The Insights stages and Evidence Lab Live were your chance to hear real-world success stories. From reflections on new adoptions to experience of operational processes and methodologies. The insight sessions shared exclusive access to case studies from organisations you already know and academia from trusted CIPD partners.
There were three different topics to enjoy at this year's insight stages, these include; Learning and Skills, Employee Engagement & HR Transformation. You could have also explored the Evidence Lab Live, for a unique blend of academic research and best practice insights.
Day 1
10:00 - 10:30
More than voice - activating employees to improve experiences of work
Learning and Skills Presentation
We'll use practical examples from real change to inspire you to escape the feedback trap. Moving past continual dissatisfaction by empowering colleagues and leaders to drive the changes they seek.
10:15 - 10:45
Unlocking life’s key moments - empowering employees to navigate financial milestones and benefit from greater wellbeing
Employee engagement Presentation
Employees face growing challenges when navigating critical life milestones such as securing a mortgage, obtaining a loan, or arranging rental agreements. One of the most significant barriers is verifying income and employment. Join this session to gain insight on:
- how these obstacles affect financial inclusion
- practical solutions that employers can adopt to ease these processes and support their employees' financial futures
- how the economy is impacting consumer behaviours and demand
- what engagement looks like, in reality – hear a unique and often untold, unheard reality of the credit economy
- financial pressures affecting various workforce demographics, revealing trends HR teams may not yet be aware of
- how data can enhance your Employer Value Proposition by offering practical support that simplifies income verification during key financial events, while advancing DEI and financial wellbeing initiatives by addressing inclusion challenges
-how employee benefits, can be a significant business benefit, that you likely never thought possible in this way.
10:45 - 11:15
Creating team greatness - the new focus for L&D
Learning and Skills Presentation
Maximising team performance, building agility and getting the most out of your teams. This is possible by playing to your team's strengths - in the flow of work, every day.
11:00 - 11:30
Are women a burden to employers? Sharing the 2024 Gender Health Gap report
Employee engagement Presentation
Dr Amy Pressland will share the key results from the Benenden Health 2024 Gender Health Gap report including the impact on women, employers and broader society. This presentation will provide examples of best practice in the world of work (and beyond) and suggestions for employers to support female employees.
11:00 - 11:30
Future proof your business - HR as the driving force
HR Transformation Fireside chat
This talk will explore questions such as: the importance of top down leadership. Does the saying 'everyone enacts the mentality of their leaders' have an impact on an organisation and how? Delving into how HR can be a truly transformative function within the legal industry, with reference to learning and development and diversity and inclusion.
11:15 - 12:00
Knowledge exchange world café
Evidence lab live
For the HR profession to be evidence-based, it needs to connect research insights with practitioner expertise. Join us to be part of that two-way conversation! Topic by topic, academic experts will outline what's known in the body of research and people professionals will have space to question, probe and relate to their experience.
Topics include:
- The four-day work week: perceptions, experiences, and work outcomes
- Empowering and retaining Neurodivergent talent
- How does employee power and voice contribute to 'good work'?
- Attracting and retaining young people in the workplace
- A new partnership between business and trade unions?
- A question of class: exploring the links between socio-economic background, job quality and HR practices
- Negotiating difference at work: exploring disclosure of different and diverse identities
- Digital Mediations in the Workplace (DigiMed): Implications for wellbeing, equality, and diversity
Choose two roundtable discussions for this session.
11:30 - 12:00
Engaging high-value talent before the end of the great hesitation
Learning and Skills Presentation
Amidst ongoing redundancies and economic uncertainty, employees are hesitant to switch jobs, but the desire to progress in their careers remains. How can employers take advantage of this period of the great hesitation, engaging and proactively providing support in the career development of their talent, providing them with guidance and internal opportunities to pursue their career aspirations with clarity.
This session will explore how HR can navigate the impact of AI, support career development, and implement proactive strategies to future-proof skills and keep top talent engaged within your organisation.
11:45 - 12:15
Boosting your business case - maximising your HR technology ROI
HR Transformation Presentation
- Learn how HR transformation projects drive change and can exceed expectations from initial blueprints.
