employee engagement forum 2014

Learn from top international keynotes sharing their best practices in engagement

Exchange insights with the region’s employers of choice on how engagement fits into your talent strategy

Work directly with a leading global engagement guru during the full day masterclass

Walk away with practical and interactive sessions to support your engagement programmes

7 – 9 December 2014The Address Hotel Dubai Mall • Dubai • UAE

#EngageME

The Middle East’s Only Event Dedicated

to Engaging Your Workforce

SPEAKER HIGHLIGHTSDavid Zinger, Global Employee Engagement Expert, University of Manitoba Canada / Vesselin Popov, The Psychometrics Centre, University of Cambridge UK / Emmajane Varley, Head of Employee Communications, HSBC UK / Masoud Golshani, Vice President HR, Aujan Coca-Cola / Rebecca Jeffs, Head of Talent and Reward, Serco / Umayma Abubakar, Head of Employee Engagement, Mubadala / Suresh Menon, Executive Vice President Global HR, Kerzner / Nadeem Baig, HR Director, Reckitt Benckiser / Abdulhussain Tejani, Director of HR, GEMS Education / Julia Miller, Director of Compensation & Benefits, Hilton / Lorna MacMillan, Total Rewards Manager, Hewlett-Packard / Mary Pratt, Recruiting & Talent Brand Coach / Anu Daga, HR Manager – UAE, DHL Express / Ron Thomas, CEO, Great Place to Work

www.HR-engagement.com

an informa eventwww.theHRobserver.com

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The Employee Engagement Forum is the perfect platform for all HR solution providers to engage with the HR community and showcase their expertise. Whether you are a consultant, survey provider or offer software solutions, this is the event to be at if you are looking to position yourself as a thought-leader in employee engagement.

Get in touch with Ben Jones on +971 4 407 2432 or [email protected] for sponsorship / exhibitions opportunities.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST / THE NEW BUSINESS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGEIn a 2014 report conducted by the HR Observer, more than 170 polled companies in the region said that Employee Engagement was their number one priority for 2015 and beyond. Business leaders are now more than ever paying attention to the strategic imperative of an engaged workforce.

It is no secret that engaged employees perform better, are more productive and are more likely to stick around. Most modern studies now show a direct link between engagement level and business profitability and financial performance.

But what is ‘engagement’ really about? How do you move beyond opinion surveys to taking impactful actions to engage? How do you start and sustain your engagement initiatives with the support of everyone in your business? What have the top employers done to get there and what can you learn from them?

All these questions and more will be explored, debates and answered at the Employee Engagement Forum.

WHO SHOULD JOIN USThe forum has been engineered to bring together everyone within HR and the wide businesses under one roof to encourage discussion and exchange of insights between employee engagement enthusiasts.

With a mix of academics, researchers, and international and regional top employers, it is ideal for leaders, HR directors and managers, head of talent, learning and rewards and anyone in the business looking to improve employee engagement levels in their workplace.

PARTNER WITH THE MIDDLE EAST’S LEADING HR SERIES

Lagos • Nigeria

Dubai • UAE Abu Dhabi • UAE

Riyadh • KSADubai • UAE

Dubai • UAE

ENGAGEMENT PARTNERThe Great Place to Work UAE is part of a global research, training, and consulting firm that recognizes the best workplaces in over 50 countries worldwide. We celebrate companies where employees trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with. Widely recognized as the preeminent corporate award

for excellent workplace practices, the Great Place to Work® Institute has been compiling similar country lists for more than 25 years. The lists include the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For in America, the Top Companies to Work For in Japan published by Nikkei Business, and the Best Places to Work for in the United Kingdom, which appears in The Financial Times.

Great Place to Work® provides leadership coaching and culture consulting services to businesses, non-profits and government agencies. We believe any organization, of any size, in any country can be a great workplace, and it’s our mission to help you achieve that goal. To learn more about Great Place to Work UAE, please visit our website: www.greatplacetowork.ae.


SUNDAY7 December 2014FORUM DAY ONE

08.30 Registration and Morning Coffee

08.55 Opening Remarks from the Chair

08.45 Interactive Polling Session - Live Statistics Generated By The Audience

Setting the tone for the rest of the agenda, this session will help you put matters in perspective and generate data and statistics to support your engagement practices.

09.00 International Keynote What Science Says Leaders, Managers, and

Employees Can Do in 7 Minutes to Fully Engage, Achieve Results, and Build Relationships

Equate the noun of engagement with the verb of engage by solving the employee engagement equation: Employee Engagement = Small Actions + Good Work + Daily Performance. Successful employee engagement is based on strategic, small, simple, strong, significant, and sustainable evidence based actions, such as high quality connection and progress monitoring to strength based conversations. Engagement is built with grit, gumption, and caring for good work, done well, with others, every day.

