2026 Programme

14 years as a futurist working with global brands has taught me that almost every engagement with a company has one common outcome. Each foresight exercise is different, but every leader involved realises that their organisation needs to be more agile to face what's coming. And while some of that agility can come from systems, the majority comes from people. Learning Agility is the human dimension of agile organisations. The ability of leaders to learn from experiences and then apply that learning to novel situations. 

Key takeaways:

• how agility can grow from people and human capability, not just processes
• what leaders can learn to stay effective in a changing landscape
• how you can transfer insights to new, unfamiliar situations and face what comes next

As intelligent systems take on the administrative complexity of global employment, the role of the HR professional is shifting, from process manager to strategic architect. But this transformation only holds up if the underlying infrastructure is trustworthy. 

Key takeaways:

• what it means to build on top of a compliant, AI-ready employment layer
• discover how lean HR teams are managing global workforces they couldn't have scaled before
• what 'technical fluency' actually looks like for modern HR leaders operating across borders.

Menopause is a hot topic. It’s also a completely natural life stage affecting millions of working women - yet it remains one of the least understood and most stigmatized workplace experiences. This presentation presents key findings from Benenden Health’s “Missing From the Workplace” research, which recently surveyed 2,000 UK women aged 40–65, and 500 HR professionals, to gain an understanding of women's experiences, and compare to employer understanding and the support they offer.

Key Takeaways:

• discover why the Menopause creates significant barriers for women in the workplace. 
• learn how inaction has real consequences for wellbeing, performance, retention and organisational culture.
• find out how HR can lead meaningful change by implementing practical, evidence‑based support that helps women thrive at every stage of life

AI is transforming HR, from hiring to retention, but knowing where to start or scale can be tough. In this 30‑minute session, we’ll cut through the hype with real examples of AI in recruiting, engagement, and workforce planning. Learn what’s working, how to overcome adoption challenges, and how to lead AI initiatives without a tech background, while keeping HR human and future‑ready.

Key takeaways:

• practical, real‑world examples of how AI is being applied across recruitment, engagement, and workforce planning.
• common challenges HR teams face when adopting AI — and actionable ways to overcome them.
• how HR leaders can drive AI initiatives effectively, even without a tech background, while maintaining a human‑first approach.

The Employment Rights Act is set to cost UK employers billions. Are you ahead of it or firefighting? This strategic session is designed for HR directors and business leaders who need more than legal awareness. You need a plan.

Rising employer costs are forcing hard conversations - but the organisations getting this right aren't just cutting back. In this open discussion, we’ll explore how smarter approaches to incentives, benefits and reward - from salary sacrifice and EV schemes to total reward strategy - can offset rising costs, strengthen your employee proposition, and turn legislative pressure into a recruitment and retention advantage.

This discussion will give you the strategic tools to reduce financial exposure while building workplaces resilient enough to compete for talent, regardless of legislative demands.

Key takeaways: 

• a clear picture of where your greatest cost and compliance risks lie
• practical ways to use incentives, benefits and reward to absorb pressure and drive retention
• concrete steps to protect your talent pipeline without blowing your budget
• a framework for turning legislative change into long-term competitive advantage.

HR leaders are under pressure to modernise their function, deliver greater value to the business and make better workforce decisions, yet the people tech market is increasingly complex and noisy.

This session cuts through the hype to focus on the technologies that are genuinely delivering results for UK organisations. Drawing on real implementation experience, it explores how AI, automation and modern HR platforms are being used to improve efficiency, insight and employee experience, and where organisations are still getting it wrong.

You’ll leave with clearer priorities, stronger questions to ask your suppliers, and a more confident approach to shaping your people tech roadmap. 

Key takeaways:

• which people technologies are genuinely improving retention, performance, productivity and decision-making
• how to assess whether your organisation is truly ready for AI in HR
• common pitfalls in HR tech implementations and the change management lessons to learn now
• where to invest now, and what can safely wait.

Disconnected tools. Fragmented comms. An employee experience that feels anything but seamless.

Sound familiar?

Your people don’t need more tools. They need a single place to find answers, stay connected, build skills and feel part of something, without switching between a dozen different tabs to do it.

Dojo built their business on making transactions seamless. Fast, frictionless and always on. Now they’re applying the same thinking to their people and have transformed their employee experience.

By bringing communications, knowledge, company policies, learning and culture into one digital front door with Thrive, they’ve created a single destination where employees can find the answers they need, when they need them — all in the flow of work.

No switching between tabs. No missed messages. No fragmented experience.

The result? Less friction, stronger engagement and an employee experience that actually works.

If you’re an HR leader managing the experience across a stack of disconnected tools, this session is for you.

Key takeaways

• create a single destination for learning, comms and knowledge to help employees find answers faster
  
• simplify the digital workplace experience to strengthen culture and connection
  
• reduce friction and improve engagement through a more connected employee experience.

