What to catch at October's HRD: A Virtual Experience

On 21st October, join us for HRD: A Virtual Experience, an online event centred on ‘capitalising on business unusual’. Engage with your peers and other industry leaders during a series of interactive and collaborative sessions; create the strategies and mindsets that will drive organisational success in a connected future.

Get ready to learn and share, and leave with fresh ideas, inspiration, and blueprints curated by yourself and your peers, enabling you to proactively lead through change and prepare for the new reality of work. Register for your free place now.

Curious to learn more about the event? Read on to discover some of the key themes we’ll be covering, including the war for talent, mental health, upskilling, hybrid working, technological innovation, and D&I. Joining us on the day are key figures from the HR world, including Guillermo Miranda (Boeing), Bhavana Bartholf (Microsoft), Michelle Thompson-Dolberry (American Express), and many others.

Our top sessions include:

Keynote: Winning the talent war: Keeping your grass greener than your competitors’

The war for talent is intensifying, as organisations have more vacancies on offer than there are candidates to fill them. To help recruit the top talent that will enable you to become a market leader, you must offer something unique that goes beyond basic benefits and pay. People are less interested in traditional benefits in this era and employers need to consider more than just compensation; for instance, flexible working has gone from being an attractive perk pre-pandemic to a must-have for many demographics of the workforce. At a time of mass turnover, it is crucial to offer something that differentiates you from market rivals.

Join this keynote session to identify and deliver not only what your employees want but also what the wider pool of prospective candidates wants. You will take away a fresh outlook on succeeding in recruitment and retention, giving you the steps to be the company that everyone aspires to be a part of.

Speaker: Guillermo Miranda is vice president and chief learning officer for Boeing. Guillermo is responsible for enterprise learning strategy, workforce skills and leadership development initiatives for the company’s 140,000 employees.

Workshop: A human touch: Creating a new profile of leadership

The pandemic has highlighted the need for a human touch within leadership more than ever before; empathy and vulnerability have become necessary foundations in the workforce and continue to shape the post-pandemic reality. Ensuring that employees feel connected, supported, and valued is an enormous challenge. If empathy is at the forefront, happier employees are produced. Creating an empathetic workplace for employees has become one of the most important things that you can do for retention, productivity, and innovation.

In this workshop, you will learn about the case for empathy, and a strategy to cultivate a more empathetic work environment. We will also focus on how to connect more emotionally with employees in a remote setting, as the world looks to permanently keep the hybrid model.

Speaker: Bhavana Bartholf is the global head of strategy for sales and business development, as a part of Microsoft WW Solutions. Microsoft Solutions is responsible for building the technical sales strategy for ~$101B across the globe.

Workshop: Upskilling as the new currency for success

Digital transformation is continuing to gain pace, and it has made reskilling and upskilling more important than ever. Workforce transformation and organisational resilience are underpinned by reskilling and upskilling talent pools. The danger of jobs becoming obsolete is a reality. Skills have without a doubt become the currency of the workforce with the base unit of work evolving from jobs to skills. The last 18 months have created seismic disruptions, and the pandemic has accelerated the demand for employee development, and technology alone is no longer enough to give organizations a competitive advantage.

This workshop will help you to create the right framework for upskilling the workforce, and designing a skills-based workforce strategy to identify future skills needs as we rush into the digital future. It will also guide you to better understand the skills gaps in your workforce and how to create a culture of learning. Finally, it will shed light on the challenge’s organisations face in embracing the skills approach in totality.

Speaker: Michelle Thompson-Dolberry is the VP, global inclusion & diversity and head of diversity recruiting at American Express. An I&D champion, team builder, and event programmer, Michelle is a highlt sought-after speaker for her advanced and actionable insights.

Panel: Developing a DE&I strategy that considers diversity of thought

In today’s workplaces, conversations on diversity are typically centred around race, gender, sexuality, and age. Whilst diversity of all kinds is incredibly important, it is equally important to have diversity of perspective. Research is continuing to show that diversity of thought can help to enhance creative problem-solving and innovation in businesses. Empowering everyone to have a voice results in an inclusive environment that’s increases productivity and helps to retain and attract talent.

In this panel, you will learn how to foster a warm work environment that stimulates conversations. Expect to leave the panel knowing how to implement and embrace diversity of thought, and how to create an environment that is built to thrive.

Speakers: Jill Gibson, senior director of global talent programmes at Walmart; Tim Dismond, chief responsibility officer at CBRE; Donna Dorsey, EVP, chief people and culture officer at Navistar; and Frida Polli, CEO at Pymetrics.

Sign up here to attend. This unique virtual event experience includes inspirational keynotes, panel discussions, design-led workshops and a number of interactive sessions, all curated to help you shape the future direction of work, the workforce and the workplace.

What’s included in your free ticket?

• Access to all workshops delivered by expert speakers
• Access to interactive sessions, including unique design-led workshops
• Opportunity to network with all of the delegates
• Access to on-demand content following the event