David Zinger, International Expert and Author on Employee Engagement

09.30 Beyond Surveys: The Evolution of Holistic Employee Engagement � Moving beyond measurements: making employee input the

engine behind organisational growth and success � Understanding your employees: benefits to utilising

engagement data in attraction and retention, and in wider business contexts

� Transforming data into insights: where most organisations fail in making real use of employee input in driving performance

Masoud Golshani-Shirazi, Vice President HR, Aujan Coca-Cola

10.00 The Business Case: Evaluating Employee Engagement and Alignment with Organisation Goals � Understanding the correlation between engagement levels

and business performance � How to establish employee engagement as a critical driver of

business success � Ensuring alignment throughout different phases and layers

within the business � Moving engagement from an add-on activity to core business

driver Rebecca Jeffs, Head of Talent and Reward, Serco

10.20 Meeting Accelerator – A Structured Networking Session This unique facilitated session will give you the opportunity to

shake hands with your peers from companies representing different sectors in the region. Bring a lot of business cards.

10.30 Morning Coffee and Networking Break

11.00 Engagement in the Middle East: Appreciating Different Cultures within the Business � Understanding the unique settings of businesses in the

Middle East and how employees see engagement � How to engage every demographic in your population:

nationalities, age groups and organisational layers � Local and regional best practices in driving engagement levels

in local setting Umayma Abubakar, Head of Employee Engagement,

Mubadala

11.30 Employing Workforce Analytics to Measure and Drive Engagement � Understanding modern talent and workforce analytics in the

engagement context � Getting your survey right: what makes an employee

engagement survey effective and where you can go wrong � Making workforce analytics work for you: what trends can tell

you about your workforce Ron Thomas, CEO, Great Place to Work

12.00 Hacking HR: A Smarter Approach to Assessment in the Digital Age

Questionnaires, opinion surveys and other assessment tools are indispensable for employers to understand their workforces. They are also expensive, time-consuming, inaccurate and inconvenient for employees, meaning that organisations need to use sharper tools to achieve effective engagement and foster breakthrough cultures. Those who embrace innovation in this field today will undoubtedly prosper in the information age job market of tomorrow. But where to start? Vess will inspire you to think differently about people metrics and to realise the enormous potential of using big data psychology to drive employee engagement. He will also demonstrate how accurate digital assessment and lean performance feedback loops are the secret to unlocking this potential within your own organisation, transforming a few traditional HR processes along the way.

Vesselin Popov, Development Strategist - The Psychometrics Centre, University of Cambridge

12.30 Employee Surveys: What to Measure, What to Ask and How to Aim for 100% Participation � Understanding your demographics when designing your

survey to maximise impact � Asking the right questions: discussing off-the-shelf surveys vs.

in-house tailor questionnaires � How to ensure participation from all groups of employees

including remote staff

13.00 Networking Lunch

14.00 Interactive Roundtable Discussions: Key takeaways to Impact Engagement in Your Organisation Today

During this interactive session, you will have the opportunity to review and produce key takeaways you can apply at your organisation tomorrow to positively impact employee engagement. Use this time to discuss your employee engagement challenges with peers. Get advice, swap ideas and make connections to move your plans forward in your organisation.

15.10 Afternoon Coffee and Networking Break

15.30 Employee Marketing: Inform, Engage, Reward If it is true that our most important customers are our

employees, then why don’t more companies apply customer engagement principles to their employees as well? The concept of Employee Marketing focuses precisely on that: with a marketing mind-set and approach, Kerzner International aims to build its employer brand around strategies that involve communication, recognition, as well as the measurement and drive of employee engagement. With resorts across the globe and sometimes hundreds of nationalities working under one roof, there is no single correct approach to creating an engaged workforce. Rather, it requires a diversified approach that takes into account the different value systems of individuals and cultures, the different ways they communicate and their preferences for showing and receiving appreciation.

