Designing Your Organization for Connection and Cultural Transformation

For over a decade, the quest for social connection and collaboration in organizations has faced challenges. Initially, the focus was on social technology but flooded with similar platforms, the impact fell short of transformational. The realization that the solution lies with people led to two camps: grassroots culture change and top-down leadership change. However, efforts at individual change struggled to be sustained due to shifting priorities. Overlooked throughout this process was the organization itself and its design—the human systems that shape work, leadership, management, and rewards. To create a more innovative, responsive, and resilient organization, we must shift our focus to the rules that guide people’s interactions and approach to working together. This requires a deliberate approach to organizational social design. Beliefs/Attitudes and Behaviors/Activities: To understand the current state of your organization, consider: What beliefs do employees hold about the mission, products, work, and success? How do employees work, collaborate, and engage with peers, leaders, and managers? Are they motivated to improve and share knowledge? Do they exhibit open communication, support, and positive advocacy?   These behaviors and beliefs are crucial indicators of the organization’s social dynamics. By closely observing these aspects, we can uncover valuable insights into how the organization operates. Rules/Values (Systems): Evaluate the systems that shape behavior: Do leaders authentically promote inclusiveness or favor an inner circle? Are diverse voices given equal opportunities to contribute? Does your organization have effective channels for cross-organizational communication? Are inputs and outcomes equally rewarded? Do organizational decisions cause confusion? Are managers evaluated on employee development or solely on financial results? Is the path to progress clear and transparent? To cultivate a social organization, HR and L&D professionals must address the organization’s design and human systems that influence behavior. By analysing beliefs and observing behaviors we can begin to reshape systems to foster a connected and engaged workforce. Remember, it’s not about the latest technology or individual change efforts; it’s about deliberate organizational social design that unlocks the potential for increased engagement, reduced turnover, and a culture of innovation and creativity.   About the Author Mark Britz is an organizational social designer, author, speaker, and consultant. He helps companies scale their business without losing their unique culture.. Mark provides workshops, resources and leadership coaching. He has worked with companies such as SmartForce, Pearson Digital Learning, Aspen Dental Management, and Systems Made Simple. Mark currently directs learning event development for The Learning Guild. He published his first book, “Social By Design: How to Create and Scale a Collaborative Company” in 2021.

The Magic Key to Unlock Excel

There is one magic key on your keyboard which will make you whiz around your spreadsheets in record speed. This key will unlock your efficiency in Excel and beyond, and once you unlock it, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it! You’ll feel like such a keyboard person that you almost don’t need your mouse at all.  Come and discover one of Excel’s best-kept secrets in this short practical demo video…   About the Author Dan Stillerman Founder Excel Academy, Excel Academy Trainers and Actuaries (Pty) Ltd (trading as Excel Academy)  

