By Catherine L. Moreton, J.D.

WorldatWork kicked off its 2007 Total Rewards Conference at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida on Sunday, May 6, 2007 with an opening reception for the more than 1,600 registered attendees. The conference includes keynote addresses, breakout sessions, and an exhibition with 160 HR vendors showing their latest wares.

Today (May 7), the educational portion of the conference kicks off with opening remarks by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, a character dubbed "the cartoon hero of the workplace" by The San Francisco Examiner. Attendees will then move on to a variety of breakout sessions over the course of three days on total rewards, compensation, benefits, work-life, and executive rewards. The conference will close on Wednesday, May 9 with a keynote address by Mary O'Hara-Devereaux, Ph.D., author of Navigating the Badlands: Thriving in This Decade of Radical Transformation .

In addition to the breakout sessions, WorldatWork is offering what it is calling "Theatre Presentations" at its booth in the exhibit hall. The Theatre Presentations are mini-workshops on topics related to compensation, benefits, and total rewards. During the opening reception, Alison Avalos, Content Deployment Project Manager for WorldatWork, gave a short session titled It's 10 a.m. Do you Know What Your Compensation Strategy Is? in which she set out the elements for developing and maintaining a compensation strategy.

Editors from Compensation.BLR.com are attending the conference and will report on the sessions over the next several days.