Barcelona has been consolidated as a Global Hub for HR after the success of the 4th International HR Conference BCN

PRESS RELEASE

The event was very successful in terms of participation, with over 200 HR Directors and CEO's attending from more than 30 countries in “a call for solidarity, diversity and peace”.

·     Advantage Consultores, organiser of the event, will maintain Barcelona as the host city for the 5th edition on October, 5th, 2018.

·     Main conclusions of the 4th International HR Conference Barcelona: change is the new normality, speed is everything, people are in the centre, and the new working models will be disruptive and more collaborative.

Barcelona, October 2017. Barcelona has been consolidated as the global hub for HR after the success of the 4th International HR Conference Barcelona, an international event in which over 200 executives from more than 30 countries participated. The Congress also had 15 top-level speakers from organisations such as Ricoh USA, Global Future of Work Foundation, Tjaara, MOB, Google for Work, Beezy, Gartner, Unilever, Womenpreneur Initiative, Kais, Código Nuevo and Pangea.

As event organiser and founder of Advantage Consultores Sylvia Taudien states, “We consider it a great success to have full attendance at the Conference in a week of great economic and political turmoil and uncertainty in Barcelona.” The 2017 edition was held in the Telefónica Auditorium Tower, a setting where digitalisation, technology, humanisation and the future of work and recruitment were the protagonists.

Sylvia Taudien opened the event with a moving tribute to her city and “a call for solidarity, diversity and peace,” symbolised by the presentation of a white rose to all those present. Taudien has identified the main conclusions of this fourth edition: “Change is the new normality, speed is everything, people are in the centre, and the new working models will be disruptive and more collaborative.”

It was a great honor to count on Roury Simpson, the global L& D Director of Telefonica Group, a global company with+140.000 employees. Universitas is the global Corporate University of Telefonica with splendid locations some 40 km in the North of Barcelona, the global site for disruptive and innovative training and learning for all Telefonica Managers.

Peter Williams, the COO of Telefonica Alpha gave some incredible insights into this innovation unit within the global Telefonica organization dedicated to so-called ‘moonshot’ projects, that is, future, ambitious long-term technological developments that will have a major social impact in mankind, propose radical solutions and lead to breakthroughs in innovative technologies.

Future of Work: Digitalisation and Participative Environments

Starting withthe first round of TED Talks, Human Resources leaders like Donna Venable, Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Ricoh USA, reflected on the future of work. Venable addressed innovation in work environments, with a clear commitment to open and collaborative spaces. Venable opined, “Change can be intimidating as that is part of human nature.” To overcome this, at Ricoh USA they have offered training sessions on new technology and focus groups, among other support tools. Once they have adapted to the change, the employees “become ambassadors of the experience. It is fundamental to understand the benefits it brings them,” she explained. Ricoh not only helps its employees but also supports its clients in implementing digital change. Moreover, “We encourage our leaders and teams to use interactive approaches to work in a more intelligent way and to create a sense of community with our remote workers,” Venable noted.

For his part, Franz Deitering, Vice President & COO at Global Future of Work Foundation, announced that by 2019 75% of professionals will rely on a digital assistant. In addition, he spoke of the role of Human Resources in companies’ innovation processes. “Human Resources have to promote digitalisation and become leaders of the organisation so other departments follow in their footsteps,” Deitering asserted. He also highlighted the importance of “the company’s management team creating and leading this transformation.” According to Deitering, in order to digitalise a Human Resources department, it is essential to understand it as a real transformation with a strategic and digital focus.

Fred Then, CEO & Co-Founder & Startup Coach at Tjaara, revealed how he managed to increase the success of the startups from a Singapore university from 3% to 60%. Then is the creator of the Effective Persuasion Method?. The international coach said, “Companies failed because subconsciously they had a very negative predisposition. Once we overcome these psychological barriers which prevent us from progressing, we can change our lives.” He asserts that they help candidates increase their efficiency by 150%-200% in 21 days.

In her speech, Cecilia Tham, Innovation Activist at MOB, dealt with the subject of open innovation and the future of collaboration. In Tham’s view, “For the first time in the history of mankind, people and communities have the same innovative capacity as companies and governments: people are doing what companies used to do and companies are doing what governments used to do.” She detailed a management model in which companies, rather than developing ideas through internal resources, turn to the cooperation of external stakeholders, institutions and experts. “Twenty years ago, in order to innovate companies created their own innovation department. Now, with the explosion of startups, companies cannot compete with the speed at which they are creating projects,” she explained.

