Events

Location: Stockholm, Sweden.

Speakers: Prof. Alyson Meister, IMD Business School; Amy Sawbridge, Curious Strawberry; Fredrik Schuller, BTS.

Overview: This is an opportunity for participants to be challenged in their thinking around the role of HR, to share experiences with colleagues and to identify practical steps they can take to increase business impact in their organisation through the translation of strategy, purpose and brand into capability and effective culture.

The event will be structured around three key themes:

• HR’s role in creating and executing strategy and purpose. We will argue that HR’s role is not just to operate people processes, but to lead an internal process that translates organisation strategy and purpose into the capabilities and culture required for successful execution.
• Bringing organisational purpose to life. A clear sense of organisational purpose guides the actions of leaders and enables employees to relate their personal goals, values and sense of purpose to the organisation’s mission. To be authentic, the organisation’s external purpose should be reflected in its internal culture and representative of the actual experience of employees. We will discuss how to do this, and how traditional models of careers in companies are being challenged by individuals’ need for purpose.
• Aligning employee experience and employer brand. Consistency between espoused brand values, employee experience, organisational culture and environment is essential but hard to achieve in reality, particularly when trying to identify a red thread across multiple units or brands. We will examine how to achieve consistency, the impact of employees on the employer brand, and how to measure and evaluate the employer brand.

CRF is a membership network with the purpose to enhance the knowledge, capabilities and effectiveness of the HR function in order to drive superior organisational performance. This event is part of the annual programme of events. If you would like to hear more information on CRF, membership, or would be interested to attend this event as a guest, please email harriet@strategic-dimensions.co.uk.

Location: Central London.

Speakers: Sam Dumitriu, The Entrepreneurs Network; Gavin Kelly, Resolution Foundation; Angela Knight CBE, Non-Executive Director.

Overview: Tax will be one of the main political issues of the next decade. A financial crisis followed

by a decade of sluggish productivity growth has left Western economies in poor shape, and governments carrying relatively high levels of debt. The global phenomenon of ageing populations will pile more pressure on already stretched public finances.

Governments will struggle to strike a balance between headline rates for political purposes and the total tax take which dictates fiscal policy and public investment.

Tax is of massive importance to the world of work, in particular to performance and reward, where its impact is often misunderstood. So, what are some of the issues?

• Is our tax system too complex – and what do we actually mean by ‘tax simplification’?
• What distinguishes the UK approach to tax on employees and companies? Do other countries do it better – and how?
• Is the interaction of tax, allowances and benefits causing marginal tax rates much higher than headline 20p and 40p rates suggest?
• Is this destroying the incentive to work harder and gain promotion? To what extent is tax a driver of behaviour?
• Is the UK in danger of driving out its entrepreneurs and foreign investment – both of which generate employment and growth?
• How big a problem is corporate tax evasion – and can it be solved on an individual country basis?
• To what extent is the gig economy eroding the tax base – and what are the practical solutions?
• Are there any politically acceptable solutions which might address the challenge of raising UK productivity?

PARC is a membership network for business leaders interested in organisational and individual performance and reward solutions. This event is part of the annual programme of member meetings. If you would like to hear more information on PARC, membership, or would be interested to attend this meeting as a guest, please email harriet@strategic-dimensions.co.uk.

Location: Central London.

Speakers: Prof. Arturo Bris, IMD Business School.

Overview: IMD Professor of Finance Arturo Bris, Director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center, will take us on a world tour of global competitiveness, surveying financial, economic, technological and social development. Looking at the issues as a series of walls – between generations, between rich and poor, between genders, between economic powers, between people and their leaders and between us and our planet – Bris will examine what it will take to break down the barriers that divide us.

Professor Bris will argue that we need a greater sense of urgency to tackle the blocks to our progress. Some walls, such as gender and climate, can only be broken down by a shift in mindset. Others, like trade wars and immigration, require action. Progress will require collaboration: governments, companies and society working together to solve our urgent problems. Underpinning all of this is the need to put technology at the service of people.

What’s the way forward? Bris will take a holistic view, with responsibility shared between individuals, governments, and corporate entities. We will have to move towards more inclusive prosperity, which ultimately is the backbone of competitiveness.

CRF is a membership network with the purpose to enhance the knowledge, capabilities and effectiveness of the HR function in order to drive superior organisational performance. This event is part of the annual programme of events. If you would like to hear more information on CRF, membership, or would be interested to attend this event as a guest, please email harriet@strategic-dimensions.co.uk.

Location: Lausanne, Switzerland.

