to set workers up for success. A breakout session with Marci Paino, director of enterprise learning experiences for global leadership and learning at American Express, will cover how our software has helped her team modernize their learning experience. And our director of product management, Elvis Ha, will deliver a sneak preview of upcoming updates to our Learning Suite.
While mindfulness teaches our employees to be more thoughtful and proactive about bettering themselves through learning, talent management enables managers to help them navigate their careers. Talent management strategy plays a critical role in who companies hire and how to help them succeed.
Every effective talent management plan starts with recruiting. So, throughout the conference, recruiting experts including CEO and Founder of Talent Function Elaine Orler and Steve Bourgeois, director of talent acquisition at Sykes Assistance Services, will discuss the many changes happening in the world of talent acquisition. They will cover trends like texting as a key recruiting tool and the fact that candidates' expectations for seamless applications are growing.
Though there's no one-size-fits-all approach to great talent acquisition and management, there are proven techniques that can serve as the framework. Kat Cole, president and chief operating officer of the multi-brand, multibillion dollar company FOCUS Brands Inc., will take the keynote stage to discuss how she assembles and motivates agile teams while building a nurturing, mindful workplace culture.
For more information on this year's conference, read our press release and visit the Convergence site. We'll see you there!
