What To Do With A Speaker Cancellation

What happens when a speaker cancels? Do you have a plan B? What if you need to go to Plan C? Here are a few thoughts if your speaker cancels and your meeting is in 24 hours….

If you were having a vendor speak at the meeting, do they have someone else within the company that can take their spot? Can they present virtually?

Speaking of virtual, are you set up to switch to a virtual speaker? Can you still bring people together at your meeting location but have your speaker virtual? Do you have the following equipment?

• Chapter laptop
• Zoom license
• Projector
• Screen
• Camera

Do you have another speaker in your member companies? There are a number of departments within your member companies that could be of interest to your payroll organization that do not have Payroll in their name:

• Lean or Continuous Improvement – they could talk about how to make process improvements within the Payroll Team
• IT Service Desk – they typically keep metrics and monitor performance through a scorecard method that might be of interest to Payroll Professionals
• Customer Service team – they could have best practices that keep customers happy and we all have employee customers that we try to keep happy
• Finance team – how do they forecast payroll and what is the impact to the company if there are errors in the company payroll
• HRIS or IT implementation team – they might have best practices on setting up a new system or conversion of an older system

Do you have National Speakers Bureau members in your Chapter or a sister Chapter? Do they have a presentation prepared that they can present to your group on a moment’s notice?

When looking at your community for speakers, here are a few places to consider:

• Police departments to talk about Identity Theft
• Wellness companies to speak about how to keep yourself healthy through stressful times
• Law firms to talk about upcoming law changes

If one of those do not work, can you change your meeting to a roundtable discussion? These have been highly attended in our Chapter. People enjoy the topics of:

• System questions – separate people into the systems they use and have a roundtable on best practices and how you process
• Vendor selection – if someone is in the process of looking for new vendors, this is a good way for people to have a discussion
• Process improvements
• Checklists

If you cannot find a speaker or topic, it might be best to postpone the meeting. You do not want to host a meeting that people do not find valuable as it will impact the brand of your Chapter.

Stephanie Ernsting, CPP is the current Region 9 Board of Advisor and has served several roles for the Northeast Wisconsin Chapter and the Greater Madison Area Chapter, including President, Vice President, and Statewide Coordinator for over seven years.

Submit Your Attendee Lists

All chapters must submit attendee lists for study groups, one-day events, multi-day educational seminars, and statewide/regional meetings within 30 days after the event to chapterrelations@payroll.org in Excel format. If you still have not submitted your attendee list, please make sure to do so to avoid future chapter restrictions as stated in the Local Chapter Guide.