Performance Management for a Future Workforce – Elegant, Fair, and Durable

I was pleasantly surprised to see a chapter on performance management in Daniel Kahneman’s recent book Noise (2021). If anything, it is a major contributor to organisational noise. He points out that the relationship between performance ratings and actual performance is tenuous at best. With all the effort invested into performance management processes, it rarely engenders performance as such. It may have been comical had it not been so sad.   Why? David Rock et al., in their article, Kill Your Performance Ratings (2014), fittingly indicate that numerically labelling people inevitably generates a fight or flight “response that impairs good judgment“. Sadly, only one group seems to benefit from the performance management process – senior executives. They seem to intrinsically be rewarded by “the feelings of status, certainty and autonomy that occur when one is presiding over a forced ranking system”. This is neither desirable nor good enough.  Simultaneously, driven by the 4th industrial revolution and accelerated by the COVID pandemic, we are speeding into a technology-driven, disruptive, but human first era. As Dave Snowden (1999) points out, in this exciting new world, “knowledge can only be volunteered, it cannot be conscripted”. The same holds true for performance, caring and trust. As HR professionals and as custodians of this process, it is incumbent on us to fix it for the people and organisations we serve.  We have a unique opportunity amidst and post the pandemic, and it would be a travesty to squander it. The opportunity of a new, hybrid and hopefully changed workplace, but in lockstep a fundamentally changed performance management approach. Not scrapping it but changing it. We need to address performance management as a core and systemic tenet of the HR new normal. A noise muffler, not an amplifier.  To do so may require a shift away from the overuse of words, concepts, and terms such as performance, productivity, utilisation and sales targets as core beliefs in the performance management process. Instead, it may be more useful to consider contributions from teams rather than individuals as a starting point and fiercely focus on the concepts of recognition and the development of people.  We need to seek approaches that sensibly address the important neuroscience factors that impact people the world over, namely Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness (Rock et al., 2014). We are to build a framework that negates the negative overtones of performance management and strives to find a positive foundation to engage on an emotional and rational level. Wouldn’t it be great if we could at least say that the process was fair and did not undermine the autonomy of the people we work with?  Alvin Toffler is often quoted for stating that unlearning and relearning to be as important as learning itself. I think it is time to unbelieve some of our performance management myths and convictions. A time to create a process conducive to guiding authentic performance and behaviour. As core tenets, it needs to be elegant in form and philosophy, fair at all costs and a durable process supported by the people it is aimed to serve.  Wouldn’t it be great to experience a fair, team-driven, perhaps highly personalised performance management process through consumer-grade technology?    About the Author Barry Vorster is a human resource and consulting leader with a track record in strategic talent management, future of work and culture transformation applications. He is the Chief Strategy Officer, leads the VSLS Enablement Technologies and Workforce Transformation teams that specialise in strategic advisory, content experience design and technology enablement to unlock the true potential of organisations. He has more than twenty-five years of consulting experience and has been enmeshed in helping organisations within the ambit of human resources, organisational culture, HR technology, learning, and the future of work.

The Workforce of the Future

When we talk of the workforce of the future, we’re talking about people AND the things they need to do the work, be that for commercial gain, or in service of other people. What is clear is that talk of the future is not a singular story. Not one thread. Not just advancing technologies or increased automation. So we should talk of futures – plural. A range of potential options that help us prepare – because planning for such uncertainty is not just hard, it may be futile – for whatever choices, options, and challenges we face in that range of scenarios. No doubt that in evolutionary terms, our biggest challenge is our ecological stability. Whether you deny or believe in climate change – and indeed the emergency we now refer to it as – there are some potentially catastrophic scenarios for the future of our planet. What appears to be wrong is the debate on whether it is man-made or not. Though polluted seas with plastics are undeniably man-made. What scenarios we should focus on, is what can the human race do to mitigate, overturn and repair as part of our continued work and business ventures. Then we have social injustice and division. A negligence on supporting each other – human to human – whatever our heritage or situation. And we also see that Governments alone are not able to fix the issues we now face. We need people in a societal sense, and organisations in a business sense to create the forces for change through sustainable business and a more humanly world of work that we believe will shape the workforce in the coming years. At the heart of the current economic system – in which the 20th century evolved into – is the continued desire for profit. Yet, there are emerging, and competing forces, as the capitalist systems are being pitted against a higher sense of purpose, activism and impact. We are seeing business transformation at an accelerated pace, in large part, driven by the Covid-19 pandemic. Organisations are being re-designed to future-proof their existence in a world where profit is not everything – accepting it is a tangible result still – and where purpose is a more powerful determinant to a broader sense of what success is. The workforce of now is more aware of a connection to that higher sense of purpose. We see this in the B Corporation community as one example of businesses deliberately diversifying into more soulful, conscious, and sustainable ways to operate. What we are emerging into is a new sense of activism and inclusion. Not just political but societal, commercial, and ecological systems that need us to not simply partake in them, but reimagine and reinvent them. A workforce of consciously minded, creatively spirited, activist-leaning individuals, all united in a common purpose? We are aware that this sounds idealistic and even utopian! It would be naive to not recognise that these trends in our workforce will not be without challenges. The futures we project all point to a workforce that is more diverse. Because our world is diverse and organisations, as a microcosm of our world, should be diverse. Diversity has benefits that cannot be quantified. Diversity brings a difference of opinion, of understanding, of perspective; and in turn, respect. And within all of this, we’ve barely touched on the potential for digital technological advancement with quantum computing, robotics, and machine learning-based Artificial Intelligence (AI). To go full circle back to the need for respect for our planet, and our people. The futures we conceive mostly point to organisations being more humanly.  Where purpose and profit complement, powered by people who have an entrepreneurial spirit in complex and more flexible systems of work. We already see businesses being designed with ‘sustainability’ at the core. The workforce of the future will have seen the planet change, as a result of our actions. They will be determined to correct wrongs. They will act consciously and collectively to do so. They will be enhanced by AI. But they will be human. And they will be purpose-led activists. So our question to leaders – and the people profession is – are you ready to prepare for a series of futures and this rise of people-powered activism? About the Authors Perry Timms Founder and Chief Energy Officer People & Transformational HR Ltd   Kirsten Buck Chief Impact & Culture Officer People & Transformational HR Ltd