- Gather strategies to build trust with operations for a high-performing environment.
- Find innovative technologies and creative solutions to enhance HR impact.
- Discover practical tools and insights to lead transformative HR initiatives.
11:45 - 12:15
The future of AI-augmented employee experience
Employee engagement Presentation
- How AI is reshaping employee roles and boosting productivity.
- Integrating AI with HR to help streamline onboarding, training, and performance management.
- Utilising AI to improve work-life balance, mental health, and employee engagement.
- Ethical considerations address privacy concerns, bias, and fairness in AI-driven workplace systems.
- What are future AI tools and technology trends that will redefine employee experiences?
12:15 - 12:45
How to build emotional capital and create competitive advantage
Learning and Skills Presentation
Learn from your trusted global skills partner how to build the most important skills for human performance.
12:30 - 13:00
Unlock your employee productivity potential
Employee engagement Presentation
Low productivity has long been the achilles heel for UK business. Discover findings and recommendations from a new report to help you engage and empower staff to drive growth.
12:30 - 13:00
Grow with what you’ve got - unlocking deep work
HR Transformation Presentation
How many hours a week do you spend just ticking off tasks, instead of doing work that really makes an impact and leaves you feeling proud? Probably too many. In this session, we’ll discuss strategies to unlock deep work so you can thrive, even in the most challenging hiring and regulatory environments. I’ll walk you through our framework for helping HR professionals regain control over their productivity - ditching disconnected processes, cutting out distractions and empowering deep, focused work.
12:15 - 13:00
Building an evidence based people profession
Evidence lab live
Why does the HR profession need to be evidence based? What are the risks of not doing so and the benefits to be had? What does it really mean to be evidence based and how can we go about it? In this workshop, leading advocates of evidence-based management will talk you through all this, explaining the core principles and practices, how they apply to HR, and showcasing CIPD resources to help you get started. We also present an in-depth case study of evidence-based practice in action and include time for you to discuss and reflect on how it can work for you.
13:00 - 13:30
So has leadership really changed?
Learning and Skills Masterclass
Join us for insights on how leadership has evolved, emphasising people-oriented skills, collaboration, and innovation, and learn practical strategies to build a strong leadership pipeline in today's dynamic environment.
13:15 - 13:45
Perks with purpose - how employees engage with Net Zero benefits today and in the future
Employee engagement Presentation
Discover how to support your employees on their Net Zero journey and save them more than £10,000. This session will highlight how HR & Benefits leaders can support their workforce in making greener choices, such as switching to electric vehicles, while delivering significant savings. Plus, The Electric Car Scheme will be unveiling a brand new employee benefit - come to the session to be among the first to hear this exciting announcement and learn how it will accelerate your team's journey to Net Zero.
13:15 - 13:45
The evolution of background screening
HR Transformation Presentation
A deep dive into how digital services and API’s are transforming how employers access screening services to provide their candidates with seamless, integrated onboarding journeys. Learn how employers in the future can tap into an Instant Services Marketplace.
13:45 - 14:15
Winning hearts & minds - enabling HR's voice to be heard
Learning and Skills Masterclass
People are essential to business success, right? So isn’t it frustrating when HR is considered to be an obstacle, or when the topic of 'people' is secondary to other priorities. We’ll give you insight to help ensure your voice is heard and believed, enabling you to drive organisational performance through your people.
14:00 - 14:30
How to comfortably have conversations about wellbeing
Employee engagement Fireside chat
Having confidence and being comfortable in having conversations about wellbeing is an essential skill for people managers, requiring a thoughtful and empathetic approach. While managers cannot be expected to be medical experts, they are expected to support the wellbeing of their teams. Despite the expectation, our research suggests there is still a gap regarding the competence and confidence of managers in addressing wellbeing issues. So how can you encourage managers to have safe and effective wellbeing conversations with people?
14:00 - 14:30
Generative AI in HR - the good, the bad, the ugly – 5 steps to future-proof your skills
HR Transformation Presentation
As pioneers in workplace AI, 5mins.ai is pulling back the curtain on the deep insights and knowledge we've gathered, having worked with Gen AI since the GPT-2 days.