The Future of Selection: Artificial Intelligence and Retention Through Values

In the second main topic area, top executives such as Isaac Hernández, Country Manager Iberia at Google for Work analysed the future of people recruitment. Hernández stated that for Google hierarchical models are obsolete and the important thing is collective intelligence. He emphasised that Google is a company in which the culture of innovation has to be everywhere. “Innovation is not a question of money, it is a question of people. My experience at Google is that people really must be placed in the centre.” He explained the hiring process at Google, a company in which “a committee is formed to hire any candidates and this committee always includes a person from another department.” For Google it is important “to have people who are capable of reinventing themselves and also to let them decide which project they are going to work on, as this increases their level of commitment.” They need people who are passionate but also very connected so they cooperate and collaborate. The view of Google is that “It is fundamental to give recognition and to do it publicly. Thanks to gThanks you can thank a co-worker for their help and you can decide at the time whether to share it with their boss or with the department. It’s a spontaneous thing.”

Jordi Plana, CEO of Beezy, used the occasion to share his career path with the audience, introducing himself as “a peasant in Silicon Valley”. Plana highlighted that in the world of innovation “speed is everything”. Beezy helps large organisations to create a digital environment that stimulates its employees and makes them happy, as “a happy employee is a more productive employee,” he concluded.

“Building the Digital Workplace” was the title of the presentation by Jordi Escalé, Executive Partner at Gartner. Escalé interpreted this topic as a business strategy to boost the figure of the employee and their commitment by improving the working environment. To Escalé, this “increases the attraction and talent retention of employees.” Escalé stated that there are new ways of working and operating, and also new markets. He claimed, “In 2020 the average person will have more conversations with a robot than with their partner.”

In her speech, Yolanda Menal, HR Director at Unilever, defended her commitment to artificial intelligence in the selection process as it “eliminates subjective bias”. Specifically, Menal explained that Unilever has begun to apply AI “to hire recent graduates from the Future Leaders programme because it is a methodology which connects directly with the way this profile of candidates, digital natives, thinks and operates.”

Digital Natives: Hard-Working Young Adults with Big Dreams

For the final part of the event, it was the turn of the digital natives. Sana Afouaiz, Founder & CEO of Womenpreneur Initiative, drew attention to the lack of positioning and understanding of Arabic women in the West. With the aim of improving this situation, she has created the Flourish storytelling platform, which encourages the role of Arabic women in world forums. “I have always valued the power of women. In fact, I was educated by a strong, rural mother who worked very hard to be able to give me an education. Her dedication has been my inspiration to help other women,” she explained in a moving talk.

Cesare Cacitti, student and founder of Kais, shared his story, the difficulties he faced in moving forward with his projects and how he managed to overcome them. Aged just 17, his message is: work hard and dream big. Cesare is a young entrepreneur who has developed his passion. During the conference his explained his experience of creating 3D printers with the aim of “motivating others with technology in unconventional ways, stimulating others to be creative.”

Another speaker was Joan Riera, Founder & CEO of Código Nuevo, who spoke of how to connect with young people. The key to his publishing project achieving high engagement levels is, above all, emotional and attractive content. “At Código Nuevo we talk about feminism, emotional intelligence and social change. We try to make people aware,” he explained. On the other hand, Riera underlined the importance of how content is presented. He explained, “Through design we want to differentiate ourselves in a market oversaturated with information.”

Lastly, Pablo González, Founder & CEO at Pangea, brought the conference to a close with a summary of the most notable aspects from the International HR Conference Barcelona. He stressed speed and flexibility as key elements in Human Resources, as well as the importance of the transformation of organisations. González also wanted to emphasise that “being young is not a question of age but a mentality,” noting that every generation must be open to change in order to be able to advance. The most important points for Pablo González were: 1. Change is the new normality. 2. Solutions have to be better, faster and more flexible. 3. It is the age of people, the age of talent. 4. New disruptive working models. A shift from competition to collaboration. 5. Being young is not a question of age; it is a question of behaviour, mentality and attitude. To González, the differential is not technologies but people.

During the entire event, there was a palpably positive attitude with a view to the future, encouraging companies to continue opting for Barcelona in their plans to digitalise their headquarters or subsidiaries and to contribute to consolidating the city as a digital hub. “I’m proud to have fulfilled my dream of turning Barcelona into the capital of human resources,” admits Taudien. Consequently, the organiser has already confirmed that Barcelona will also be the host city for the 2018 edition.

You can find all the pictures following this link!

International HR Conference Barcelona organised by Advantage Consultores with the support of Career Partners International, Incipy and Inesdi.