Global Campus Educator to Speak at National Agriculture Meeting in Springdale in August

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Judith Tavano, director of professional development at the University of Arkansas Global Campus, will speak at the 10th annual North American Ag and Food HR Roundtable at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 8, at Tyson Foods in Springdale about retirement trends and the role generations play in those trends.

Tavano’s program, “What Will We Do When the Retirement Wave Happens – If It Does?” will explore human resource strategies to deal with the pending retirement of the “baby boomer” generation – people born from 1946 to 1964 – who currently make up nearly 40 percent the workforce.

“The boomers will retire and when they do, will we be ready?” Tavano said. “What are the workplace strategies we should be adopting now to prepare for organizations no longer dominated by leagues of boomers? How will we transfer, or replace, boomer knowledge and culture? These are urgent questions for people who deal with human resources, and ones I am eager to explore with professionals in the agriculture industry.”

The roundtable is an annual conference that brings together human resource professionals, managers, university/college career services staff and association representatives within the agribusiness and food industry to discuss high interest issues in recruitment and retention. It is set for Aug. 7- 9 at Tyson Foods in Springdale. Participants can register at the roundtable website.

For the past 10 years, Tavano has been exploring and presenting information about different generations, their perceptions and their communication styles. Most recently she served as a guest lecturer at the Sam M. Walton College of Business in July, explaining how to reduce inter-generational conflict in the workplace by learning to recognize the generational differences that influence workplace behaviors. Tavano received the Society for Human Resource Northwest Arkansas Chapter Pillar Award in 2011 for developing innovative online continuing education offerings.

For information about generational matters in the workplace or to learn about professional development classes offered at the Global Campus, contact Tavano at jtavano@uark.edu.

The Global Campus collaborates with academic colleges and schools, businesses and organizations to provide development classes for business professionals. The Global Campus also supports the development of online academic-credit courses and degree programs provided by the university’s colleges and schools. Visit http://globalcampus.uark.edu/pd for information about professional development classes or http://online.uark.edu for online and distance learning offerings.