| Dateline: June 1, 2010 |
The HRO Summit Advisory Council has issued its official call for submissions, inviting HR thought leaders, HRO buyers, former speakers, and sponsors to submit session proposals for presentation at HRO Summit 2010 in
This year’s theme: Revving the Engine: HRO & the Economic Recovery. Below we suggest content areas (feel free to suggest others). Please note that at the end of each topic we suggest a format.
The Big Picture
The Economy: Lift off or double-dip? Where’s the economy headed and what should employers do to brace themselves? What can we learn from past recessions and recoveries?
Obama-care & Benefits Administration. With healthcare reform now law in the
Global vs. National Sourcing. Which is right for you? How to decide – regardless of whether your outsourcing or in-sourcing and regardless of the size or geographic spread of your organization – whether you should think globally or locally when picking a sourcing strategy. Looking for experts and veterans to serve on a panel.
Persistent Challenges
Improving the Employee Experience. Call centers, self-service, chat. Real-life nightmares or dreams come true? The latest technologies, processes, and approaches for implementing, improving, and measuring how employees experience HR outsourcing. We want case studies and discussions and we’ll host an “Employee Experience Café” for vendors to demo employee portals and related technology. When responding please indicate if you’ll demo, host a discussion, or both.
HRIT. The back office, the front office, the employee’s office. Case studies, yes, actual demos too. When responding please indicate if you’d like to demo, host a discussion, or both.
Managing Quality. Identifying the latest best practices with an eye toward driving quality for individual outsourcing relationships and for the industry as a whole. We seek hosts for discussions (not so much case studies but actual conversation) around:
- Measuring Quality Beyond the
- Driving Industry Scale. How can buyers and sellers work together to reduce complexity, drive scale, and reduce cost for everyone? Where would buyers like providers to drive scale? Where would providers like clients to standardize and reduce complexity so they can reduce cost and price? Host a roundtable discussion for providers, advisors, and HR practitioners on these issues in a transparent environment.
Analytics. Transforming data into knowledge. Measurement strategies and tools across the HR spectrum: recruiting, talent management, governance, quality, vendor management, etc. Seeking case studies, panel forums, and roundtable discussions.
Understanding the Daily Challenges on the Other Side of the Table. What’s it really like to sit in the chair as an HR executive charged with implementing and maintaining HRO? As an operations manager for a provider, what’s it really like to manage one of these engagements? Seeking veteran providers who are now HR executives and experienced former HR executives who now work for a provider to share their mutual experiences in a panel discussion.
Aligning Costs & Price. What’s the right pricing method for different services in an HR outsourcing contract that most closely align costs and price so that buyers and sellers have a vested interest in the outcome? Seeking facilitators for a roundtable discussion.
Deep Dives
Turnover & Talent Acquisition. Even in a down economy turnover in key roles remained high. As the economy heats up how quickly will the demand for skilled workers rebound and what should employers do to prepare? Case studies and roundtable discussions sought.
Absence Management. Left unaddressed it can drain productivity. Properly managed it can really boost effectiveness. How to manage it without overwhelming it. Case studies and roundtable discussions welcome.
RPO. As the economy lifts off how should companies think about recruitment and specifically how should they think about deploying RPO as a potential solution? Panels, roundtables, and case studies sought.
Multi-National Payroll. Global payroll has been the mirage just out of reach on the horizon. What should multi-national companies do to crack this multi-faceted issue? What have vendors done to move their solutions forward? Panels and case studies sought.
Learning & Talent Management. Keeping the workforce at the peak of productivity, particularly in an increasingly knowledge-based economy, requires consistent investments in training and development. How can companies manage these programs to control costs and maximize success? Panels and case studies.
Deadlines
- June 30, 2010: Written/video abstract submissions due
- July 15, 2010: Notification of acceptance for presentation at the
- October 1, 2010: Final Presentations* due
*NB by participating in this process you are agreeing to have your materials included in the event materials and will deliver the finalized content by 1-2 weeks prior to the event commencement date.
Conference registration fees for selected presenters will be waived and the best presentations from each invited session will also be considered for publication in HRO Today at no additional cost.
Click here to complete a submission online.
| Dateline: May 10, 2010 |
| How do you spell the future of HRO? A - P - A - C. By Richard J. Crespin, Global Executive Director of the HROA & President of Membership Services for SharedXpertise |
Michael Beygelman, Adecco's President of North America RPO, summed up HRO Summit APAC best: "The growth opportunity in Asia is amazing. In six months... [pause for effect] you can develop enough business for a decade."
In planning HRO Summit APAC, we sought to help shape the market and accelerate the growth and maturation of HRO in the Asia-Pacific Region. From the very first minute of the Summit, it became imminently clear that the market would shape us. The pure scale and pace of growth and change throughout the region boggles the mind. A few fast facts courtesy of our keynote speaker, Dr. Chris Chan, Chairman of the MBA Program at Hong Kong University:
- At 11.9% sustained year-over-year growth China and Hong Kong have the world's fastest growing economy... sustained in the face of a currency dispute, sourcing challenges, asset bubbles, inflation etc.
- Southeast Asia has over 550 million people and some of the fastest growing economies. Singapore's GDP alone grew by more than 30% in the first quarter of this year.
