Last week I joined my ndc team colleagues Jonathan Lancaster, Julie Nelson and Natalie Truswell for the CIPD AnnualConference in Manchester.

The two-day conference was an excellent opportunity to learn, share experiences and reconnect with People Professionals in HR, Learning and Organisational Development from the UK and beyond.

Here are some of our reflections and takeaways:

• There is a strong desire to tackle workplace inclusion in a way that reaches the entire organisation and goes far beyond ‘box ticking’ approaches. That was evident in the genuine interest of people in our Conscious Inclusion programme to better engage leadership and management teams.

• The opening keynote from ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston, focused on the role of people and culture in ESG,sustainability, and the recent bullying scandal involving Sir Gavin Williamson.  Several discussions we had with people explored some of these issues and interventions, such as in-house coaching to change culture/behaviours fundamentally.  

• Re-thinking leadership and management development was a common theme in our conversations with HR and L&D professionals. For several organisations, the focus was on how to best equip the next generation of leaders and managers with the skills and capabilities to drive success in the face of uncertainty.

Other areas of interest from people were around organisational supervision and support for internal HR, L&D and OD teams.  There were discussions about coaching and regular support to create a space to share experiences and to help maximise their impact.

To learn more about what we heard and some of our reflections, contact our director Jonathan Lancaster.

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