Join 5mins.ai founder, Saurav Chopra, and dive in to an enlightening discussion where we navigate the complexities of Gen AI in the workplace. This session will explore:
The Good:
- The remarkable productivity gains
- AI's revolutionary capabilities for People teams
The Bad:
-Job disruption
- How People teams can tackle the challenges of AI's "blackbox" problem and the jagged frontier
The Ugly:
- The risks of untrained users, and what they need to learn
- Challenges around plagiarism, copyright infringement, manipulation, and misuse at work
And will showcase 5 key strategies you can take to ensure you remain on top of all the changes coming to the workplace and to the role of HR.
14:00 - 14:45
Workshop: Expanding horizons - exploring the benefits of research for practice
Evidence lab live
People professionals are often involved in solving complex organisational problems, but how can research-based practice help to solve these problems? It's often easy to lean on professional judgement, senior stakeholder views or best practice examples. However, injecting evidence into the decision making process increases the effectiveness of your solutions and reduces bias.
This interactive workshop will explore the benefits of getting involved with research and how this can in turn strengthen the decision-making process.
14:30 - 15:00
Is being too supportive or challenging disempowering our people?
Learning and Skills Presentation
Do employees like to be 'challenged' in their everyday life at work, or do they prefer to be supported? SEEDL's research shows there's an optimal challenge to keep them engaged.
14:45 - 15:15
Dare to listen – holistic listening strategies to deliver meaningful and actionable insight
HR Transformation Presentation
Why employee voice is critical to organisational effectiveness and health. We look at different types of voice, the prerequisites to employees using their voice and crucially, how voice can be translated into meaningful and actionable insight through effective listening.
14:45 - 15:15
Words matter - driving engagement and retention with language training
Employee engagement Presentation
Discover how tailored language training can foster psychological safety, boost employee engagement, and improve retention. Learn strategies for integrating effective communication programs into diverse, multilingual teams.
15:00 - 15:45
Knowledge exchange world café
Evidence lab live
For the HR profession to be evidence-based, it needs to connect research insights with practitioner expertise. Join us to be part of that two-way conversation! Topic by topic, academic experts will outline what's known in the body of research and people professionals will have space to question, probe and relate to their experience.
Topics include:
- Sustainable hybrid work: wellbeing in the digital age
- The challenge of 'moving on' from conflict
- Cybervetting: social media assessments in selection
- Testing the edge: how people working in extreme contexts can thrive
- Advancing equality, diversity and inclusion through voice for all: presenting a new tool for assessing and enhancing the impact of staff networks
- Skills-underutilisation: making the most of your workers' skills
- What can HR do to help create healthy jobs?
15:15 - 15:45
Letting it go - bridging the conflict resolution gap
Learning and Skills Presentation
CIPD research reveals that conflict in the workplace is far more common than people professionals would ever want it to be. But with the most common resolution to conflict is to simply ‘let it go’, is there a discrepancy in the perceived handling and management of a conflict scenario, and the experience of the employee experiencing the conflict?
15:30 - 16:00
Plan to make work pay - what do you need to know?
HR Transformation Masterclass
The much anticipated first 100 days of the new Government has passed, but where are we with Labour’s plan to make work pay proposals and what should businesses anticipate and prepare for as the plan continues to evolve? Join us for this interactive session where we’ll focus on the areas you want to know about and the implications for employers.
16:00 - 16:30
Degree apprenticeships - a force for impact
Learning and Skills Panel discussion
Explore the broad impact of apprenticeships on bridging skills gaps, enhancing diversity, and driving innovation. Hear from industry experts, apprentices, and employers about their transformative effects across sectors.
16:15 - 16:45
What does ethical AI at work look like in practice?
HR Transformation Presentation
For AI in the workplace to be ethical, it must be human-centric, evidence-based, and include a long-term vision. Let Top Employers Institute shine a light into what is working now, how to embrace this technology to improve your business and empower your employees.