Speakers: Prof. Jennifer Jordan, IMD Business School.

Overview: Our 2019 research, Digital Disruption: Exploring the Implications for Leaders and Leadership Development, examined the leadership capabilities required for success in the digital age and the implications for leadership development. In this interactive and practical workshop, attendees will work collaboratively, prompted by the latest thinking in leadership development from IMD faculty, case studies and facilitated discussion among participants.

Attendees will have the opportunity to:

• Compare experiences around the critical leadership challenges faced by their organisations and share how they are tackling them
• Gain deeper insights into the principles of effective leadership development and consider how these might be implemented within their organisations
• Consider how to design leadership development programmes that deliver strategic business value
• Discuss how to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of leadership development and how to apply these ideas in practice
• Collaborate with peers in co-creating solutions to leadership challenges in their organisations.

CRF is a membership network with the purpose to enhance the knowledge, capabilities and effectiveness of the HR function in order to drive superior organisational performance. This event is part of the annual programme of events. If you would like to hear more information on CRF, membership, or would be interested to attend this event as a guest, please email harriet@strategic-dimensions.co.uk.

Location: Central London.

Speakers: Jonathan Watts-Lay, Wealth at Work.

Overview: What is the point of employee benefits? When the majority of people worked for a single employer for most of their working lives, it was natural to assume that their employer would undertake some responsibility for retirement income and protection against ill health. Nowadays, with far greater employee mobility, career changes, varied working patterns and forms of employment, some of the traditional employee benefits appear less relevant.

So what is the nature of the ‘value proposition’ in the area of benefits that is more likely to attract and retain our employees in future?

• Is it more likely to focus on ‘financial wellbeing’ throughout the working life – rather than just building a pension?
• Is it more likely to focus on maintaining good health (and a healthy life-style) than on private healthcare to get employees back into work as quickly as possible?
• With the greater focus on mental health, how far do employers’ responsibilities extend into this area?
• What should employers do to make the working environment more conducive to productive work?
• How should the employer respond to societal changes affecting, for example, child-birth, elderly care, and so on?
• Are there any politically acceptable solutions which might address the challenge of raising UK productivity?

With the benefit of a PARC Report, we will examine the practical implications (and costs) of taking a greater interest in the financial, health and mental wellbeing of our employees – and the extent to which this contributes to greater organisational performance and to a compelling benefits proposition to attract and retain critical talent. Critically, do such benefits contribute to a more or less agile reward structure?

On the broader health side, we will address active interventions made by employers to improve mental and physical wellbeing, such as the use of mental health first aiders, coaching, EAPs, app-based interventions, and broader changes in culture and leadership.

On the financial side, we will address areas such as employee debt, money management, savings and investment (both products and costs), and the role of nudge theory.

PARC is a membership network for business leaders interested in organisational and individual performance and reward solutions. This event is part of the annual programme of member meetings. If you would like to hear more information on PARC, membership, or would be interested to attend this meeting as a guest, please email harriet@strategic-dimensions.co.uk.

Location: Central London.

Speakers: Dr Adrian Massey, Faculty of Occupational Medicine; Dr Wolfgang Seidl, Mercer; Dr Carmen von Rohr, CRF.

Overview: Employee health and wellbeing is not a new concern. However, while physical wellbeing has received a great deal of attention and effort, much less attention has been paid to employees’ mental wellbeing. Given that poor mental health in the UK alone is estimated to cost employers at least £33 billion per annum, there is potentially a strong business case for making mental wellbeing a priority. Furthermore, we are beginning to understand the impact of financial wellbeing on mental health – surveys show nearly half the workforce reports money matters as their number one source of stress.

This timely re-evaluation of employee wellbeing will explore in-depth its mental and financial dimensions, and the new imperative for organisations to craft a holistic approach to wellbeing. The masterclass and accompanying report will address the following questions:

• What do we mean by mental and financial wellness, and what relevance do they have to business performance? What do good mental and financial health look like, and how should organisations be intervening to promote them?
• What is the relationship between financial, mental, and physical health? How do they interact and what impact does this have on individuals and their performance? Can a health and wellbeing strategy that fails to adequately address all dimensions of wellness be effective?
• What are the components of an integrated, effective and comprehensive wellbeing strategy? How can we measure its impact?

CRF is a membership network with the purpose to enhance the knowledge, capabilities and effectiveness of the HR function in order to drive superior organisational performance. This event is part of the annual programme of events. If you would like to hear more information on CRF, membership, or would be interested to attend this event as a guest, please email harriet@strategic-dimensions.co.uk.