Time for Reinvention?

I am going to my very first CIPD Annual Conference in Manchester this week.

It’s always exciting to return to my old stomping ground, and poignant that the event is in the old GMEX (or Manchester Central Convention Complex these days). As HR reinvents itself as economies rapidly change, this building has been there before. Opened as Manchester Central in 1880 for steam-trains, by the 1970s it was a car-park for Ford Cortina’s, Austin Allegro’s and Morris Marina’s. In my formative years it was a music venue where I used to borrow my mum’s car to see bands like Happy Mondays, The Pixies and New Order. As Manchester Central has reinvented itself, HR is in a similar position in 2017.

Many of the speakers are picking up on the big themes and questions for organisations and HR :-

• In an age of marvellous technology, how do we design a fair and inclusive digital world that works for everyone? Martha Lane Fox will give insights on the ‘million dollar question’.
• Leadership and performance – I am interested to hear examples from the contrasting workforces of nuclear submarines to classical orchestras with David Marquet and Professor Gernot Schulz.
• Migration and the Socio-Political Shifts Affecting the Future of Work – our work in HR is driven to some extent by demographics, Alexander Betts will outline the major trends.
• Artificial Intelligence and human wisdom in the workplace – an interest of mine since I did a MSc in AI in the mid-90s (long before Watson and Siri) – Timandra Harkness from the BBC asks the big questions about new technologies.
• People Analytics – from data to future business insights – HR has always been swamped in data, but how do we use it to solve business problems? Nobody is better placed than Ian Bailie from Cisco to answer this question.

Do you need any more inspiration?

So we make brilliant music. We make brilliant bands

We make goals that make souls leap from seats in the stands

Tony Walsh “This is the Place”

What about John Dalton, Emmeline Pankhurst, Alan Turing, Marie Stopes, Tony H Wilson, Mark E Smith and on the 12th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me….

If you are lucky enough to be going then give me a shout!

If you are not, then follow #CIPDACE17 on twitter, @AndySpence and my fellow blog squadders :- Gary Cookson, Mervyn Dinnen, Priya Gandhi, Ian Pettigrew, Karen Teago & Donna Hewitson. Thanks to all those at CIPD including Johanna Ratcliffe.