To Remote or not Remote, That is the Question – Exploring Different Workplace Strategies for the Future

The global pandemic has forever changed how and where work takes place. Whilst some organisations had already explored the benefits of remote work before, the pandemic forced organisations to move the majority of their workforce to work remotely overnight, to keep their people safe whilst trying to remain productive and profitable.  Remote work approaches have been adopted with varying degrees of success. For some organisations, remote work provides the benefit of flexibility which results in increased levels of productivity as well as the ability to tap into unexplored talent pools. However, in other organisations, this same flexibility highlights the impact of blurred work-life boundaries mental fatigue, and a loss of social connection and organisational culture. Organisations exploring a hybrid remote working approach (with a physical presence as well as a remote workforce) are facing further challenges in managing the complexity that this brings, both in the practicalities as well as the impact on organisational dynamics and employees. Whatever the approach, remote work is a reality that will far outlive the global pandemic. Going forward, an estimated 80% of organisations will implement some form of remote working on a permanent basis with 70% of employees anticipating that they would be able to work from home at least 5 days a month. A recent survey conducted by Statista stated that 71% of employees are struggling to adapt to remote work and a further 79% have reported increased stress and anxiety during the past 12 months. For organisations to reap the potential benefits of remote working, this means finding a fit-for-purpose approach to remote work. As organisations aim to navigate these difficult waters, there is a need to explore different workplace strategies, the benefits, limitations and expected value that organisations can derive from a robust workplace strategy. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of 5 emerging workplace strategies that organisations have started to adopt as they prepare for the post-pandemic workplace and aims to position the role of HR in helping organisations navigate this transition. Exploring different workplace strategies A key consideration for any workplace strategy starts with the criteria of place and time. Organisations have to decide on their appetite for and practicality of flexibility in location, as well as the feasibility of synchronous vs asynchronous work.  This decision should be based on the nature and the content of the work that needs to be delivered by the organisation, as this will influence the viability of different time and location approaches. Making the transition practical For a workplace strategy to be fit-for purpose, the organisation needs to adopt a structured approach towards defining which approach is best suited for their context. As HR, we have a fundamental role to play in supporting organisations to navigate these decisions and find sustainable solutions into the future.  We don’t have to have all the answers, but a structured and thought-through process can help the organisation make informed decisions on the best way forward. Step 1: Analyse current work to determine remote viability The first step is to analyse the type of work and roles that exist within the organisation.  A good approach is to evaluate the current role of families and evaluate which of these roles are viable for remote working strategies. Step 2: Educate your business on possible workplace scenarios Business needs to be educated about possible workplace scenarios and the pros and cons clearly stipulated for each, to understand the consequences and impact of their decisions. Step 3: Define remote work principles and guidelines Define Remote Working Principles that can be translated into structured day-to-day routines.  An example could be, “we believe that social connection is important for our culture, which is why our monthly All Hands meeting will be in person.  Other meetings, where possible will be conducted remotely”. These principles should reflect the desired engagement strategy and be suitable to the type of work and culture that the organisation wants to create. Principles need to be concise and simple with all employees being able to interpret and apply the principles consistently. Over time, remote working principles set the tone and evolve the organisational culture, creating cohesion and a consistent way of doing, regardless of location. Step 4: Equip leaders and managers to lead co-located teams Leaders play a key role in keeping employees engaged, and an important focus area for HR should be to coach and guide leaders on how to manage hybrid or co-located teams.  Leadership will require a different set of competencies, to not only manage in complexity but sustain the culture of the organisation. Clear, outcome-orientated communication is essential and more frequent, structured check-ins help clarify expectations and manage productivity, whilst creating human connection. Step 5: Evolve and redesign traditional HR practices This new way of work will also have a significant impact on traditional HR practices, which need to evolve and adapt to support remote, on-site and co-located teams, whilst tapping into the potential of remote talent pools. It also requires an evolution of the employee value propositions and learning strategies, to be centred around inclusivity as organisations transition into this new way of work. The future of work holds a lot of promise for organisations that are willing and able to adapt old habits into new routines.  There is no perfect workplace strategy, but organisations should rather be open to experimenting with a variety of approaches to find a model that is suitable to its context and objectives. About the Authors Dr Dieter Veldsman  Group Executive: Human Capital Momentum Metropolitan   Ms Marna van der Merwe Talent Lead Momentum Metropolitan  

