Dear JHRS Members, Partners, Advertisers, Friends and Supporters,

As JHRS Chief Community Officer, it is my honor and pride to share with you this Report which not only contains our community’s summary of successes borne out of our collective efforts and resources but more importantly, a peek into what lies ahead for JHRS in 2010.

In last year’s JHRL State of the Community Report, I predicted that 2009 will be a “defining year” for JHRS given the backdrop of a global economic crisis. I have also written that although achieving our goals and programs will be more challenging for us, 2009 shall put a real test to the maturity, professionalism, and sincerity of our members.

Well, I was both right and wrong! I was “right” in the sense that 2009 did become a defining year for our Community. For example, in 2009 we officially changed our name from The Japan HR Link Network to The Japan HR Society; we also made various changes in the membership guidelines and introduced different levels of memberships; and we successfully migrated the JHRS website to a more robust, flexible, and secured web platform.

On the other hand, I was “wrong” because 2009 did not only become a “defining” year for us but unexpectedly, a “growth” year as well for JHRS as evidenced by the various innovative products and services we have developed for our members as well as the partnerships we have formed to help us achieve our mission. I further invite you to take note of our “hits” or successes we had in 2009 as a Community to prove this point.

Nevertheless, we did have some “misses” along the way which serve as a simple reminder that there is still much work to do and that we can’t rest on our laurels or past achievements and be complacent about achieving our mission and vision.

However, the most important part of this Report is knowing what lies ahead for JHRS in 2010 and beyond. I have presented herein some of the current thinking and plans we have but they are by no means etched in stones. As JHRS has been designed to be driven by its members, we remain open to suggestions from our community members like you as to what we ought to do, where we ought to go, and how shall we go about accomplishing our goals and mission.

Our “Hits” and Successes

✓     Name changed and re-branding from The Japan HR Link Network (JHRL) to The Japan HR Society (JHRS) [Apr 2009];

✓     Introduced a multi-level JHRS membership levels (i.e., associate or free and paid-membershipsundefinedvirtual & premium) [Apr 2009];

✓     Migrated JHRS website to a more robust, flexible, and secured web platform [Apr 2009];

✓     Converted JHRS’ newsletter, The HR Agenda, into an on-line edition with 24/7 access [Apr 2009] and increased its subscriber base from around 1,000 in 2008 to 1,900+ as of end of 2009;

✓     Hosted and/or sponsored the following events:

Ø        Networking Event: 1

Ø        Luncheon seminars: 6

Ø        Round table discussions: 2

Ø        3^rd Party seminars/events: 8

✓     Co-branded JHRS Career site with eCentral.jp’s ACCJ Job Site [Apr 2009];

✓     Established The JHRS Academy in partnership with Temple University – Japan Campus [Aug 2009];

✓     Conducted 1 major survey (ie, JHRS Academy Survey) and 6 polls as a way of feeling the pulse of our members [Jan-Dec 2009];

✓     Created the JHRS Swine Flu Resource Center: Guidance for HR Professionals as our way of helping in the fight against this pandemic [Dec 2009]; and,

✓     Garnered a total of more than 30,500 page views comprising 11,500 unique visitors for the JHRS group of websites (main, HR Agenda, and Career site).

Our “Misses”

×    Failed to conduct the Annual Japan HR Confidence Index---a measure of CEO’s confidence level on their HR function to help achieve organizational success [Reason: Prioritized the conduct of The JHRS Academy Survey.];