Drawing on her expertise as a biological anthropologist, author and broadcaster, Prof. Alice Roberts will examine how diversity - across biology, culture, and lived experience can be a powerful asset. She will connect insights from human evolution and anthropology to today’s challenges, offering a fresh perspective on how we can harness difference to drive innovation, resilience, and performance.

The session will explore the dynamic relationship between people, environment, technology, and culture, revealing how these forces shape behaviour, decision-making, and organisational outcomes. 

Alice will also share her expertise in translating complex ideas into clear, compelling communication and how to engage with empathy and communicate with impact.

This session explores the tension between quick AI productivity gains vs long-term workforce capability, and whether strategic deceleration could be the answer.

Key takeaways:

• productivity tradeoff. How short-term gains masks long-term capability gaps.
• ways to measure skills loss and overall long-term productivity gains.
• how to build employee commitment to upskill
• strategic deceleration. Examples of how intentionally slowing down for meaningful human oversight and stretch tasks can strengthen mastery and dignity.

Not every employee has the same needs. We take a look at our data on how gender, sexuality, and neurodiversity influences employee needs – and the gaps this causes in wellbeing and benefits.

Key takeaways:

• the key to inclusive engagement
• the core people challenges of 2026
• how to address the different wellbeing needs of diverse populations
• six top tips to drive engagement for every employee

Discover how HR teams can link wellbeing programmes to productivity, retention, and business growth. This session provides practical strategies to secure budget and maximise the return on your wellbeing investment.

Key takeaways:

• dive into the metrics that matter to draw clearer lines between wellbeing programmes and their impact on productivity, retention and business growth
• build a compelling story for budget holders to secure investment and demonstrate the strategic value of employee wellbeing
• share practical strategies to maximise the return on your wellbeing investment and drive long term organisational success.

Inclusive leadership is much more than being ‘open-minded’, it’s a commitment to creating equitable, respectful and empowering workplaces for all employees. But how can leaders effectively showcase commitment to inclusivity? 

Key takeaways:

• discover how to lead with authenticity and transparency to build trust and accountability
• embed psychological safety whereby people feel seen, heard and valued
• making EDI a central business priority, aligning it with your organisation's core values and actions.

Pay reporting can be treated as a compliance task – published, parked and forgotten. When treated this way, organisations miss the opportunity to use the data to understand how work, reward, progression and access to opportunity actually operate in practice.

From April 2026 GB employers will be encouraged to voluntarily publish gender equality action plans and from April 2027 it will become manadatory. Organisations will be required to choose actions that support gender equality and menopause support at work. The organisational challenge is not producing the data, but turning mandatory reporting into business-relevant insight and tailored action. Join us for an interactive discussion to support you to identify and build the core components of an equality action plan that translates reporting requirements into practical, evidence-led action.

Key takeaways:

• how to develop an action plan blueprint to support future action plan requirements
• how combining pay reporting with wider people analytics can paint a detailed picture of the current state of play of equality within an organisation
• how to ensure action plans do not become another ‘tick box’ exercise, by defining clear priorities, ownership and measures of success

As AI becomes embedded in everyday HR practice, human-centred skills - empathy, emotional intelligence and ethical judgement - are more essential than ever. The challenge is understanding how technology can enhance, rather than replace, the human experience.

Key takeaways:

Learn how HR teams can design a practical, scalable tech toolkit that automates routine processes and frees valuable time for what truly matters, culture, connection and employee wellbeing. 

Data from over 3,000 leaders and teams show that teams are focusing on developing their Change Readiness based on the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) world we are in, but how do they take the next step in performance and how can their leaders help them be effective and connected? 

Key takeaways:

• our latest data on team and leader effectiveness and the most impactful development areas
• the rise in relational energisers within leadership - and the different impact through seniority levels
• our recommendations for HR/L&D leaders to help support their teams and leadership.

 This panel explores case studies and learnings on how organisations:

• do job design to raise performance without burnout
• implement ethical AI governance to scale AI use safely
• support employees to up-skill and be future ready

Despite record low unemployment, worker confidence in job security remains low, driving down engagement and productivity. Join this session for a deep dive into the findings from the People at Work 2026 study, covering 40,000 workers across six continents to understand how this sentiment influences business strategy.

Key takeaways:

• analyse the impact of job anxiety on workforce engagement, stress levels, and productivity in a climate of economic uncertainty
• evaluate the latest findings from ADP Research to understand how UK workers are faring compared to global trends and shifting work practices
• assess how worker sentiment influences leadership planning and identify ways to stabilise the talent pipeline amid rising uncertainty.

Sickness absence is at record levels, with clear consequences for productivity, morale and organisational performance. Latest CIPD/Simplyhealth research highlights the scale of the challenge facing employers. But while many organisations are strengthening absence management processes, fewer are addressing the underlying causes of ill health across the working-age population.

For people professionals, this creates a clear organisational risk and opportunity. The challenge is not simply how to manage absence more effectively, but to shift from a reactive approach to a preventative wellbeing strategy. One that improves the health of the working-age population through improved job quality, work design and health risk management, while continuing to support employees who experience genuine ill health - delivering more sustainable workforce health and performance over time.

