How the HR industry is making a difference

They were there to learn and discuss how the HR industry is “making a difference”, and a slew of speakers from HR, training and development consultancies, as well as representatives of larger companies such as Siemens, were there to tell them how.

Presentations at the two-day-event ranged from Dragging HR out of the Dark Ages and The 10 Best Habits of World-class Networkers to the more cryptic-sounding The Motivated Brain and Do You Need to Get Out of Your Own Way?.

The keynote speaker was Peter Cheese, the chief executive of the CIPD. Having been named the UK’s most influential thinker in HR last year by HR Magazine, his speech New Challenges, New Opportunities, was much anticipated.

Speaking before the event, he said: “We’re coming out of a recessionary period, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty about. We need to look at how we engage our workforces.

“There are so many issues we need to address, like youth unemployment, workforce engagement, recruiting on attitude, rescaling, upscaling – all of which mean that HR needs to play a much more prominent role.”

The CIPD is the second-largest organisation for HR professionals in the world, with 135,000 members, and, says North Yorkshire branch chairman Michael Millward, Yorkshire and the Humber is something of a hotspot.

“There are more than 10,000 CIPD members in Yorkshire and the Humber, ranging from directors of FTSE100 organisations and global conglomerates like Nestlé to self-employed HR professionals. In fact, Yorkshire and the Humber has the biggest population of self-employed HR consultants in the country,” he said.

“There’s a lot going on in this region, with events held every week, and there’s a lot of innovation too.

“Last year, for example, we launched a special group for HR directors which is the only one in the country outside London.”

HR was invented in York in 1913 by Seebohm Rowntree, he added.