Last week I attended the CISHRP annual conference, in the past I have been involved with the conference but more from a distance as I have been there representing CML on our promotional booth (which I still helped out at!)… this year I was extremely fortunate to be able to attend the full event, and what an event it was! Each year the CISHRP conference goes from strength to strength and seems to grow both in size and prestige.

Championed and hosted by our very own Chris Bailey, in a nutshell the conference was fun, lively, educational and informative. I’ve always had an interest in HR, when I was at university and deciding what career path to go down I was often attracted to the prospect of working in Human Resources. When I finished university, I spent a Summer interning at my local council’s HR department before the pull of recruitment drew me in and I found myself working in London as a recruitment consultant. However I have to say that I do believe the two professions go hand in hand and there is a lot of cross over between them.



During the 2 days of the CISHRP conference I was lucky enough to hear some great speakers, both from our local community and from the extended international HR community. They covered topics such as Managing Global Talent, The Art of Developing and Selecting Leaders, HR Best Practice and Competency Model, Recruiting and Engaging Young Professionals and Workplace Flexibility; and I can honestly say that I enjoyed listening to every speaker and hearing the different views and thought provoking dialogue. The tag line for the conference was ‘what you didn’t know you needed to know’ and it certainly lived up to that statement… for example I didn’t know that by 2025, 75% of the workforce will be made up of Generation Y or Millennial’s (those born between 1982 – 1993)! I fall in to this category and our apparent workforce traits are that we expect praise and need help getting motivated – now I’m not sure I agree with that, but I certainly had never considered this fact. However, it was very interesting hearing about the different ideas of keeping this generation motivated and retaining the best talent for your business.

One of the more thought provoking sessions was led by Martha Ramirez from SHRM on Workplace Flexibility and the benefits of being flexible in order to maintain business success. Martha discussed the different ways you can achieve this from promoting a work wellness program, to offering flex-time, to working from home. Many business leaders are hesitant to adopt this way of working, and I think this is mainly down to a lack of trust in their employees, however Martha brought up some interesting statistics on the actual improvements in productivity and financial benefits from working this way. I hope that in future more business leaders will consider working this way. At CML, I am happy to say that we are offered flexible working and from my perspective (I have a young daughter) it makes a HUGE impact on my work – life fit, and I like to think that by working this way I am able to work to my full potential. Here’s a link from Martha’s seminar. http://business.time.com/2011/12/21/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-9-to-5-workday/

It would also feel wrong to talk about the conference without mentioning the AMAZING food that was provided by The Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman for the event. As a snap shot for you, in 2 days I was able to consume breakfast burritos, cuban sandwiches, pulled pork, steak tacos, root beer floats and numerous cakes and pastries… the post-baby diet took a hammering!

All in all, an excellent event and I’m looking forward to next year!!!

Check out some of our other photos from the event.