Key takeaways:

• why absence management alone is not enough, and how prevention reduces both absence and long-term health risks
• what effective preventative wellbeing strategies look like in practice, including early intervention, workload management, and support for mental and physical health
• how to align preventative approaches with fair, consistent absence management support, sustainable attendance and performance.

The leadership circuit has no shortage of people who've won. Former coaches, championship-winning captains, turnaround CEOs reflecting on what they got right. This session is different. It speaks to leaders who are in the middle of it.

Charlie Boss became CEO of Bristol City FC this year. Tom Tainton is navigating his own rebuild at Bristol Bears. Two elite sports organisations that need to perform now while building for the future, under public scrutiny, every week. The pressure architecture of performing, building, maintaining psychological safety and holding people accountable, all at once, will feel familiar to any leader navigating change.

Clair Flynn, People & Culture Lead at Employment Hero, brings the harder question: what does effective leadership support look like when the pressure is on?

The session will be hosted by Maisie Goss, VP of Marketing at Employment Hero.

Key takeaways:

• build a high-performance culture mid-rebuild: what it actually looks like before the transformation is complete
• how to make good decisions without all the answers, and creating the conditions for others to do the same
• what leaders need from their people functions under pressure, and where support can unintentionally make things harder

Employee career development is rising up the boardroom agenda as organisations and HR leaders tackle the challenge of engaging and retaining talent. Research shows how employees strongly value growth and development, and organisations that actively connect with workers and support internal career development, see greater employee commitment and retention.

Key takeaways:

• discover how to empower your employees to drive internal career growth and what HR can do to support this
• understand how employers can engage and support internal career development to keep your workforce engaged
• utilise career development as a tool to motivate and retain talent as the workforce landscape evolves.

Most organisations have deployed AI, but few have transformed how work gets done. The gap isn’t technology; it’s collaboration. In this session, Alicia Lenart shares how Atlassian is closing the gap between AI investment and business value by treating AI as a people transformation, not just a technology deployment. Drawing from Atlassian’s 2026 State of Teams research, the session will illustrate how real impact comes from rewiring how work gets done, combining human judgment with AI execution in a continuous loop.

Key takeaways:

• how AI value is constrained by leadership, behaviours, and explicit norms
  
• why you must start with trapped knowledge and workflow design, not technology
  
• how to build the conditions for a human + AI loop: connected knowledge and visible work - required for AI to act as a teammate
  

As working lives lengthen, organisations face a growing strategic challenge: how to keep experienced talent productive, engaged and contributing at pace. The opportunity is significant to keep experienced talent thriving – maintaining productivity, protecting critical capability and accelerating knowledge transfer. Yet CIPD research suggests that older workers are less likely to access development opportunities, even as many say they have skills that could be put to use in more demanding work.

This session explores the organisational gain of ‘age-inclusive reskilling’ and what that looks like in practice, reframing later careers as a stage where people can still grow, adapt and contribute meaningfully. We’ll examine how to create the means, space and culture for lifelong learning, and how multigenerational approaches – including mentoring, reverse mentoring and second-career pathways – can refresh skills and confidence as technology reshapes work.

Attendees will explore:

• how to reframe later-career development as a business opportunity – protecting productivity, retaining critical capability and accelerating knowledge transfer through age-inclusive reskilling
• practical ways to make lifelong learning a reality for older workers by creating the means, space and culture to learn.

In a world of constant disruption, trust has become one of the most critical, and fragile, assets in organisations. In this session Petra will tackle some of the biggest and most pressing trust challenges facing senior HR leaders today, particularly during periods of organisational change.

Drawing on her extensive experience working with leaders under pressure, Petra will explore why trust so often erodes during transformation, restructures, and cultural shifts - and what HR leaders can do to rebuild it in a way that is authentic, sustainable, and measurable. Petra will challenge traditional change management approaches, unpack the human behaviours that undermine trust, and share practical insights to help HR leaders influence from the top and support leaders through uncertainty.

Key takeaways:

• a deeper understanding of why trust breaks down during change
• practical strategies to rebuild and sustain trust
• new perspectives on the role of HR as a guardian of trust
• actionable ideas to support leaders and organisations through uncertainty.

Most companies treat engagement and performance as separate ideas. That’s a mistake. Sustainable high performance needs an engaging culture and performance confidence; for people to feel connected to the company and their work, plus belief in future success. Measure those two and you get a clear, forward‑looking read on whether your culture will deliver results. We’ll show you a simple way to measure both, identify where you are today and take practical steps to move your culture forward.

Key Takeaways:

• understand the psychological link between culture and performance 
• categorise your organisation's current culture using our framework
• understand what a holistic measurement strategy combining engagement and performance confidence really looks like

This session provides a deep dive into the mental health frameworks that drive long-term ROI. We move beyond individual "self-care" to examine the systemic changes required to mitigate workplace stress, prevent burnout, and ensure that mental wellbeing is treated as a critical business metric.

