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Article: Review of European HR Directors Business Summit by Marcus Lorenzo

I arrived at the event mid morning on day one of the European HR Directors Business Summit (www.hrevent.com) and the first thing that struck me was the lack of energy or buzz. At the end of a 2 or 3 day conference this would not be surprising but considering it was the first few hours, it was a little disappointing. On talking to a few of the event organisers they mentioned that they had originally been expecting 700+ attendees and that in reality the turnout was nearer 450. I suspect that many HR Directors (HRDs) were struggling to justify another 2 days out of the office when the first 2 weeks post Christmas had been so disrupted due to the weather.

The general attitude of the exhibitors seemed to be that business was “really picking-up” for them and actually pretty much everyone I spoke to claimed that their business bucked the trend in ’09 and all in all it was a good year. Truth or sales bravado? Who knows?

The exhibitors (who clearly were there to develop business) had relatively low expectations of the event in that it was a case of ‘conspicuous by your absence’ or purely using it as a “way to ‘touch’ existing clients”. This was I think a healthy managing of their own expectations as with the prevalence of BlackBerry’s etc. it is increasingly tricky to network. What was happening was that as soon as a seminar/talk finished the HRDs would scuttle out and rather than grabbing a coffee and wandering around, they would switch their device on and check/send emails. This was great for the delegates as they could get benefit from the event without it totally wiping out their day. Not so great for those hoping to network and strike-up conversations with potential new clients. I think World Trade Group and others have to think about this as it is surely the fees paid by exhibitors that largely fund such Summits.

There was a real mix of suppliers and exhibitors from areas such as:
Childcare voucher providers
Academic instituitions
Occupational health & wellness provider
Leadership development and coaching
Reward & recognition consultancies
HR software companies
There were several recruitment related service providers including – Chemistry, Cvmail, My Job Group, Peopleclick, PPS Works, ResourceBank

They were all upbeat about their own performance but when pushed, ambivalent about the event and were not willing to commit as to whether they’d be back in 2011.

Away from the Exhibition and into the seminars and panel debates, the general theme was HRs role in the boardroom. As we know it varies greatly from client to client as to how HR are perceived and positioned within their own organisation (seat on the Board or ‘personnel’). The outcome seemed to be that HR has been instrumental in managing their business through the recession more so than ever before. It is undeniably true to say that they’ve probably been busier than ever before, handling restructuring, redundancies and grappling with talent management (reward and recognition V cost cutting).

Tom Stewart (leading management Author, Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer of Booz & Company) quoted an London Business School professor when stating that businesses are in a position where they need to decide) what kind of organisations that want to be: -
Agile – showing agility and flexibility to adapt and avoid the punches being thrown by the economy at large
OR
Absorptive – learn to take the punches by having the resources and ability to cope with the blows

This applies equally to HR strategies in that you can’t be all things to all people, you must decide on your purpose, your goal – if you don’t know where you’re going, any road leads you there. When discussing how an HRD drives strategy when he/she is not on the board, the flamboyant Chester Elton of OC Tanner rightly stated that it’s not so much that HR have a right to be on the board, but that the CEO should want to put the HRD on the board because he/she believes that they understand the business, its issues and can add value in guiding the business towards it’s goals.

It was interesting to hear the thoughts of Matthew Brearley (HRD at Vodafone) who discussed the HR industry’s obsession with change and transformation while in a fast paced business like Vodafone he felt that stability was an important attribute (initiatives once implemented need to be bedded-in and given time to take hold and deliver). He cited one specific example of an attempt by Vodafone to establish stability and consistency in it’s management – they are now setting the expectation internally (and indeed to new recruits) that they will be expected to remain in role for 3 years as opposed to constantly fast tracking people before they’ve demonstrated genuine delivery through 2-3 cycles My fear on his behalf is that unless the competition deploy the same tactics it will become increasingly difficult to implement when hiring-line are screaming that their talent is being poached because company X can offer quicker progression. It will also make recruitment harder as candidates will need to decide if the not inconsiderable pull of the Vodafone employer brand outweighs a quicker route to the top elsewhere.

I attended a number of other sessions including Chantal Free (Towers Watson) who talked eloquently about HRs challenge in reconnecting with the workforce in the post recession era, when roles have been merged, teams cut and pay has been on hold. She talked at length about reviewing reward strategies to reflect and realign with the changed business models.

It’s fair of this, and probably all similar events, to say that the quality of the speakers was extremely variable. Just because somebody has a sexy job title and works for a well known organisation, it doesn’t follow that that the content or style will be of a high standard. Some were terrific (some content, some inspirational) including Chantal Free, Tom Stewart and Dave Ulrich (shame it was over VideoConference). David Fairhurst of McDonalds was great as always. A personal favourite was Martin Tiplady (HRD Met Police) and not because he was an inspirational speaker (although he certainly wasn’t bad) but his approach and theme was interesting. He controversially suggested that many HR professionals needed to look at their company’s goals and ambitions and take a long hard look in the mirror to decide in all honesty if they, their departments, their strategy and their delivery were ‘fit for purpose’. He suggested that some were and many weren’t and if they didn’t conduct that honest and frank appraisal they would soon become an irrelevance and an adjunct the core business. Looking around the room there was a real internal battle going on within almost every member of the audience – they were nodding with recognition (whether about themselves or others they knew) but equally disapproving that one of their own was questioning their value and performance. In a separate debate a guy from UNIQLO (Japanese fashion retailer) asked a panel effectively why the HR community constantly recovered the same ground and didn’t seem to have a body of work upon which they could all agree and build from. I think this was echoing Martin Tiplady’s position, the time for constant debate is over, it’s time to deliver.

One other revelation from a member of the World Trade Group team was I think a key factor in my overall view of the event and it’s relevance.I asked why it was called Euro HRD Summit when 99% of those attending (delegates and exhibitors) were UK centric (aside from those holding EMEA roles). His response was that the “‘Euro’ tag was pretty much redundant as we get enough sales traction from purely business developing to fill the event within the UK, and it’s a lot easier.” Whilst I understand that logic entirely I’d suggest that an attempt to make any future events more international in flavour would provide new spice and diversity of thought. Should World Trade Group read this article, purely adding thought leaders from the US to the rosta is not the same thing!)

Please be clear, I enjoyed the event, sat in on a few insightful panel debates and met several interesting people but from a wide range of discussions I had I am cautious about the event’s future unless it is somehow reinvigorated

Marcus Lorenzo is the Managing Director of the Atticus Partnership. Atticus Partnership is in essence a multi-specialist exclusively retained senior executive search business, focusing on leadership appointments (including functional heads) across most vertical markets. Whilst based out of the UK (offices in London, Leeds and Manchester) we have the experience, expertise & capability to successfully fulfil global requirements.

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