CIPD Conference focuses on dispersed workforce | myhrtoolkit

With many of today’s businesses employing remote workers and flexible staff, as well as permanent staff at a variety of sites and offices, it is perhaps not surprising that the CIPD has chosen ‘engaging a dispersed workforce’ as the theme of its Employee Engagement Conference and Workshop 2017.

With dispersed workforces, the task of engaging staff is becoming even harder, demanding a more innovative approach to the tools and tactics used to motivate staff and optimise their experience.

To help tackle this issue, this year’s conference aims to empower HR professionals with the tools to use technology to connect a dispersed workforce, create a value-based company culture and improve engagement.

So what is the CIPD Employee Engagement Conference offering to help you do this?

• Stellar speakers offering expert advice

Day 1 of the conference offers a knowledge-packed programme of presentations from a host of senior HR Directors and employee engagement experts.

The first presentation will be given by Gary Cookson, HR Director of Trafford College. Entitled ‘Crowdsource: Redesigning the employee experience using engagement initiatives’, his talk will explore how to create ‘amazing spaces at work’, how to gain insight from one’s peers in developing solutions to engagement challenges and how to rethink engagement initiatives to drive motivation.

Also among the line-up of speakers will be Den Carter, Internal Communications Manager of Virgin Trains, who will be showing a case study about using technology to enhance employee engagement within a dispersed workforce.

Of course, these are just two of the presentations to be given at the conference, with many more speakers covering topics as diverse as creating an inclusive culture to reconnect with your employees, delivering continuous feedback for an agile approach to engagement and many more.

• A workshop on effective engagement

To help delegates to effectively engage staff, employee engagement consultant, Jasmine Gartner, will be running a workshop at the conference entitled ‘Building your own strategic narrative’.

Based on the idea that having one’s own strategic narrative and focusing on employee voice is key to effective engagement, this interactive workshop will explore practical tools and techniques for engaging staff.

In particular, it will look at exploring unconscious bias and its effects on engagement strategies, making the business case for diversity and inclusion as a key element for engagement and keeping employees engaged through times of change.

Interested in attending the CIPD Employee Engagement Conference? 

The conference takes place on 25^th and 26^th January 2017 in London. However, whether you make it to the conference or not one thing is for sure, employee engagement should remain the focus of every HR professional in 2017.

With research showing that UK employees have some of the lowest engagement with their work in the world, it is clear that employee engagement will remain the cornerstone of staff motivation, wellbeing and performance for a long time to come.

The challenge, as evidenced by the CIPD Employee Engagement Conference and Workshop 2017, will be for HR departments to adapt their engagement strategies, messages and tools to an ever-evolving workplace landscape.

For those responsive organisations that manage to keep their staff engaged irrespective of location, work hours and role, they will see the benefits of creating a ‘people-machine’ driven by a culture of promise, possibility and positivity.

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