Key takeaways:

• design policies (e.g. right to disconnect and protected focus time) that integrate recovery and early intervention into the working week
• identify and address organisational stressors such as workload and job control to reduce stress and prevent burnout
• embed wellbeing as a core business metric, linking it directly to performance and ROI.

Organisations are under increasing pressure to deliver more, at greater speed, as expectations rise and change accelerates. Teams are being asked to perform continuously, yet high performance does not happen by accident. Without intentional design and day-to-day leadership, short-term gains, while often welcomed, can come at a cost, including burnout, reduced innovation and increased operational risk.

Sustainable high performance is a shared organisational outcome, but it is shaped daily by leaders and enabled through people practices. This session examines the challenge for business leaders and people professionals: how to create the conditions that allow teams to perform at their best over time - sustaining results without eroding capacity, capability or long-term performance.

Key takeaways:

• what sustainable high performance looks like in practice, and the signals leaders should watch for when pressure is tipping into burnout, exclusion or silence
• which measures matter most for gauging sustainable high performance 
• the leadership behaviours that support performance, and the practical interventions HR can lead across work design and capacity"

Generative AI is transforming employee relations, leading to grievances that are often lengthier and more complex. While AI can offer advantages in putting together formal complaints, it critically lacks the necessary human context, creating challenges for HR. This session will focus on how to navigate today’s complex, AI-generated grievances. Focusing on strategies to understand:

• what informal measures promote direct, fast resolution as a first step?
• how can managers be skilled to navigate and digest AI-generated complaints?
• how can formal guidelines ensure proper employee use of AI and highlight the associated risks?

This session shares how the Department for Work and Pensions built Generative Artificial Intelligence for Learning (GAIL) without losing the people who design the learning. 

In this session, Phil and Vicki talk honestly about why speed alone wasn’t the goal, how involving designers from day one shaped the product, and why agreeing a tight scope was critical to success. You’ll hear how they introduced GAIL in a way that values judgement, creativity and professional pride, not blind automation. 

Alongside practical lessons, we’ll share the moments that challenged our assumptions and changed our approach. Expect a grounded, people‑first story of AI in practice, what worked and what surprised the team.

Key takeaways

• creating a bespoke AI solution that can manage sensitive material
  
• how involving designers from day one improved the end result
  
• how to retain the people who design the learning alongside AI solutions
  

As organisations race to understand what AI means for leadership, NatWest invested in building AI capability for its leaders at scale. In this fireside conversation, NatWest’s Head of Learning & Development shares the real decisions, tensions, and breakthroughs behind the programme: why leadership capability became a strategic priority, how they designed for mindset and behaviour change rather than tool training alone, and what they learned about driving adoption inside a highly regulated environment. 

Expect an honest look at what it actually takes to build AI capability inside a large enterprise, and practical lessons L&D leaders can apply immediately in their own organisations.

Key takeaways:

• why leadership capability became a strategic priority in NatWest’s AI transformation
  
• how to design AI learning experiences that shift mindset, decision-making, and adoption behaviours
  
• practical lessons for enabling experimentation and AI adoption in regulated environments
  
• the stories, signals, and measurement approaches NatWest uses to evaluate leadership behaviour change and programme impact
  

As AI adoption accelerates, HR leaders face a defining question: what should be automated, and what must remain human? In this fireside conversation, Wendy Harris joins forward-thinking HR executives who are actively deploying AI and automation to increase productivity, while intentionally redesigning the employee experience. Together, they’ll explore how organisations are making principled decisions about digital enablement, managing the cultural ripple effects of automation, and protecting the human elements that drive trust, creativity, and performance. 

Key takeaways:

• gain practical insights into building high-performing workplaces where technology amplifies, rather than replaces, human potential
• deploying AI and automation to increase productivity
• using tech to redesign the employee experience

This session explores how to sustain organisational success by building a continuous, positive employee journey. It focuses on the key drivers of retention (internal mobility, career development and manager effectiveness) to boost engagement, reduce voluntary turnover and strengthen the internal talent pipeline.

Key takeaways:

• understand how clear career development and skills building pathways reduce attrition and deliver ROI by lowering recruitment and replacement costs
• strategies to integrate DE&I into organisational systems to drive trust and maximise employee effort at scale
• equip managers to drive retention through effective coaching, feedback and performance focused development conversations.

In this panel session HR leaders will explore trust as a core driver of performance and productivity. Using real organisational examples, the discussion will show how trust influences engagement, decision-making, retention, and resilience during change - and why it must be built into leadership behaviours and systems, not treated as a standalone wellbeing initiative.

Key Takeaways:

• how trust directly impacts performance, productivity, and engagement
• the leadership behaviours and systems that strengthen trust at scale
• practical ways to link wellbeing investment to measurable business outcomes

CHROs and Talent Acquisition leaders are under pressure from every direction: AI is accelerating at breakneck speed, economic signals are uneven, skills are shifting faster than job architectures can keep up, and the workforce continues to reset expectations in real time. Meanwhile, hiring teams face growing pressure to deliver a seamless experience, protect culture, and respond to sudden surges or slowdowns — often with flat budgets and fragmented tech stacks.

