CIPD Conference: New Year, New Plans, New You 2020

We were excited to be part of the CIPD Birmingham Branch’s Mini Conference at The Birmingham & Midland Institute last week as their headline Sponsor. 

As a HR Consultancy that has worked in the Birmingham market for over 20 years we know, as well as anyone, that it is all too rare that HR professionals get that opportunity to “stop the roundabout” and take some time to focus on their own personal development. So when we sat down with our friends in the CIPD and looked at their Event Schedule this year it was the Event that we really wanted to support and we like to think that it did not disappoint as a worthwhile event.

Expertly “compered” by Diane Rance the event was well hosted at the Birmingham landmark Birmingham & Midland Institute and extremely well supported by HR professionals of varied experience and across a range of sectors and it made for a fascinating day.

Our thanks to Henrietta Brealey from the Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce who opened the morning with an overview of the Economic and Commercial opportunities and challenges for Birmingham in the next year. It made for a refreshing change to be able to talk Brexit but to also include some focus on issues like the Clean Air Zone, The Mayoral Election in May and also the Commonwealth Games. 

We were also treated to some good insights from Nichola McKay who led a practical workshop on finding your power and enhancing your personal network. Before Fiona Anderson rounded up the day with a session designed to help us think about how our behaviours can help support, or potentially, impede us in 2020.

It was good too to have a chance to be part of a short Q&A session at the end of the day.

From our point of view the take-aways from the day were

• Whilst there are a diverse range of businesses across the West Midlands they have similar challenges in terms of people and culture development.
• The value of a strong network of peers
• The value of a positive mindset
• That being Assertive is a happy place to be.
• How do we get the male population of HR professionals to these sort of events? Paul and Jon of Wright Solutions were the only men in the room.
• Given that these sorts of events and opportunities are useful might it make more sense to make them less rare!
• And of course what an excellent venue the BMI is. A real old world gem of a location for this sort of event.

Our thanks to the CIPD for getting us involved and for their organisational skills. If you would like more information on any of the speakers then do let us know as we would be delighted to put you in touch with the relevant parties.

For the CIPD Birmingham Branch schedule of events click here.

For the GBCC schedule of events click here.

To make sure you are included in the Wright Solutions mail list where we will keep you regularly updated on other events like this click here.