Why Learning and Talent Mobility Are Key in Today’s Workplace

A decade ago, few of us worked with a director of employee experience, a director of organisational learning and development, or a vice president of global impact and employee life. These roles were few and far between, which is just one simple example of how our workplaces are changing. The “2019 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends” report surveyed nearly 10,000 respondents in 119 countries to get more insight into workplace changes, and how we’re reconsidering our approach to jobs; new recruiting, hiring, and retention practices; and the adoption of technology in the workplace. The report identified 10 trends for companies to focus on for meaningful impact. In this post, I’ll explore two trends relating to learning and talent mobility that have particular resonance for human resources leaders. Learning in the Flow of Life The No. 1 reason people quit their jobs is the “inability to learn and grow,” according to respondents of the Deloitte report. It follows, then, that the No. 1 trend in 2019 is for organisations to change the way people learn, with 86 percent of respondents rating this issue important or very important. Jaime Fall, director of The Aspen Institute’s UpSkill America, confirms that “lots of surveys show that if millennials and Gen Z workers don’t feel their employers are investing in their education, training, or development, they’re not going to stay.” There’s another business reason to support prioritizing continuous learning. As Workday Chief People Officer Ashley Goldsmith says, “Advances in technology will continue to change the way we view talent and organize our workforces. In the face of this, it will be HR’s responsibility to provide the leadership necessary to ensure workers have the new skills required for our organisations to remain agile, efficient, and prepared for whatever disruptions the future brings.” Building up the right skills is critical. In fact, Deloitte cites a recent World Economic Forum report that found 54 percent of all employees “will require significant reskilling and upskilling in just three years.” So how are HR leaders addressing these challenges? Deloitte’s survey revealed the following: Eighty-four percent of organisations surveyed are increasing their investment in reskilling programs, with 53 percent saying that they would increase this budget by 6 percent or more. Seventy-seven percent of organisations surveyed are increasing their learning team’s headcount, elevating learning to the second-fastest-growing role in HR.   Organisations that invest in an always-learning, agile workforce will be more prepared to adapt to change and achieve their growth objectives, yet companies can do more than they’re currently doing. Other research bears out the importance of upskilling. Our global study, “Organisational Agility at Scale: The Key to Driving Digital Growth,” found that leading organisations—in terms of digital revenue growth and five identified attributes of organisational agility—are four times more likely than their less agile peers to plan to upskill more than 75 percent of their workforce. Smart leaders understand that these numbers are important. Feon Ang, vice president for talent and learning solutions, Asia Pacific, LinkedIn, noted in a MarketWatch article that organisations must embrace a culture of learning to remain resilient in a rapidly changing workforce. Talent Mobility: Look Within to Win The race for top talent has always been top of mind for HR leaders, but the methods for finding and retaining that talent has shifted. Sometimes, the best candidates are already working at your company, and the Deloitte report highlights that organisations must embrace internal mobility as a “natural, normal progression.” In fact, supporting the internal mobility of talent is good for employees and employers alike. It enables employees to continue to feel challenged and engaged with their work, acquire new skills, help fill organisational skills gaps, and make progress toward broader career goals. Additional drivers for internal mobility include expansion of operations, including globalization, and the shift of many organisations toward flatter organisational models. As a result, there’s a need to put employees in different roles, on different projects, or in different locations. The No. 1 reason people quit their jobs is the “inability to learn and grow,” according to the Deloitte report. Companies have strong business reasons to make internal talent mobility a priority. When Deloitte looked at the fastest-growing organisations, defined as those growing at 10 percent or more compared to the prior year, “they were twice as likely to have excellent talent mobility programs than organisations that were not growing at all, and more than three times more likely than organisations whose revenues were shrinking.” And yet more than 50 percent of this year’s survey respondents told Deloitte that it “was easier for employees to find a job outside their organisation than inside.” While the report found that internal mobility is a high priority, it’s difficult to do well. Only 6 percent of respondents described themselves as “excellent” at moving internal talent from role to role; 59 percent rate themselves fair or inadequate. The research turned up a number of reasons that organisations find it so challenging: Organisations don’t have the processes in place to identify internal candidates. Organisational silos pose a challenge for both managers and employees to look beyond their own groups and find the right roles and the right candidates. The necessary technology and systems are not in place to promote internal mobility. Incentives typically don’t exist for internal hiring, and the workplace culture does not promote talent sharing.   Investing in internal mobility can help employers find solutions to their talent needs, create more growth opportunities for employees, and develop future leaders. Cristina Goldt, vice president, HCM products, Workday, explains that one way to do that is for organisations to get comfortable with using a talent marketplace model to mobilize existing employees and promote internal mobility. “Looking within,” according to the report, “can make the crucial difference between struggling and succeeding.” Are You Ready for the New World of Work? Work is changing in ways that are completely unprecedented. In order to succeed and thrive in the new world of work, organisations must avoid the comfort of complacency. If companies are willing to challenge the old ways of doing things, embrace the changes that accompany technological innovation, and put employee development and engagement at the center of their business, together, they will create a better future of work. About the Author Julie Jares is a Workday staff writer covering professional services and human resources trends that impact business leaders.