16:15 - 16:45
Making the most of occupational health
Employee engagement Presentation
Tips for organisations on how to ensure that they're using occupational health and wellbeing services to effectively manage staff sickness, boost productivity and protect their organisation.
16:15 - 17:00
Workplace wellbeing for people professionals (and beyond)
Evidence lab live
It's important for workplaces today to instil cultures of wellbeing, but how can people professionals take care of their own wellbeing at the same time? Practitioners today have to navigate how to take care of themselves whilst taking care of others. But how can you truly avoid wellbeing fatigue? Hear from Helen Fitzhugh on what it takes to 'share the load' and make wellbeing everyone's responsibility. Including a focus on 'how' to implement wellbeing strategies and not just 'what' to implement. Andri Georgiadou will then explore how to balance seeking meaningful work whilst maintaining healthy working habits. Is finding purpose in work really a double-edged sword?
Day 2
10:15 - 10:45
Neurodiversity in the workplace
Learning and Skills Presentation
Creating a neuroinclusive workplace may sound daunting, but with the right knowledge at your disposal, you can create an environment where every mind thrives. Join for practical strategies for success.
10:15 - 10:45
Could you improve your recruitment strategy to retain more new starters?
Employee engagement Fireside chat
4 in 10 organisations have seen new recruits resign within the first 12 weeks.
That’s a problem. We often speak of the employee value proposition as a means to retention, but the reality is the work of engaging and retaining employees begins before new hires even start. So, what do employers need to being doing to strengthen their recruitment process for a successful outcome?
11:00 - 11:30
New government key update - employment law changes
HR Transformation Presentation
In this session, Amanda will take you through the latest employment law changes you need to know, and how to implement them in business.
11:00 - 11:30
Financial wellbeing- can it boost employee wellbeing?
Employee engagement Presentation
We delve into if financial wellbeing plays a role in boosting employee retention and attract more talent, making you stand out with your employee benefits offering.
11:45 - 12:15
How Priory uses AI-assisted coaching to enhance talent pipeline support
Learning and Skills Presentation
Learn how the UK’s leading mental health and social care provider and other organisations are using AI to support coaching and development of key roles in their talent pipelines
11:45 - 12:15
DIY Live! Build your own HR/recruitment AI chatbot
HR Transformation Presentation
How many simple questions is your HR/recruitment team asked by employees/candidates? Could you train an AI chatbot to answer these questions? Yes! Let us show you how.
11:45 - 12:15
Why wellness programs are making things worse and what you can do about it
Employee engagement Presentation
Tired of wellness programs that just don’t work? Jonathan Roomer, Co-Founder and Chief Technology & Product Officer at YuLife, is here to shake things up! In this lively session, you'll discover why some wellness initiatives can actually backfire, and how YuLife’s innovative approach is transforming employee wellbeing and driving real business results. Expect myth-busting, surprising insights, and plenty of practical tips to take back to your organisation. Don’t miss the chance to reimagine wellness with YuLife’s game-changing perspective!
11:30 - 12:10
Productivity is key - driving success across your workforce
Evidence lab live
Productivity can be understood as how effectively your organisation and employees provide value on both an individual and collective level. Many practitioners view productivity as an essential behaviour of workforces today that must be placed at the centre of organisational strategy. However, organisations must consider what internal and external factors can affect productivity. By promoting wellbeing and positive workplace cultures, organisations will experience lower levels of absenteeism, higher levels of retention and more productive workforces. Hear from Emma Hughes on whether responsibility falls with line managers to drive productivity, improve well being and where HR's role sits within this. Emma Stockdale will then explore how supporting financial health across your workforce can in turn increase productivity and drive success.
12:30 - 13:00
Attract, retain, engage & empower your frontline workforce in 2024
HR Transformation Presentation
Engaging shift-based workers has never been tougher. Thankfully, technology can help. This session focuses on three engagement fundamentals that can be facilitated by a human capital management (HCM) suite: connection, empowerment and autonomy.
