Striking HR Philosophies in EMEA HR Summit London 2016

Coverage: Mahmoud Mansi

Photography: Alia Faramawi & Mahmoud Mansi

Gathering HR Professionals from Europe, Middle East and Africa in the EMEA HR Summit to unite them together discussing and working towards creating a better world for and through our employees.

The summit took place in The Bentley London bringing 10 professional speakers offering out of the box solutions regarding contemporary HR issues.

Event Director Kat Eletskih stated that, “Organisations around the world have different expectations of Human Resources. The EMEA HR Summit is an event designed to unravel the mysteries of the International HR Transformation; focusing on best case studies and discussions around potential of HR and its journey to the better future. In order to put the transformation into perspective and make the most of the opportunity, organisations and HR leaders need to be very good at looking at the future. Missing this opportunity can leave HR leadership teams and their organisations badly exposed when the unexpected happens.”

Tom Griffin – a behavioral strategist and storyteller / Founder of Extra Ordinary People – chaired the conference. His outstanding ability to connect with people was clear due to his theatre background and neuroscience expertise. He spoke about the importance of storytelling and how it influences others as it is an excellent connection between human beings. Moreover linking storytelling to human resources Tom elaborated the importance of providing storytelling as a course for managers in an organisation as it will encourage teamwork and leadership.

Gyan Nagpal – A Best Selling Author, CEO and Co-Founder of PLGA Consulting in Singapore – spoke about the impact of technology on existing jobs, and the replacement of many jobs by software programs. How will people find employment and how HR will coexist with such evolutionary changes was the main theme of Gyan. His conclusion was that humans created technology and not the other way around.

Mohamed Mesbah – International HR Expert & Speaker – spoke about the power of Millennials into developing the new world. Mesbah also spoke about the power of Millennials in politics and as an example he spoke about the revolution in Egypt and another example was “Who initiated all the wars, was it generation X?”. Mesbah also highlighted a very important tip saying that organisations now are like this person fishing in the desert! As they only use LinkedIn to find talent while most Millennials use other social media channels like Facebook for example.

Derya Tekin Yusuf – HR President at Celebi Aviation Holding Inc – highlighted that most organisations are now concerned regarding dealing with Millennials but they forget to focus on building a bridge between different generations instead of only empowering one.

Yetunde Hofmann – Non Executive Director CIPD, Visiting Fellow Henley Business School & a TEDx Speaker – spoke about the impact of digital fluency on diversity and inclusion on talent management. In her speech she also initiated a very important angle which is “love”. She spoke about love that exists between employees and managers, and she explained that it’s not the “romantic” kind of love but to allow people to believe in you. Yetunde also spoke about encouraging employees to get involved in civil work activities? Especially in treasury because this will help them understand the value of money.

Richard Grills – Head of Global HR B2M Solutions – started his speech by providing several examples occurring due to global economic changes, one of these examples was the dramatic currency exchange rates between developed and developing countries. From this point he focused his speech on the adaptability and flexibility of the corporate and employment world. The ability to find and retain people of high potential through “building the talent pipeline” in your organisation. Richard highlighted a vital issue that many HR people fall into, is that HR should not rely on motivating their employees through financial rewards, because the “Employee Y” is more attracted by “personal engagement, recognition, freedom and flexibility.”

Tim Highet – GE Crotonville Regional Director (Europe, Russia CIS, MENA) Customer Leadership Education – his speech was about driving evolution integrated talent management and leadership development. Tim also worked on sharing some case studies from GE, and one of the most interesting ones was that since they found out that the performance appraisal system causes dissatisfaction when someone gets a lower grade than the other, and that all line managers get the highest grade, so they decided to cancel it! Or in other words to replace it by a verbal one to one meeting which will allot the employee and manager to discuss further development on regular basis.

Mahmoud Mansi – Author, 4 Times TEDx Speaker, Founder of HR Revolution Magazine & Senior HR Specialist at The Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport – spoke about his new model “Shared Development” and how it resolves most of the contemporary HR problems. He started his idea by asking the audience which is more fun, being a student or being an employee? Mahmoud then proceeded that students are happy because they have several teachers/mentors, they get weekly feedback, they have the right to play and they are raised with the idea that they can be anything they want, while as they grow up to employees they become like chess pieces each has o my one role and is allowed to develop only in one direction with a certain percentage. That’s why employees are not happy.

Dr. Robert Davies – Author, Director DRD Advisory & Senior Visiting Fellow, Cass Business School – spoke about very interesting themes. He started his speech by taking permission from the audience to take off his jacket, referring to his very first job where he had to take permission from his boss to do so. This brilliant metaphor reflected the huge transformation of the work environment. This was an excellent way to begin his idea; most of the classic management business models we have been studying are not applicable in the contemporary real world. Robert explains that when these models were created the business environment wasn’t as dynamic as now, so implementing it was much easier but now it wouldn’t make sense.

Alan Whitford – Managing Partner Abtech Partnership & HR Consultant – conducted a recruitment workshop on “Achieving Business Success”. He started by brainstorming with the delegates on analysing the contemporary recruitment issues, and each wrote their own insights as notes, then they shared their questions. Alan was able to spot the common problems the delegates were talking about, and from this he started his dynamic workshop by showing that the focus should always be on “people” since this is the only “constant” variable in this unstable changing world.