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CIPD conference to explore the potential for improved productivity and performance levels with just a small shift in positive workforce engagement. CIPD Employee Engagement Conference, 24-25 January 2012, London
The positive engagement of employees has long been linked with sustainable organisation performance, but knowing how to engage different groups of people is the million dollar question. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Employee Engagement Conference, 2012, will provide expert advice and practical guidance on how to increase an organisation’s engagement levels and improve performance.
David MacLeod, Chair of the Employee Engagement Taskforce (EET), will open the conference with insights on the latest thought leadership on engagement. He will outline the work of the EET, which the Prime Minister launched in 2011, together with outlining the objectives it is seeking to achieve. He will also discuss the four enablers of engagement: strategic narrative, engaging managers, employee voice and organisational integrity, while explaining how people can get involved with the employee engagement movement.
The conference will continue with a mix of case study examples of good practice, providing workable solutions to engagement issues.
Speakers include:
• Nita Clarke, Director, IPA; Deputy Chair, Employee Engagement Taskforce and CIPD Employment Relations VP – will demonstrate how to make the most of employee engagement in organisations to impact on results.
• Eric Collins, Managing Director, Nampak Plastics, and winner of the 2010 CIPD People Management Awards, and Jonathan Austin, CEO, Best Companies, will discuss how organisations can overcome the barriers to engagement.
• Dean Royles, Director, NHS Employers, and Mervyn Thomas, Whitehall Engagement and Head of HR, Department for Transport, will reveal how engagement levels can be improved, even in the face of budget cuts.
The afternoon will offer a choice of sessions looking into different sector specific topics. The first will concentrate on the public sector and look at ways to ensure engagement isn’t damaged during spending cuts and offers strategies to manage additional workload pressures. The second will look into specific organisation structure and culture in the private sector and how best to tailor ways to communicate issues of employee engagement.
Day two will take the form of an interactive workshop, specifically designed to give participants the opportunity to develop practical techniques to improve engagement levels. The workshop will focus on personal engagement, the leader’s role and the purpose of engagement in organisations.
Ben Willmott, Head of Public Policy, CIPD, says: “At a time when many employees are experiencing a pay freeze, rising living costs and an increasing sense of job insecurity, how people are managed on a day-to-day basis becomes even more important. It is crucial that more employers understand and develop the leadership and management capability that underpins employee engagement if they want to get the best out of their staff and support their wellbeing and resilience during tough times. This is also critical to improving the UK’s productivity gap with our international competitors and supporting our prospects for growth.
“Nearly one-in-three people in employment in the UK have some responsibility for managing people; just a small improvement in leadership and management capability – and therefore employee engagement - would have a significant impact on increasing output, improving service delivery and boosting innovation, as well as help manage and reduce stress, sickness absence and conflict at work .”