Hiring Remote Workers? Mindset Is Everything … and It’s Not What You Think

As CEO of a fully remote company, I’m often approached by job candidates who say, “I would love to work from home!”. That’s great – and part of my goal to hire for fit – but that’s only part of the “fit.” People who power a remote business must dovetail with three criteria: an affinity for company values; the talent to meet specific job requirements; and the ability to work without supervision, apart from the rest of the crew. Those abilities all have their beginnings in the mind, each stemming from different intellectual capacities. Let’s say that two workers are equally qualified in the first two areas. They’ve demonstrated that they’re aligned with the company’s mission and values, and they have the chops to do their jobs. If we hire on those benchmarks alone, though, we may still make the very wrong choice. For example: “Mia” does her job via Wi-Fi at the local Starbucks. As her focus shifts from her laptop to the patrons, baristas, and the delicious smell of coffee, she forgets to return emails and compiles her report in bits and pieces. By lunchtime, she still isn’t finished. She heads to the nearby McDonald’s to work through lunch, only to catch up with her friends on social media instead. Her report will be late. “Paul” built a compact office in a corner of his great room at home. He put in a glass door so he can see the kids when they come home from school—but he also hired a nanny to supervise them until dinnertime. Paul goes for a run in the morning, finishes his paperwork by noon, and enjoys a restful lunch hour. Coworkers never have to wait long for phone or email replies, and Paul still has time to prep for the next day’s agenda before quitting time. Sure, discipline exists in different supply in different people. But that’s only part of the remote equation. Dedicating our focus to our tasks—by creating a quiet workspace and managing time well—shows respect for the freedom and obligations that come with teleworking. That’s a plus for Paul, but Mia has another problem. She may love the idea of working from a chosen location, but she doesn’t like to be alone. There are workarounds for that, such as shared office space with other remote workers. But that doesn’t mean Mia can hang around the water cooler all day and still perform her job. This isn’t a knock-on social people; it just means that working remotely takes a bit more effort at setting boundaries for ourselves. We don’t have the peer pressure of a coworker saying, “Well, we’d better get back to work,” after a chat in the break room. The remote meeting format is another protocol that virtual workers must embrace. People who are big talkers and poor listeners won’t cut it. Those who veer off topic or interrupt proceedings to attend to matters at home—or the coffee shop—won’t do, either. An active listener, respectful of who is speaking and of the time invested by colleagues, is a great communicator whom any remote operation would love to have. These are just the most obvious requirements of teleworkers. Running down details may take more effort from afar, so employees who follow up and follow through without having to be reminded are well suited to remote roles. Being technologically inclined or willing to learn is also a must unless the job is stuffing envelopes. Digital communication becomes more sophisticated every day, and staying connected is essential. There’s another need related to that—in the opposite direction. The ability to switch off and regenerate is something that remote workers must have and be able to do on their own. To help them, companies can strongly encourage or require that employees take breaks. Research shows that productivity depends on that. Poor Mia will always be underproductive because she never really hits her working stride amid all the distractions, so she tries to catch up by skipping breaks. At my company, one boost for productivity that teleworkers have is that they can get their work done whenever they are sharpest. If they’re morning people, they can get started early and finish early. If they’re night owls, they’re just finishing up when the morning folks rise. The only caveat is meeting fixed deadlines and mutual conferencing times, small concessions to gain additional freedoms. This brings us back around to the other two hiring-for-fit criteria: candidates who align with a company’s culture and who are qualified to do the assigned work. The best remote employees will be able to tie these things together with their brand of self-management. All three criteria, combined, actually strengthen one another when the hiring fit is right. So our HR process includes a peek into the mindset of job candidates. They take a personality test and are interviewed for their responses to our company’s business mission, core values, and work culture. We assess them for the skills