HR team extends winning streak to seven in a row
Huntsman students from USU extend regional winning streak to seven.
For the seventh year in a row, a Jon M. Huntsman School of Business Human Resources team from Utah State University took first place in a regional human resources contest.
Another team from the Huntsman School of Business took third in the competition that was held in San Antonio, Texas, on March 28 and 29. The regional games, sponsored by Society for Human Resource Management pitted 15 student teams from a nine-state area in a Jeopardy-style contest that tested their knowledge of basic human resources terminology, court cases and practices, according to Alan Warnick, a coach and the head of the management and human resources department.
Earlier this year the school sent three teams to the Utah State HR Games, where seven teams from USU, Weber State and Brigham Young University competed. The USU team, which started practicing in September, has also placed first at the state level for seven years in a row.
The games use to also be held on a national level, but now teams may only advance as far as the regional competition. When the national battles were held, the Huntsman team placed second two years ago, the last year of the national HR games, and third, fourth, fifth, sixth and third, in the five years before that. Carrie Belsito, a faculty member and coach, was on the national championship team as a student when she was at California State University, Fresno in 2001.
She said that seeing students excel in the competition has been incredible.
"It's just very impressive when you see students reaching beyond the normal student experience," Belsito said. "These students have invested hours and hours in preparing for these games and now that hard work is paying off."
Warnick said the students represented USU well.
"I'm as proud of them as I can be," Warnick said. "I think these are our best and brightest students. These are not only smart students, they are good people and I am honored to be associated with them."
The students, in three-member teams, meet on their own time and get no class credit for participating in the games. They say, however, that the knowledge they gain makes the work rewarding.
"I think it was a lot of fun," Jenn Wyatt, team captain and a senior majoring in management information systems and human resources, said of the competition. "It was challenging and it was very nerve-wracking but I think we all learned a lot during it."
Mike Weston, a senior majoring in operations management and human resources, said the information learned will prove helpful after graduation.
"I think anything that you practice that much; that you repeat that many times; it's going to stick with you," he said. "It's not like we've just crammed for a couple of days or a couple of weeks even, we've been working on these things for quite a few months."
The regional winners get to attend the national SHRM conference in Chicago, Ill., in June. There they will be invited up on stage to be recognized in front of nearly 30,000 conference attendees, Warnick said.
The team that placed first, lead by Wyatt, also included Stacey Peterson, a senior majoring in human resource management, and Korney Teigen, a student who graduated in last December after majoring in management and human resources with a minor in organizational communication. Students who graduate in December are allowed to compete in the spring if they chose to do so. Wyatt's team had placed third in the Utah State competition.
The team that placed third was lead by Team Captain Devin Hirschi, a senior majoring in human resources. Mike Westin, a senior, majoring in operations management and human resources and Preston Chandler, who graduated in last December, after majoring in operations management, management and human resources and statistics, were also on the team. Hirschi's team took first place in the Utah State competition.