Most TA models simply were not built for this level of unpredictability.

When volatility becomes the norm, the question shifts from “How do we keep up?” to “What helps us stay steady when everything moves at once?” Talent Elasticity provides that clarity— offering a practical way to see where your model stretches, where it strains, and where resilience must be intentionally reinforced. We’ll explore how adaptive organizations stay steady through disruption while still delivering on what CHROs and TA leaders value most: internal mobility, experience quality, AI transparency, and strong business partnership.

No more heroics. No more duct tape. Just deliberately engineered resilience that bends without breaking.

Key takeaways:

• gain a clear view of the five dimensions of Talent Elasticity and how each one supports priorities like organizational design, internal mobility, AI adoption, and experience quality
• identify the pressure points that most often fail during surges, slowdowns, restructures, or AI‑driven change — and understand why they surface when they do
• see how real‑world stress scenarios expose the moments where flexibility, governance, and experience must work in concert to build a more resilient talent engine

Embedding an effective EDI strategy isn’t just a nice to have but a business imperative in today’s workplace. Showing a strong commitment to EDI can enable you to attract and retain talent, drive innovation and create a sense of belonging. Join this session to discover practical steps to building and implementing your EDI strategy.

Key takeaways:

• what does an effective EDI strategy look like? 
• how do you embed EDI practices into every level of the business?
• how can you track and measure the progress of your EDI objectives?
• what is the business impact of implementing an effective EDI framework?

AI is no longer just a tool employees use occasionally. A new generation of “agentic AI” is emerging, capable of reasoning, taking action, orchestrating workflows and becoming an active collaborator in day-to-day work.

For HR leaders and knowledge workers, the question is no longer simply: “How do we adopt AI?”, it’s: “How do we work alongside it effectively, responsibly and strategically?” 

In this session, Steve Elcock explores what it means to be a modern knowledge worker in the era of agentic AI, where competitive advantage increasingly comes from how individuals and organisations capture knowledge, guide AI systems and create continuous learning loops between people and technology.

Drawing on practical examples and emerging thinking around AI-assisted work, Steve will explore how HR leaders can move beyond experimentation and begin building AI-enabled ways of working that genuinely enhance human capability.

Rather than focusing on hype or future speculation, this session will examine:

• What agentic AI actually means in practice for knowledge workers
  
• How AI is changing the relationship between people, knowledge and decision-making
  
• Why personal and organisational knowledge systems will become increasingly important
  
• The role HR can play in shaping safe, human-first adoption
  
• How to balance productivity, governance and trust in AI-enabled workplaces
  
• Practical ways to begin working more effectively with AI today

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how the role of the knowledge worker is evolving, what skills and behaviours will matter most in the next wave of AI adoption, and how HR can help organisations adapt with confidence.

In an era when AI and other breakthrough technologies seems to make ‘anything possible', it is even more important to  anchor on first principles when it comes to designing and delivering learning strategies. Whether this is for a single offsite for a team, or an entire learning strategy for an organisation, we will get the most from our new technologies by starting with how the brain truly learns.

This science-rich yet practical session will help talent and learning professionals to radically increase the effectiveness of learning - perhaps even by 10 times - while meaningfully lower costs.

Specifically, we will explore how to:

• Leverage first principles for learning
• Make more evidence-based choices on learning modalities such as in person versus other forms
• Maximise the potential of AI for learning
• Know when and how to involve humans in a learning process
• Design learning strategies that truly scale but still impact deeply
• All without reducing headcount on your talent and learning team

Talent challenges are increasingly interconnected, so the strategic approach needs to match. This session helps identify opportunities, align priorities, and optimise the end-to-end HR ecosystem to strengthen agility and turn disruption into action. HR faces increasingly complex challenges that are systemic - spanning culture, technology, processes, and talent. Traditional approaches often address symptoms rather than root causes.

Key takeaways: 

• how to diagnose talent gaps
• practical strategies to build a future-ready workforce
• connect initiatives across the workforce, and where to consider prioritising actions.

HR is moving beyond standalone tools to connected ecosystems. This session explores how organisations can design people systems that simplify work, enable better decisions, and create experiences that truly support how employees work today.

Key takeaways:

• HR Systems are no longer enough the shift from managing processes to nurturing people requires more than software - it demands a connected ecosystem here every HR touchpoint works together seamlessly.
• people-first design drives business outcomes organisations that design work around their people - not the other way around - see stronger engagement, better retention, and higher productivity. The future of HR is intentional, not reactive.
• technology should enable, not replace, the human element. The most effective HR ecosystems use automation and AI to eliminate friction, giving HR teams the bandwidth to focus on what truly matters - culture, growth, and the employee experience.