- Since the 1980s, the Indian economy has grown from $32 billion to more than $1 trillion today. The Mumbai metro-region alone will exceed the GDP of Portugal, Colombia, and Malaysia by 2030. The health care industry will grow by 23% annually reaching $77 billion by 2012, and India plans to become one of the top five pharmaceutical hubs by 2020.
- 64% of Chinese, 50% of Hong Kong-based, and 54% of Singaporean businesses expect to increase hiring in 2010.
The Summit began with an exclusive closed-session for HR executives only: the Buyers Forum. Modeled after HRO Summit US, we brought nearly a dozen HR executives togerther for a half-day session to discuss the pressing issues facing companies trying to transform and improve the way HR performs for employees and employers. To get the conversation going, I presented the results of a "pulse survey" of over 100 APAC-based HR executives on their attitudes and concerns about the future of HR in the region (to see some highlights, visit: www.hroa.org). From there, the discussion ranged over a host of topics from what APAC-based employees want from their careers, to the uniqueness of operating HR in APAC, to the specific issues these executives face in their own HR Outsourcing programs. Some of the core issues included:
- How do companies baseline performance prior to outsourcing and compare their current and future performance with best-in-class?
- What needs to go into the business case and how do HR executives measure and ensure progress?
- Given that Service Level Agreements are lagging indicators, how do we structure agreements, governance, and relationships to ensure effectiveness? When should we use carrots vs. sticks?
- What do vendors need from buyers to live up to their cost, price, scale, performance, and innovation promises?
- When operating in already low cost economies, how do we derive cost savings without labor arbitrage?
On the following day, over 125 HR executives, service providers, advisors, academics, and members of the media met to address how APAC-based companies can take on the challenges of a People Driven Economy, as the world economy and Asian economies in particular begin to take-off. Over 38% of the delegates came from buy-side companies, 30% from providers, 12% from advisors/analysts, with the remaining coming from academics, the media, and other organizations. The vast majority -- nearly 65% -- of delegates held senior positions with titles of Director, Senior Director, Vice President, Senior Vice President, President, CEO, or other members of the C-Suite.
Based on the Buyers Forum discussions, in his opening remarks to the full Summit, Chris Phair of Johnson & Johnson and a member of the HROA's APAC Chapter Board of Directors, welcomed delegates and challenged the vendor community to help HR executives address several key challenges:
- How do vendors prepare clients for change?
- Get real: How would you have done things differently to avoid pitfalls/failures?
- Focus & be honest: What do you do well and what do you not?
- What factors should companies consider to determine if outsourcing is right for them?
- What’s unique about implementing and governing in APAC?
The day was packed with case studies from American International Assurance (AIA), Credit Suisse, GE Money, GE Healthcare, Globe Telecom, and other global multi-nationals and APAC-based companies as well as panel discussions on the persistent challenges of implementing in APAC and the future of talent in the region. Ragi Singh, head of HR for AIA presented the intriguing story of how AIA -- in the midst of the economic meltdown and near collapse of its parent AIG -- transformed employee benefits and HR. Zachary Misko outlined GE Money and GE Healthcare's approach to revolutionizing recruitment through implementing LEAN. Susan Grace Rivera, former head of HR for Globe Telecom, highlighted Globe's progress in improving the employee experience and tackling a complex payroll and benefits implementation.
I had the pleasure of moderating a panel with Tibor Beles of Oracle, Paul Knowles of Alexander Mann, James Mendes of FutureStep, Chaitanya Sreenivas of IBM, and Nicole Paulson Washko of Pricoa Relocation, to delve deeply into how to breakthrough the obstacles to successfully implementing and governing complex HRO engagements. They specifically looked at how to baseline performance, create business cases, and structure SLAs and governance for success. In a final "big picture" panel moderated by SharedXpertise CEO Elliot Clark, Caleb Baker of Talent2, Michael Beygelman of Adecco, Rosaleen Blair of Alexander Mann, Karen Browne of Advantage xPO, and Terry Terhark of The Right Thing, went toe-to-toe discussing the specific challenges facing APAC-based HR executives in recruiting and retaining top talent. Elliot asked them the tough questions, probing them to compare and contrast one another's strengths and weaknesses and to really get under the covers of what makes the difference in successful HRO and RPO engagements in the region.
In a fun intermission during the intense intellectual forays into HR's complexities, Duncan McKee a trained jazz musician from STIX, taught the delegates in 30 minutes how to play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on hollow tubes. It was a great lesson in collaboration and a fun and lighthearted moment in the midst of a very focused set of discussions.
By the end of the day, the buyers had a chance to get most if not all of their core questions addressed by the vendor community. HRO Summit APAC did help live up to its mission of accelerating the growth and maturation of HRO in the region, but it also opened many eyes -- including my own -- to the vast opportunities and challenges facing multi-national and regional companies as Asia takes off. Moreover, in the next decade, as Asia becomes more of a People Driven Economy, HRO will play an increasing role in how these companies and economies meet their growth targets.
To get in on this continuing conversation, please join us for the other upcoming HRO Summits in Tampa, Amsterdam, and the RPO Summit in Las Vegas.
