Annual Do 2018

Our sixth one!

Not bad for a one-off experiment, huh?

As a great believer in Bert Lance’s mantra of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, this year’s annual do was largely a case of evolution rather than revolution. So the format remained unchanged, and the only real breaks from tradition were:

·     Fulham’s season ending on a positive. Ordinarily Day One coincides with a dismal end to a mediocre season.

·     A “gala dinner”. OK, it wasn’t black tie and posh frocks, but the food was good, as was the company!

Continuing on from last year’s successful multi-media innovation of having the presentations accessible on the cloud rather than through circulating billions of bytes of data via email, if you click on the following link then…ta-dah!...away you go.

http://jmp.sh/b/FXntRsjo53GkZbZ6TsAL

As ever, Day One kicked off with our guest CEO. It was a pleasure to welcome the boss from my Polycom days to the stage (such as it was – “floor” would be a more accurate description). Steve Leyland, Chairman and acting CEO of Electrosonic gave an overview of his journey to date, leadership pearls of wisdom, and thoughts around what he looks for from his HR team. Key takeaways:

·     Get the top team right, fire on all cylinders, encourage constructive confrontation.

·     Recognize that the world of work has changed, so embrace technology to drive collaboration and celebrate cultural diversity.

·     Focus on the talent as much as you focus on the numbers.

Next up was Clive Bunyan and Rachel Locke to provide an overview of Ciena’s “Better Conversations” initiative.

·     This has seen Ciena move away from a ratings-based annual performance review process to an any-time discussion on performance and development.

·     They have also introduced grade transparency, so any employee can see how they are paid relative to the range they are in.

Jeff Wellstead then led an interactive session with The Pioneers on understanding and improving “employee experience”. The room split up in to 4 teams to work on a simple model which encourages the experience of an employee to be put at the centre of looking at any work-related process. The intrinsic motivators behind any employee experience is one or a combination of:

·     Belonging (our need to fit it).

·     Significance (our desire to stand out).

·     Fairness (our aspiration to be treated equitably).

·     Autonomy (our preference for our own choices).

·     Positive emotions (wanting to feel happy).

·     Progress (our impulse to improve).

·     Meaning (our drive to do something valuable).

Following some sarnies and crisps, Adam Hartley from DLA maintained tradition and took the post-lunch graveyard slot to talk about the major employment law developments within the UK. Brexit may have been mentioned. GDPR definitely was!

RBI’s Jo Portlock discussed the steps that the Tech Talent Charter are taking to address the shortage of women in technology.

·     Signatories commit to a set of undertakings that aim to deliver greater diversity.

·     There is access to case studies and best practice from signatories who have made changes to their recruitment and retention practices to encourage diversity.

Brexit… It was inevitable that this would rear it’s head! Don Cuthbert, Tom English and Ian Tomlinson-Roe from the newly created Centre for Organisational Intelligence led a working session to:

·     Establish the various approaches being taken following the June 2016 referendum.

·     Rank the top 3 challenges.

The day ended with a spot of “conscious leadership”. Nicky Pharoah from The Learning Curve led an interactive discussion on the following core components:

·     Compassion.

·     Emotional intelligence.

·     Trust.

·     Leadership conversations.

·     Pause.

·     Purposeful energy.

Day Two started with a guy with a brain the size of a planet. In a thought-provoking session, Robbie Stamp (CEO of Bioss) discussed the implications of AI on the working world, and (by virtue of it’s unique position in an organization) the key role HR have to play in thinking through the potential implications of any AI deployment on areas such as ethics, governance, authority, autonomy, accountability, etc.

Next up was Eliot Sherman from the London Business School, who took us through:

·     Some stats around the gender wage gap.

·     The causes of the gender wage gap.

·     Things that have not worked in trying to address the gap.

·     Things that may work…

What do you get if you cross a cup of tea with 6 sugarlumps in it and a bar of chocolate with a liberal dose of love? The human whirlwind that is Yetunde Hofmann, founder of HLC and CIPD board member. Key takeaways:

·     Leadership is about clarity of understanding of where you want to go, knowledge of how to get there, and the ability to mobilise people to follow you.

·     It is also about love, which she defined as an unconditional acceptance of self and of others, as opposed to any more hanky-panky oriented definition.

·     HR’s role is to rethink the workforce relationship, and challenge the business to think about what difference love would make, what barriers there may be, and how these can be overcome.

Following lunch, Adam Hartley took us through the main legal developments within various EU territories.

Nigel Baldwin then took the floor to take us through the Smart Working initiative he project-managed at Thales. Key drivers included site consolidation, reduction in real estate and travel costs, technology adoption, etc. The reach of the project therefore incorporated:

·     Flexible working.

·     Travel and meetings.

·     Tools and technology.

·     Teamwork.

·     Environments.

·     People management.

Bringing the event to a close was Palantir’s Jason Pierantozzi and Matt Bilton. They took us through the deployment of Workday, and the ability to use this as a lever to:

·     Automate certain processes. They focused on onboarding as an example.

·     Transform the employee experience.

And that, as they say, was that. It was all over for another year, bar the customary end-of-event beer or two.

As ever, “muchas gracias” to Adam and the team at DLA Piper, for putting up with us for a couple of days, and for the employment law updates.

Thanks too for all the delegates who took time out of their busy schedules to take part and make the event what it is – a good craic.

And finally I invite all the presenters to take a bow. A large thanks for sharing your thoughts and expertise.

Right – I’m going to put my feet up for a bit, watch Fulham win the playoff final at Wembley next weekend, and then I may get around to planning our 7^th Annual Do.

Until then!