What if the most powerful financial wellbeing levers aren't the ones employers usually pull? Drawing on a new programme of lived experience panels run in partnership with Aston University's Centre for Personal Financial Wellbeing, alongside a survey of 1,242 employees, Rachel Harte shares fresh insight into the role of pay timing, dignity and informal borrowing in workplace financial wellbeing - including a surprising finding about financial satisfaction. Expect honest reflections, new evidence, and practical takeaways for HR and reward leaders who want to move beyond the payslip.

Key takeaways:

• pay timing as an operational lever - how flexible pay influences shift uptake and retention, and what that means for recruitment cost and workforce planning
• dignity as a design principle and why informal borrowing from friends and family is the most common alternative to flexible pay, and how privacy and autonomy belong at the heart of any financial wellbeing strategy
• the ecosystem effect - why no single tool moves the dial alone, and how pay flexibility, saving and education combine to move employees from surviving to securing.

AI is removing large parts of traditional HR work faster than HR is redefining its role. Without clear choices, technology ends up shaping HR by default. This keynote shows HR Directors how to take control by redesigning their operating model now. It focuses on what must stay human, where ownership sits, and what HR should stop doing to drive real impact. AI removes work. Strategy comes from deliberate decisions.

Key takeaways:

• learn how to reshape your operating models before it is defined by technology
• identify what must stay human to add the most value
• gain a clear view on how AI is used to support, not lead, in strategy

Ask any HR leader what actually moved the needle in their career, and the answer is rarely a software update. It's a mentor. A trusted partner who picked up the phone when things got complicated. A collaboration that unlocked new opportunities. This session puts people back at the centre, exploring how the most effective HR practitioners today aren't the ones with the best tech stack, but the ones who've built the strongest human infrastructure around them. That includes the right EOR partnerships, the right internal collaborators, and the right framework for treating global hiring not as a compliance exercise, but as a genuine strategic lever. With AI compliance regulations reshaping the landscape for UK teams, knowing who you're building with matters as much as knowing what you're building.

Key takeaways:

• gain a clearer sense of why over-reliance on platforms leaves HR teams under-resourced for the moments that matter most and discover what to do about it
• understand what "human-centricity" actually looks like inside a global people strategy 
• identify the partnerships and collaborations that genuinely accelerate team impact

Digital innovation is reshaping how employee volunteering works. In this fireside chat, the tech team at GoVo will explore how technology is making volunteering more visible, inclusive and impactful, while also reducing the friction that often limits participation.

The session will look at the key barriers to access, activation and measurement, and how data and insight can help employers improve engagement. It will also explore what’s next, including AI, skills-based volunteering, personalisation and integration with workplace systems.

Key takeaways

• How data and digital tools can remove the barriers to volunteering participation and make impact measurable for employers
  
• What's next for volunteering technology, from AI and skills-based matching to workplace integration and personalised development pathways
  

AI coaching tools can help employees deliver on business outcomes through personalised, adaptive learning at scale, creating a more agile, skills-aligned workforce. The tools can support employees with real-time guidance, targeted development pathways, and give feedback tailored to their, and their organisations, objectives. 

Learn how AI can support L&D professionals with:

• analysing performance signals
• diagnosing skills gaps
• mapping learning recommendations directly into organisational priorities.

With workplaces more in need of great people practice than ever before, the opportunities for the profession to lead organisations through change to drive performance and productivity are only increasing.  Join this panel, featuring the CIPD's Chair, President and incoming CEO as they discuss key trends impacting the future direction of the profession

Key takeaways:

• what does an optimistic future for the profession look like?
• where should professionals and organisations be focusing their time and efforts?
• what do modern organisations need most from HR, and where can the profession add greatest value
• how does the profession best work collaboratively with other functions to ensure effective change management in turbulent times?

With workplaces more in need of great people practice than ever before, the opportunities for the profession to lead organisations through change to drive performance and productivity are only increasing.  Join this panel, featuring the CIPD's Chair, President and incoming CEO as they discuss key trends impacting the future direction of the profession

Key takeaways:

• what does an optimistic future for the profession look like?
• where should professionals and organisations be focusing their time and efforts?
• what do modern organisations need most from HR, and where can the profession add greatest value
• how does the profession best work collaboratively with other functions to ensure effective change management in turbulent times?

This session focuses on how managerial behaviour shapes day-to-day wellbeing, motivation and engagement within teams. It explores how psychological safety, recognition and autonomy support employee confidence, innovation and healthy ways of working.

Key takeaways:

• build trust and psychological safety through inclusive management and open team dynamics
• use meaningful, ongoing recognition to strengthen motivation and connection to purpose
• support wellbeing through autonomy and compassionate, practical conversations.

Effective performance management is essential to driving business performance - with leaders sitting at the heart of this. Explore how leadership and performance management go hand-in-hand in driving business outcomes.

Key takeaways:

• effectively communicate objectives and targets to enable employees to achieve business objectives
• understand what motivates your employees and empowering them to tackle decisions that are new, big and challenging
• foster cultures of continuous learning to encourage skill development and innovation.

TUPE compliance is non-negotiable, and managing the people transition minimises risk and preserves value. This session will guide you in managing this process, focusing on how to support employees and position yourself as a strategic HR leader. Discover how to ensure a seamless transition.

