IPM CEO Forum will focus on what CEOs want from HR

The IPM CEO Forum which is an integral part of the HR National Conference on June 3, will focus on the theme ‘People Drive Business.”

The Business Leader’s Forum this year will be facilitated by Dinesh Weerakkody CEO Cornucopia Lanka Ltd and comprises; Amitha Goonarathne MD Commercial Bank of Ceylon, Murali Prakash CEO Browns Group, Dushan Soza CEO WNS Global Services and Peter Spirig CEO Holcim Lanka Ltd. The forum will focus on what CEOs want from HR, if HR is to get an imperative place at the strategic table what are the issues that should be at the top of the agenda and how the contemporary HR executives stack up?

The discussion will therefore center on whether people drive business or whether the right people drive the business and also who are these right people and how do you find and retain them? Today, the number one priority for HR is attracting, retaining and growing talent both now and in the next several years? How are companies facing up to these challenges? Successful companies let go of people who cannot scale the learning curve and reward those great performers.

Jack Welch was famous for letting go of the bottom 10% of performers in the company every year in order to foster renewal and constantly revitalise operations? The CEOs will discuss how they manage poor performers in their companies? Employment Value Proposition (EVP) is what an employee gets working for a particular company.

Rewards for Managing an EVP effectively are huge, increasing a company’s pool of potential workers by 20% and the commitment of its employees four fold. Companies with well-managed EVPs get away with paying less than 10% than those with badly managed EVPs.

The CEOs will talk about how they put together an EVP to attract and retain key people. HR initiatives have now gone beyond just the work environment. Constantly, HR needs to develop innovative people practices to keep employees motivated, and connected to work and their organisations.

The 3 CEOs will share some of their people practices that help to make employees feel valued in their companies. If employee engagement was once little more than a theoretical concept, that time is long gone. Not only can we now define it clearly and measure its existence and intensity, but we can also demonstrate the value to an organisation in concrete terms.

The CEOs will talk about what drives employee engagement in their business? How they measure employee engagement and relate employee engagement to the bottom-line. The CEOs will talk about how important Work Life Balance is and how they have institutionalised it in their organisations? Then does it make sense to outsource certain HR functions and invest in e-HR services? The CEOs will share some of their experiences and frustrations around this subject.

The session will end with a Q&A. According to the organisers the CEO Forum this year will provide an unique opportunity for HR professionals to get an understanding of what the CEO challenges present to HR; will it be an unprecedented opportunity for HR, or a no win situation?