Suresh Menon, Executive Vice President Global HR, Kerzner International

16.10 Leaders Fostering an Engagement Culture and Creating Robust Organisational Commitment to Engagement � How an environment that fosters inspiration, motivation and

high performance can add value to your business � Getting your leadership behind your culture change:

understanding the power of values and what leaders can do differently to ensure support

� Understanding the psychology of change and how to ensure stakeholders are motivated throughout change

Cheryl Thornton, Former Group Head - Organisation Development & Talent

16.50 Closing Remarks From the Chair

MONDAY8 December 2014FORUM DAY TWO

08.30 Registration And Morning Coffee

08.55 Opening Remarks From The Chair

09.00 From “Yes, Let’s Do it” to “Yes, We Did It”: Ensuring Your Engagement Initiatives Come to Fruition � Why a lot of engagement initiatives are launched to fail and

never survive the initial stages of implementation � Knowing is not as good as going: how to move beyond your

opinion surveys to doing something about your engagement levels

� Engaging stakeholders in your engagement programmes: appreciating that HR cannot do it alone

Dr Adrienne Isakovic, Assistant Professor of HR, Hamdan bin Mohammed Smart University

09.30 Pre-Employment Engagement: Becoming a Talent Magnet and Developing World Class Talent Acquisition � Why talent branding is here to stay and where you should

start with your talent brand strategy � Reviewing the “faux pas” of talent brand and how to avoid

them � Why some talent acquisition departments fail and how to get

your ship in order with world class talent acquisition � Engaging with your candidate: discussing brand and candidate

experience from attraction onboarding with engagement in mind

Mary Pratt, Recruiting & Talent Brand Coach

10.00 International Keynote The Employee Communications Revolution at HSBC Building trust, a sense of community and a shared purpose

requires a total overhaul of traditional thinking in how you shift culture. Emmajane and Jenny share how they're shaking up 148 years of history and bringing humanity back to the work place. � How HSBC surfaced the stuff employees want to, but will

never find in the employee handbook � Giving 250,000 global employees a seat on the board � Ripping up the rule book is the new way of running the

business Emmajane Varley, Head of Employee Communications - Global

Banking and Markets, HSBC Jenny Varley, Head of HSBC Now TV, HSBC

10.30 Engaging for Performance: Re-thinking Performance Management to Drive Employee Engagement � Why appraisals and performance conversations are crucial

to your engagement efforts and how you can manage performance and engage on a daily basis

� Starting with managers: coaching managers to develop the capability to manager performance every day

� Building effective performance feedback loops and using accurate assessment methodologies

Nadeem Baig, HR Director (MEA, Russia and CIS), Reckitt Benckiser

11.00 Morning Coffee And Networking Break

11.30 Engaging Nationals: Should They Have Their Own Engagement Programmes? � Are engagement drivers different for Nationals?

Understanding culture and values and their influence to engagement drivers and expectations

� Creating meaning in work and how that impacts Nationals' drive within the business

� Leveraging rewards to engage and retain Nationals: how education, learning and development and recognition now matter more than ever

� Overcoming the challenge of ‘integration’ of Nationals in your business and how engagement is supported with line managers

Abdulhussain Tejani, Director of HR, GEMS Education

12.00 Engaging Your High Potentials: Retain Your Key Talent through Career Development � Revamping your succession planning and career development

programmes to engage your HiPos � Getting HiPo motivation right - which opportunities really

engage high potentials and which demotivate? � Taking the generational factor into account: strategies for

assessing and engaging with your Gen Y and Millennial HiPos

12.30 Networking Lunch

13.30 Engaging Hearts and Minds: Understanding and Employing the Psychology Behind Work � The value of a positive approach to workplace psychology:

conditions under which individuals flourish and thrive � Working with perceptions: changing how employees see work

and engaging by applying positive psychology principles � What HR and the business can do about creating a multiplying

effect out of positive psychology at work Dr Louise Lambert, Assistant Professor of Psychology,

Canadian University of Dubai

14.15 The Power of a Thank You: Tying In Recognition with Business Results to Enhance Engagement � Instilling a virtuous cycle of employee success and recognition

to customer fulfilments and business success � Recognition with value: proving how structured recognition

programmes can drive business results � Non-cash recognition: understanding the landscape of new

social transformational tools that are cost effective � Delivering thanks: tips for nurturing talent and engagement

through a highly adopted recognition programme Lorna MacMillan, Total Rewards Manager, Middle East,

Mediterranean and Africa, Hewlett-Packard

15.00 Afternoon Coffee And Networking Break

15.30 Away from the Corner Office: How Line Managers Make or Break Your Engagement Initiatives � People leave managers: why getting line managers on board

is critical to your engagement efforts � Equipping line managers with the skills to drive employee

engagement on a daily basis and to build strong personal relationships with their people

� Expectations: how clearly communicating expectations of employee engagement helps managers achieve targets

� Accountability: how to set rewarding and accountability mechanisms for managers against employee engagement results to ensure and maximise buy-in

