Attendance: 

• Linda Laughlin – Marathon Multimedia
• Mary Utpadel – MRG Tool and Die
• Nichole Yochum – Faribault Public Schools
• Ginny Moore – MN Workforce Center
• Brian Coleman – MN Workforce Center
• Sheri Ferguson – St. Lucas Care Center
• Lucy DuPree – District One Hospital
• Erin Sellner – Sellner Manufacturing
• Jesse Ackman – Met-Con Companies
• Darla Kosanda – 1^st United Bank
• Lorna Mendez   – MN Workforce Center
• Stacy Williams  – IFP
• Jamie Christianson – KCQ
• Krista Smith      KCQ

These members met on May 4 at the Faribault Area Chamber of Commerce to convene the first session of the HR Peer Group. 

They agreed that the group would benefit from a mix of meetings, bringing in experts and outside speakers and sharing their own best practices.  They set simple guidelines including adherence to discretion and confidentiality of things shared in the group.  In addition they would like to form a peer group blog or e-mail distribution group to contact each other and share between meetings.  They agreed upon monthly meetings on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:30 am at the Chamber office.

The group identified the following topics for future meetings:

1.  Health Care Reform
2. Cobra Subsidy
3. Benefit restructuring
4. Unions
5. Morale during economic challenge
6. Discrimination – abiding by the law
7. Supervisory Leadership
8. Stress Management
9. Employee Leave – STD – FML – Mental Health leave
10. Documentation requirements for performance evaluations
11. Employee Surveys
12. Sexual harassment/Hostile work environment
13. Workers Compensation/reporting requirements
14. Bonuses – Merit Pay
15. Pay scales – commissions/ total value
16. State Agencies – Duplication of service and requirements
17. Prevailing wage – Union environment
18. Unemployment compensation – documents
19. Policy Manuals

This list was reviewed and by consensus the first meeting will be a peer discussion on Morale issues.   The discussion will be lead by Lucy DePree of District One Hospital

Plan to attend the next HR Peer Group meeting on June 1 at 7:30 am at the Chamber office.