12:30 - 13:00
Psychometric profiling excellence in action - a thought-provoking case-study
Learning and Skills Presentation
We will hear from Isio Group, a pioneering pensions provider, about their company-wide roll-out of the Emergenetics psychometric profile: applications, results, and key lessons from implementing company-wide profiling.
12:30 - 13:00
Taking a data driven approach to driving workplace health and wellbeing
Employee engagement Fireside chat
In this insightful session, we explore how leveraging data can transform workplace health and wellbeing strategies. Join us for an engaging interview with a leading client who will share their journey of using data to drive decisions, implement impactful actions, and enhance employee well-being. Discover how data-driven insights are influencing their approach, the specific steps they are taking, and why these initiatives have been and continue to be essential to their organisation's growth and success.
12:25 - 13:05
Settling disputes - exploring conflict resolution at work
Evidence lab live
Conflict in the workplace can manifest itself in many different ways. Whether it's on an individual or collective level, it's important that conflict is dealt with head-on to promote healthy workplace cultures. As part of the process, organisations may sometimes conduct employee investigations. During this session, hear from Andrew Cooper on the impact investigations can have on the individual and organisational culture. Melanie Simms will then explore how you can change the narrative around collective conflict in the workplace.
13:15 - 13:45
Navigating and mastering the new era of Management Apprenticeships
Learning and Skills Presentation
Management Apprenticeships have been transformed and can now, more than ever, enhance your people’s capabilities. Join us to understand what’s changed and what it means for your development strategy.
13:15 - 13:45
AI use in the people profession (and at CIPD)
HR Transformation Presentation
How can the profession use generative AI to their advantage? Over the last couple of years readily accessible generative AI has been freely available to use, with many workers experimenting with the technology, to streamline their workload offering greater opportunity to focus on more creative, complex aspects of their roles. But what’s the opportunity for experimentation within the profession? Additionally, join this session to find out a little bit more about how we at the CIPD are experimenting with AI within the organisation.
13:15 - 13:45
A slice of success with Pizza Express - how Oak Engage transformed their global employee experience
Employee engagement Fireside chat
Dough’nt miss this session which will provide insights into overcoming outdated systems to level up your internal comms and operational efficiency. Join us for a Q&A with Oak Engage and Pizza Express, discussing how their five-year partnership has sky-rocketed employee engagement and created a central hub for everything their employees need.
14:00 - 14:30
How L&D can create value - focusing on skills development
Learning and Skills Presentation
L&D professionals are pivotal in equipping employees with the necessary skills to meet current and future business needs. Even more so when you consider the reported shelf life of skills continues to decline, with the world economic forum predicting 44% of current skills are expected to change in the next five years. So, what role must L&D play in addressing skill gaps and shortages now and in the future?
14:00 - 14:30
AI & Automation - the future of recruitment?
HR Transformation Presentation
AI in recruitment. It’s all everyone in HR can talk about. Is it just a trend, or is it here to stay? We can’t say for sure, but what we can do is take a look at how AI and automation are currently used in recruitment and how AI could shape your future recruitment strategy. This session will offer insights into how organisations are utilising AI in their recruitment strategy, how automation can help you effectively manage candidates, and how you can get in on all the AI & automation action.
14:00 - 14:30
Every employee matters - building an inclusive benefits strategy that supports your people, no matter who or where they are
Employee engagement Fireside chat
- Discuss strategies for engaging deskless workers, in both public sector and private sector organisations.
- Attracting and retaining staff and the role of your benefits strategy in supporting this.
14:15 - 14:55
Supporting parents to thrive across the workforce
Evidence lab live
Balancing work and home life can prove difficult for parents, organisations today must play a key role in supporting staff during this time. Access to support should be available to both working mothers and fathers to navigate childcare responsibilities alongside working commitments. This session will see Jasmine Kelland explore the "fatherhood forfeit", with caregiving fathers often facing underlying biases when trying to take a more active role in childcare responsibilities. Sara will then explore the 'motherhood penalty', examining the links between motherhood and job quality.
15:00 - 15:55
Streaming Closing Keynote
Learning and Skills HR Transformation Employee engagement Keynote speaker
This session will be streamed from the conference