Key takeaways:

• gain knowledge on legal compliance and risk mitigation 
• how to manage the M&A process and identify affected employees
• the practical steps to transferring contracts, terms and continuity of employment.

Benefits provided to employees play such a huge part in a total remuneration package, it's imperative that HR functions are aware of the changes being made to payrolling benefits in kind, which is being mandated from April 2027.

Payrolling may be in the title of this UK wide change, but HR functions, systems / technology, and the data held by employers will have a big role to play in the successful role out of this policy mandate.

Join this session to know:

• what the changes are which you need to be aware of

• what proactive steps you can take to get ahead of the curve in data gathering, and software requirements

• how you can ensure your workforce are aware of the changes.

You've been asked to prove the people function drives the business. And like most HR leaders, you've learned to change the subject, because the data to answer that question has never really existed.

Not because of effort or budget. Because learning, skills and performance have always been three separate problems. Owned by different teams. Bought from different vendors. Measured in different systems. Never designed to speak to each other.

That design was a choice. And AI is exposing it as the wrong one.

In this session, Nelson Sivalingam, CEO of HowNow and author of Learning at Speed, makes the case that the next decade of HR isn't about better tools in each silo. It's about the silos collapsing, and what becomes possible when they do.

You'll see what it actually looks like. A missed performance signal that triggers development in the flow of work. Skills that surface from real output, not self-assessment surveys nobody finished. Impact measured in pipeline, ramp time and retention, not engagement scores.

Key takeaways

• a diagnostic for spotting where your people stack is faking integration
• the three signals every HR team should be ingesting from the business but almost none are
• a clear answer to give your CEO when they ask whether HR drove the number

If you're tired of defending the people function with proxy metrics, this is the session.

Join Tim Harford OBE, renowned Economist, BBC presenter, Financial Times columnist and best selling author for a sharp, insightful look at the forces reshaping the world of work. 

Blending economics, psychology and human behaviour, Tim explores how innovation happens, what crises teach us about leadership, and how to build resilient, adaptable organisations. He cuts through noise and misinformation to reveal how better use of data and a smarter relationship with AI can transform decision-making, culture and performance. 

Transformational leadership is not about having the right vision. It is about changing what people do automatically when pressure arrives. Every organisation operates with a gap between facts and truth;

Facts: constraints, pressure, limited resources, complexity, fatigue

Truth: purpose, potential, long-term impact, what must matter

Transformational leaders don’t deny the facts

They reshape the organisational response to them.

This is where transformation lives.

Key takeaways:

• transformational leaders shift the invisible system (habits before vision), you do not transform organisations by changing strategy. You transform them by changing what people do without thinking Habits outlast leadership turnover or vision enthusiasm; colleagues get on board as you lead a change in behaviour rather than demand belief.
• transformational leaders lead the thinking, not just the performance, most change initiatives fail because leaders challenge output, not thinking. Transformational leadership raises the quality of thought: Shift leadership conversations from: “What did you do? to What thinking led you there?” People feel respected, not managed as teams grow intellectually, not just operationally.
• transformational leaders become the emotional anchor of change, people don’t resist change; they resist the emotional cost of uncertainty. Transformational leaders regulate factors such as fear and ambiguity ensuring consistency reigns over intensity. People follow your emotional certainty, not your title. You build trust through being predictable.

Workplace wellbeing is now a strategic priority. Rising sickness absence and health‑related worklessness demand that organisations rethink how they support employees. The Keep Britain Working review highlights the importance of proactive, people‑centred approaches that improve health, engagement, and productivity, and encourages employers to embed better people management and development practices.

Key takeaways:

• create a healthy working lifecycle: From recruitment to return‑to‑work, embedding support at every stage
• equip managers to have empathetic conversations and foster psychological safety
• use workplace interventions and rapid access to help to keep employees healthy and productive
• align practices with strategic goals and creating the right environment to sustain wellbeing improvements.

Attendees will leave with practical insights to build resilient, inclusive workplaces that enhance health, performance, and productivity.

Shifting focus from checklists to strategy, this session explores how a purpose led, culturally aligned induction supports faster role effectiveness, improves early retention and drives stronger performance from new colleagues.

Key takeaways:

• understand the concepts of a culturally immersive induction process improves early retention, delivering an immediate return on investment by cutting replacement costs
• design the journey to explicitly connect the new colleague's role to the organisational purpose, accelerating their time to full productivity
• embed culture, values and inclusion into the first 90 days, making induction the primary tool for driving immediate engagement and long term belonging.

Prioritising financial wellbeing isn’t just an employee perk - it’s a strategic investment in your workforce. Financial security boosts engagement, productivity and resilience, helping employees and businesses thrive. Our research reveals financial wellbeing is evolving; over half of employers are planning to change their financial wellbeing offerings. Factors such as rising living costs, mental health concerns and retirement adequacy challenges are shaping new approaches to support employees at every stage of their career.

