In July last year I was lucky enough to be a guest at DisruptHR London16.0. It was a great event and took place at the Royal Institute.
The event was incredible, as were the people presenting! I remember being exhausted after the first 3. They had really brought their A game. I wondered if I knew anything anymore, given how much I’d learned in the first 15 minutes.
What is DisruptHR?
DisruptHR is a networking event and a set of presentations with a difference. There were 14 speakers on the night and each of them had the same unenviable task…
…To present on a disruptive take on HR. You get 5 minutes to present, 20 slides to present, which equates to 15 seconds per slide, which are on a timed loop.
Add on the fact that I was a co-host and brought on board the key sponsor, our parent company NFP, it felt pretty-daunting.
The topic
My chosen topic for my talk was ‘Why we hate HR.’
It was definitely disruptive, and you may argue, counter intuitive.
Of course I don’t really hate HR, and of course this wasn’t really the point!!
The concept came out of the re-emergence of an article titled ‘Why we hate HR’ that was put out by the Fast Company in the early 2000’s.
The same company put out a new article this year, that discussed why so many people were looking to work in HR.
When you compare the key messages from the two articles side by side, you can see how the headlines are misleading (see image below).
In reality everyone hates ‘bad HR,’ and everyone loves and values ‘good HR.’
Take a look at some of the points I covered regarding this:
There were lots of other elements to consider in the presentation about how you can set HR up to succeed and make their brand clear, impactful, and respected in your organisation… but more of that will be explained in the coming weeks – watch this space.
Key learnings from this event
There were some incredible speakers talking about a range of topics. The energy in the room was great and Bill and the team did a great job getting this on, promoted and so well attended.
The HR Community can be a fantastic community, with some of the best people in business around. People were ready to come out, get involved, and make the event what it was!
Some key takeaways:
- The more HR is valued and gets to do the right tasks, the better.
- If you want HR to be your police or your puppets, you are doing it wrong!
- The ROI in a well thought out HR/People strategy is significant.
- If you are not doing it, someone else will be!
Find out about more about how we are approaching people and talent in these challenging times by visiting our website www.connor.co.uk or giving us a call on 01491 414010.