Zineb Rachid, Group Engagement Manager, Al Futtaim Group

16.10 The Tough Job: Managing Disengaged Employees and Achieving a Turnaround � The impact disengaged employees have on the organisation

and other engaged employees � Do not give up on them: ideas for re-engaging with

the disengaged and why you should think outside the engagement box to fix this

� The role of line managers in converting disengaged employees and driving solutions from the disengaged

16.50 Closing Remarks From the Chair


BOOK BEFORE25 SEPTEMBER AND

SAVE UP TO $600

TUESDAY9 December 2014MASTERCLASS

SUCCESSFUL ENGAGEMENT IS A VERB Everybody is talking about employee engagement but what are they really doing about it? The solution to our engagement woes are found in going both deeper and more pervasively into the actions and behaviours that create engagement and good work.

Big programs, endless competencies, and twenty-two drivers of engagement are not the answer. Leadership feels befuddled after receiving the endless results from the 70 question bi-annual survey. Managers, already busy with 15 other priorities are being asked to improve engagement in their area as they go from doing more with less to doing everything with nothing.

THE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT EQUATIONLet’s transform the tired noun of engagement, with the focus on feelings and attitudes, into the active verb of engage based on actions and behaviours. Engagement is not an attitude or a survey score. It is the small and significant actions and interactions we engage with daily.

This masterclass is evidence-based with a 100% bias towards practical and tactical actions to trigger and sustain engagement. It seems counter intuitive but big results in employee engagement will come from small, simple, strong, sustainable, and significant actions. There is a better way to engage: Act Small, Be Good

OBJECTIVES Overcome the stumbling blocks to successful employee engagement by working with the 10-building blocks of successful and powerful engagement. Prepare yourself for a results-oriented journey through the power of engagement:• Over 30 practical and tactical behavioral tools• Mini Case study examining engagement from a variety of

perspectives within the organization• 10 exercises and assessments to enhance your learning• Develop a personal, team, or organizational 3-block action

pyramid of engagement• Recommended resources for further learning

LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this masterclass, you will be skilled in:• Achieving engagement results and mastering performance• Working with progress and against setbacks• Creating strong relationships and social connections• Building recognition into the fabric of work• Making the most of moments and momentary engagement• Using and leveraging strengths for engagement and service• Co-creating the meaning of work and making work meaningful• Finding wellbeing inside of work• Ensuring work is an energy gain not an energy drain

YOUR MASTERCLASS EXPERTDavid Zinger is a leading global independent expert on employee engagement. He is a sought after speaker, educator, coach, author, and consultant focused intently on employee engagement. David founded and hosts the Employee Engagement Network, bringing together over 6400 people from around the globe to improve and increase employee engagement.

David developed the 10 Block Pyramid of Engagement to focus on practical and tactical engagement based on the premise that there is little capacity for more in most organisations and that employee engagement is never more than 10 blocks away. David has taught educational psychology and counselling psychology at the University of Manitoba for 25 years. David also wrote three books on engagement including “People Artistry: The Ennoblement Imperative”. He also co-created more than 12 e-books on employee engagement.

REGISTRATION AND TIMINGSRegistration starts at 8.00 AM with the masterclass commencing at 8.30 AM. We close with lunch at 2.30 PM.

David Zinger

Leading global independent expert on employee engagement

Author of more than 3 books and 13 eBooks on engagement

Teaches educational psychology at the University of Manitoba, Canada

Founder and host of the Employee Engagement Network

Engage / Applying the Ten Building Blocks to Achieve Powerful Employee Engagement


DELEGATE PRICE Book Before25 September 2014

Book Before23 October 2014

Book Before13 November 2014 FInal Price

Forum + Masterclass (Entire Event) US$ 2,499 US$ 2,699 US$ 2,899 US$ 3,099

Forum Only US$ 1,999 US$ 2,099 US$ 2,299 US$ 2,499

Masterclass Only US$ 999 US$ 999 US$ 999 US$ 999

For group discounts [email protected] • For hospitality packages [email protected]

SUNDAY7 December

MONDAY8 December

TUESDAY9 December

The Address Hotel Dubai Mall • Dubai • UAE

Employee Engagement Forum Masterclasses

REGISTER TODAYGo to www.HR-engagement.com Call +971 4 335 2437Email [email protected]

#EngageME


SUPERCHARGEYOUR ENGAGEMENTJOURNEYAT THE MIDDLE EAST’SFIRST AND ONLY ENGAGEMENT EVENT

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employee engagement forum 2014

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