We all have a toolkit to lead the directions for the future: CIPD Scotland Annual Conference

6 April 2016

Four UEBS MSc students attended the two day CIPD annual conference in Edinburgh in early March. It was beneficial not only to network with other Human Resources professionals and vendors in Scotland, but also to hear what trends are happening in that world in a business context, including solutions offered to Scotland’s workforce.

The first keynote speaker, Mathew Syed was very inspirational. He shared insights into the medical and airline professions and how he learned from failures, instead of just accepting defeat or getting discouraged. Companies either take the approach that an individual either has talent (Group 1) or develops talent (Group 2). Many companies belong to Group 1, searching for the best people, but this approach has its limitations. Those who have talent may not believe they need to improve or may be risk-averse, which would lead them to underperform in the long run. On the other hand, people who belong to group focus on development, try hard, take risks, fail but also are those who achieve something. Too often one is seeking for “the talent,” missing out on so many applicants who are raw gems, but do need the development to deliver, but would be open to change and add –in the long term- much value to your organisation, considering that ability to engage with technology and innovation will be the “advantage” of the future. Essentially, a huge proponent of prototyping, he encouraged a culture of continuous learning with a growth mindset, which fosters resiliency, instead of a fixed mindset.

One of the students’ dissertation focuses is on culture change resulting from implementing a Human Resources Information System in a company. Janine Burch, Human Resource Director for a global company, spoke on Thursday about the culture and business change that her company experienced. The results of the implementation included increased business efficiency, a single and accurate view of data, and reliable data analysis. Through this presentation, our student was able to gain deeper knowledge on how the system implementation effected Allied Global, and a contact for future questions.

This event provided an excellent opportunity to improve networking skills, which some students had committed to improving throughout the school year with the Edinburgh Award programme. Positive and interesting conversations were had with HR professionals from very different industries (e.g. hospitality, energy, education, IT, retail) and opportunities arose to ask, for example, how topics and theories in academia relate or are implemented in their companies. Possible future employment opportunities as well as informational connections were made.

The “Becoming an effective HR business Partner” session given by Racheal Stock, the HR director of Trinity Mirror, and Mike Kneafsey, CEO of Amtrust Financial Services, helped our students a lot, and answered questions about how to be an HRBP after graduation. From Mike, they learned that an HR business partner is like the shoulder of the business sector and performance is the core to be an HRBP. He suggested HRBP should be preparing to be inside the business other than an outside service supplier, and to not let the policy driving your thinking. HRBP should involve the business creatively. Racheal shared her experience as an HRBP to tell us the significance of being warm, agile, numerate and curious. And for those in early stages of their career, it is valuable to cultivate your strengths in specific fields.

Elian Arden, Chief HR Officer of RBS, spoke about how RBS rebuilt its workforce since the financial crisis in 2008. She shared her career change before and after the crisis; her journey of leading the HR function to reshape, rebuild and restore engagement in RBS. From her speech, one student strongly felt the responsibility and courage of an HR in dealing with the tensions between employees and employers in the process of change management. What a big difference a HR function can bring to an organisation!

The last speaker, Mark Stevenson, one of the world’s best known speakers on technology and innovation, was highlighting how quickly technology can change. The ability to embrace innovation will shape the businesses of the future. Technology can change and destroy companies. Principles to success include not being afraid of admitting mistakes, generating ideas, focussing on the long term or doing what you are saying rather than only intending to do so. He moreover highlighted that it is not possible to predict the future, however that we all have a toolkit to lead the directions for the future and hence to develop a future as we would want it to be.

I’ll definitely be attending more CIPD functions in the future, and really appreciate the funding and opportunity to be a part of this event. To round off my learning experience, I would like to state that the impressions and knowledge I developed throughout these sessions go far beyond what I can highlight here, especially because many things are very company and topic specific.

However, it was great to see that HR professionals share their experiences openly and are willing to learn from their mistakes and share their best practices for other companies to profit from the same. Overall, it was a very good opportunity to combine the knowledge I gained from lectures with practice in the real world.

Sarah Shields and Bridget McCarthy, MSc International Human Resource Management, and Anja Fuchs and Siqi Han, MSc Human Resource Management. Find more information about Santander funding under Opportunities on this website.