CIPD Conference Manchester 2016

Following a great couple of days at this year’s CIPD Conference, I’ve come across a lot of good information on the web post-conference which may be of interest to our readers, here are my highlights:

• Margaret Hefferman’s TED talk which covers many of the subjects she spoke about at the CIPD keynote including William Muir’s research on  “Super Chickens”.  I enjoyed listening to her focus on the mortar rather than the bricks.  She reflected that the really successful teams aren’t the ones with the highest aggregate IQ,  it’s the collective intelligence that’s important and minds connecting with each other, what matters between people rather than each individual’s attributes. Also the question to ask at recruitment stage – who helped you get here?  The idea being that it is better if the applicant can acknowledge the input of others in their career path.
• Good challenging questions asked by Cary Cooper at the “Making Well-being Work” session.  Acknowledging that 1 in 4 of us will have mental health problems but only half of the audience (mainly HR)  thought they would tell their employer if they did.  Some interesting conversations about stigma holding the conversation back and the importance of mental health awareness training tailored to the manager’s role in breaking down that stigma.  Is the message that many of these conditions can now be managed if not cured, not getting through?
• Bernard Marr caused the audience to take a few sharp intakes of breath!  “Discussing Big Data”, included a few nuggets like chipped nappies that can give advance warnings of a baby’s health, Facebook recognising your face quicker than your friends can, the fact that there are now more things connected to the internet than people, gmail proposing a reply based on the tone of your other emails, news articles generated by machines interpreting sports results …
• Flexible working enthusiast Emma Stewart talked about flexible working and shifting from flexible working to flexible hiring, so making it a selling point of the job rather than a negotiation once you have joined the organisation. She argues this would give organisations a massive competitive edge over their competition in terms of talent recruitment.  A case study was included from Dan Richards at EY, who made the point that this isn’t a women’s issue but a millennial issue.