we’re looking for and the capacity to learn new things. And when we get around to what it takes to work from a virtual office, we ask a trick question. We ask them where they get their coffee. Chris will be speaking at the 2019 HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest in Johannesburg on 26-27 August. About the Author Chris Dyer is a recognised performance expert. Constantly intrigued by what makes some businesses and individuals more successful, Chris has dedicated years of research to what drives productivity and profits. As a sought-after speaker and consultant, Chris works with organisations to help them transform their cultures. Chris is the author of The Power of Company Culture. He is also the Founder and CEO of PeopleG2, a company that has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list of the Fastest Growing Companies three times.

HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest: What’s New for 2019?

The Introduction of L&D Innovation & Tech Fest This year’s HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest is going to be the best one yet. Perhaps the biggest change will be that, for the first time ever, we’re combining the much-loved HR Innovation & Tech Fest with the brand-new L&D Innovation & Tech Fest. Two communities will come together to learn, connect and develop. We’ve built significantly on last year’s event, we’ll be going from three to five tracks of content this year. Last year we had 250 people, but with the addition of L&D Innovation & Tech Fest, we’re expecting close to 400 attendees. All in all, you can look forward to 50 sessions across the two days – a mix of case studies, panels, solution showcases and more. More International Thought-Leaders Than Ever Our event producers, Andrea Erasmus, Jane Simonsen and Emma Buitendag, have been scouring the globe over the last few months to find the most innovative HR and L&D thought-leaders and change-makers. They’ve put together this impressive agenda for the event on 26 and 27 August 2019. We have seven internationals from the USA, the UK, Australia and New Zealand coming to South Africa to share their insights and perspectives with us. One speaker you definitely won’t want to miss is Susie Gleeson-Byrne, Head of HR for Uber Australia and New Zealand, who will be speaking about the future of work and the gig economy, as well as learnings from Uber’s cultural journey. Cutting-Edge Local Customer Case Studies We haven’t forgotten about all the amazing innovation happening right here in South Africa. Distell’s People Development & Capability Manager, Bruce Walker, will be discussing how they developed an e-learning platform for a multibillion-rand company and its 470 sales representatives and Absa’s Lead of Transformation & Change, Riaz Patel, will take us on their rip-roaring voyage to digitise HR. We also have 10 other exciting local customer case studies on the agenda. Giving Start-Ups A Leg-Up This year, we’re hosting a very exciting competition for start-ups, where the winners will be given free tickets to the event, as well as the incredible opportunity to demo their innovative HR or L&D technology to South Africa’s biggest HR and L&D innovation and tech community. We’ll be announcing the competition guidelines soon, so keep an eye out if you, or someone you know, has created a ground-breaking piece of HR or L&D technology that deserves to be shared! A Greater Focus on Soft Skills This year, we’ve put more focus on soft skills such as leadership, change and people management. These topics often get the backseat in favour of topics such as data and analytics and the future of work but understanding the impact of softer topics will allow HR and L&D professionals to harness the best of their teams and enhance team dynamics. Leigh Bowden from Workspace Synergy will be discussing such topics in her session on “Compassion at Work”, and Gregory Bayne from Total Leader & Coach Solutions Australia will get into the key principles underpinning a culture of accountability in his session “Build a Culture of Accountability: Transforming Organisational Performance and Outperforming Your Competitors”. Bigger HR and L&D Tech Expo We often hear from our community that the exhibition area is one of the most useful aspects of the event. This year, the exhibition area has expanded to incorporate HR tech and L&D tech vendors, which is why we’ve moved to a bigger venue, the Hyatt Regency in Rosebank, Johannesburg. The latest in HR and L&D technology will be showcased to help you select the best products for your business. About the Author Andrea Erasmus is the Head of Production for HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest. She scours the globe for the most innovative HR and L&D teams, out-of-the-box thinkers, and inspiring change-makers and creates two incredible days of inspiring keynotes, interactive sessions and panel discussions.

