Merixstudio during 9th HR Minds Future of Talent Forum

The conference organised by Hungarian company GLC focused on six main topics:

• Major Environment Shift,
• Performance Management,
• Hiring the Best Talent,
• Talent with Business Strategy,
• Learning Process,
• Retention and Engagement.

During two days, the attendants were able to listen to the HR professionals from different industries, companies, and countries.

Day 1

After the introduction and warm welcome from Peter Holmark (Human Resources Director at Nokia), Brady A. Pyle took the stage. This Director of Human Resources at NASA (yeah, you are absolutely correct - the NASA that sends people to the moon) was talking about the top 5 workplace trends and problems of the future. According to Pyle, the first one is the constantly strive to expand a team (which, to be honest, we can see in almost every company). Burnout of the employees was the second point. Brady Pyle was talking about the Karōshi (which can be translated literally as "death caused by overwork”) and how to stop the process. Thirdly, all of the programs and groups that could help people at work. The role of women in technology companies and the cooperation with the Z generation were the last two points presented by HR Director of NASA.The conclusion was: if you want to succeed in all five aspects, you need to take knowledge from different cultural perspectives as well as be trustworthy, open-minded, respectful, accountable, and to be a key player as a manager.

Brady A. Pyle, Director of HR at NASA

After Brady A. Pyle’s presentation, we could learn about the case study of Swarovski company. Alberto Platz (Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition and Engagement) shared his knowledge about onboarding process as "one of the most important elements for employees’ journey”. According to him, this element is essential because the first days in the new company are very stressful for everyone and they can affect the whole employment time of new members of the team.

Organisers created two tracks that we could join after the coffee break: Talent Acquisition and Talent Development and Learning. I was the speaker at the first one, and I was telling the audience about technology in recruitment and how it can foster better talent acquisition. I shared with them my knowledge about a creative approach to the recruitment based on case studies of Merixstudio. Our innovative recruitment methods were received with the applause and appreciation.

Just after me, Rosie Chilver (EU Head of Talent Acquisition at Amazon) was encouraging that every company needs to treat the candidates like the potential client. She explained how to think out of the box to attract top talents and also how to use the virtual reality in the recruitment process.

the speech of Amazon

Fresh paella, delicious crema catalana and some pineapple helped me to recharge my batteries for the second part of the first day. Roundtable discussion with permanent moderators and three topics: Future of Learning (by Andre De Wit, Leadership consultant at Carlsberg), High potential versus high performer (by Peter Holmark) and Gamification in recruitment (by Daiga Ergle, CPO at 4Finance) was waiting for us. It was a large dose of knowledge, 20 minutes per table.

Then, there was a chance to take part in fascinating workshops led by Mehmet Baha (Founder & Senior Consultant at Solution Folder). The topic was learning experience in collaboration. All people in the audience were playing instruments, so it was the powerful combination of music and business.

Talent Management for the Minority or the Majority was the subject of the open panel discussion. Four experienced panelists: Simone Zilgen (Senior Director Talent Managment Group at Carlsberg), Sachin S Narke (Chief Learning Officer from Forbes Marshall), Xavier Savigny (EVP at Bureau Veritas), Andre De Wit and Alberto Platz were talking about how you can identify talents and what does it mean that someone is the right person for the role.

the open panel discussion

The first day of the conference was ended with the speech by Gianpaolo Barozzi (Senior Director HR at Cisco) who was talking about talent management, network analysis and how it all changes from hierarchies to networks of teams.

Day 2

Is there a better option to start a day two of the conference than the speech of the Daniela Landherr from Google? She was talking about how working culture drives innovation and how it looks at Google. She also explained where it comes from and how it is shaped right now. For me, it was a lot of fresh ideas from the IT giant.

Daniela Landherr; Google's presentation

The next two speeches were focused on strategic workforce planning (by Viv Meredith, Global Talent Business Leader at GSK) and the role of gamification in boosting employee engagement (by Daiga Ergle). Two very different perspectives but both extremely interesting ones.

Marjo Kuosmanen (Vice President HR at Rovio) and Luigi Maria Ferro (Global Head of Performance Management at ING) were taking part in the debate session. They were representing different views on performance management in their companies. The debate compared the points of view of authors of famous game Angry Birds and a bank. Interesting and instructives views. Besides, It was Marjo and Luigi battle ;)

Before the break, we all take part in the involving task. Three groups, each in the circle, were throwing to each other the ball of twine. There was only one rule: you need to say what you like, what you are passionate about etc. and you can throw the ball only to the person who has the same interests. After ten minutes of playing you can see how many connections are between you and the rest of participants.

When the lunch was finished, I was attending the last workshops session about design thinking in the HR. For example, we were talking about how design thinking can create values for HR management and why it works in human-centred approach.

All the good things come to an end.

For me, these were two, very inspirational days - full of great HR content from the experts from all over the world. From this place, I would like to thanks GLC for the opportunity to be a speaker at such excellent conference. Stay tuned for more!