Top 10 Networking Tips for HR Tech Fest

If I told you there was a session you could attend at HR Tech Fest that would provide more answers to your business challenges than any other session, what would you guess? The Keynote on How Mobile is Changing EVERYTHING? The session on key HR Technology trends in the industry? Guess again…. It’s actually the time between sessions. Shocking I know, but true. Networking is about so much more than making new contacts: it’s a valuable opportunity to find solutions to your business problems, find out what other companies are doing and even generate business leads. If you do it right, that is. Here are some expert tips on how to get yourself in (and out) of effective networking conversations while at HR Tech Fest. 1. Pre-game warm up: Follow the conference’s social accounts and start networking right away. Start or join in a discussion or ask a question and see who responds. You’ll soon find who else is keen to share information and network. Don’t forget to use the conference hashtag #HRTechFest. 2. Set-up networking opportunities during the session: Think of everyone you sit next to during a session as an opportunity to make a new contact. Make sure you get to the session early, find a seat next to someone you don’t know and strike up a conversation. 3. Avoid sitting down during the breaks: You may notice a distinct lack of chairs, this isn’t because we forgot to order them. We do this to maximise networking opportunities and encourage everyone to walk around and network. 4. Be present, be open: When you come out of a session your first instinct might be to reach for your phone. Fight the temptation! You’re going to make it hard for people to approach you not to mention impossible for you to spot your next networking opportunity. 5. Grab a coffee: Why not find someone you’d like to network with and see if they want to grab a coffee and use the time you’re waiting in line to start a conversation. 6. Maximise your networking during breaks: Aim to maximise networking during lunch breaks by eating lunch with one group and having a coffee or dessert with another. 7. Network with the speakers: After each session, the HR Tech Fest speakers generously give a little more of their time by gathering at the Innovation Hub. This is a really valuable opportunity to speak to the presenters one-on-one and ask them any questions you might have. Don’t forget to write down some questions during the presentation and have these ready to go. 8. Start a conversation: Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself, there’s nothing to lose. Conferences are a natural networking environment so you’re not going to be out of place introducing yourself to a stranger and the humble conference name badge is the greatest tool you can use to start! 9. Break away from your colleagues: If you’ve come to the conference with colleagues, the safe option is to stay in your group and chat but you’re going to limit your networking opportunities if you do. If you see someone standing on their own, break away from your group and start a conversation with them. 10. Take notes: You will be having a lot of discussions with many different people and taking in lots of information during the sessions so your brain will probably struggle to keep up. Note down who you have spoken to, their company and what you talked about and any follow up actions – it would be a real shame if you wasted all that hard networking effort by forgetting who you’d talked to.