Key takeaways:

• key risk factors shaping financial wellbeing strategies
• insights on retirement adequacy
• best practice case studies on how to overcome barriers and build financial resilience and engagement throughout an employee’s career

AI is reshaping work at a pace and scale not seen in a generation, and the leaders best placed to navigate it aren't always those with the most authority - they're those with the right skills, the right data, and the right support around them. Drawing on fresh IRIS and Censuswide research into UK HR burnout and leadership readiness, this session explores how to equip managers and senior leaders to lead through change: from spotting problems early through people data, to building practical skills, to recognising that the wellbeing of HR teams themselves is the foundation everything else rests on. 

AI adoption is accelerating, but in many organisations it is still happening in pockets: small experiments, disconnected pilots and tool-led initiatives that do not always change how work actually gets done.

Leaders are under pressure to act, but many AI projects struggle because they begin with the technology rather than the problem. They sit in functional silos, lack clear ownership, or fail to address the roles, workflows and capabilities needed to make adoption stick.

This interactive session uses a fictional UK organisation to explore the choices leaders face in practice: where to start, who should own AI, how work needs to be redesigned, and how governance can keep pace without slowing everything down.

The focus is not on tools, but on the conditions that make AI useful in real work: clear business problems, shared ownership, thoughtful work redesign, targeted upskilling and proportionate governance. Participants will consider what tends to work, where adoption commonly breaks down, and how to take a more deliberate approach.

Key takeaways

• why AI initiatives fail, and how to avoid technology-led adoption that delivers limited value
• how to move from experimentation to focused pilots with measurable outcomes
• why successful adoption needs shared ownership, not isolated deployment
• what use-case-led upskilling looks like in practice, and why generic AI training often falls short
• how to balance speed with control through governance that keeps pace with ad

Every company is deploying AI agents; sales agents, support agents, operations agents. Within three years, most organisations will have more AI agents than middle managers.

But nobody is asking the obvious question: who's managing their performance?

When a sales agent gives bad advice, who detects it? When a support agent can't handle a new product, who retrains it? When an onboarding agent stops being effective, who notices?

The answer will surprise you. It's the same function that manages human performance today. Running the same loop. Detect performance gaps. Drive interventions. Measure improvement. The loop HR already runs for people is the loop every company will need for its agents.

In this session, Nelson Sivalingam, CEO of HowNow and author of Learning at Speed, explores what happens when your workforce becomes a mix of humans and AI, and why the HR leaders who prepare for this now will own the most important function in the company.

Key takeaways

• the agent performance loop: how to apply HR's existing detect-develop-prove model to a workforce that isn't human
• a practical framework for which agents need active management, which need light-touch monitoring, and which can run unsupervised
• the org design question every CPO will face within 18 months: who owns agent performance, and where does it sit
• a clear answer for your CEO when they ask what HR's role is in an AI-native company

If you've been wondering where HR fits in an AI-native company, this is the session that answers it.

One-size-fits-all learning no longer meets the needs of today’s diverse workforce. This session explores how using AI can support your business’s approach to essential skills development in individuals and teams by building insight and behavioural self-awareness, enabling individuals to build their own development paths.

We’ll share practical, scalable approaches to embedding personalisation into learning design without increasing complexity or cost.

Key takeaways:

• why an individual approach to skills can encourage engagement with learning
• practical ways to scale tailored learning without increasing cost or complexity
• how to build agile, adaptive learning journeys that evolve with your workforce

As organisations navigate disruption, digital transformation, and evolving workforce expectations, future-ready business models are critical for sustainable success. This session explores how HR and people professionals can drive change, embed agility, and support organisations in adapting to new ways of working.

Key takeaways:

-Examine emerging change approaches, operating models, and strategies that enable innovation and resilience

-Lead change effectively - practical strategies for managing large-scale and complex organisational change while maintaining engagement and productivity

-Embed a change-ready culture: Developing leadership and people practices through evolved change approaches that enable continuous learning, innovation, and responsiveness to market shifts.

Glory Global Solutions operates across 100 countries, with their 5000+ strong workforce providing cash management and customer experience automation solutions for many global institutions that we know and love. Their transition from an archaic SharePoint site to a modern, intuitive intranet with an employee app has breathed life back into employee communications and truly transformed the digital employee experience to match the high-tech quality of their products and outputs. Join Glory’s Internal Communications Manager as he highlights the impact that a single unified platform has had on employee experience, participation, frontline connectivity and more.

Key takeaways:

• sharing the load for share of voice - empowering internal content creators
• how to encourage employee-generated content as standard
• reducing manager strain: The value of being able to reach field service staff directly.

This session recognises the emotional and professional demands on people teams and explores how protecting their wellbeing enables focus, productivity and long term impact.

Key takeaways:

• be able to delegate ownership and resist the pressure to be the 'perfect' employee or sole culture driver, enabling HR leaders to practise self care
• implement structured peer support or clinical supervision models to provide a confidential space for HR professionals to debrief sensitive cases
• adopt professional boundaries and self-care tools - like decompression techniques - to effectively manage the emotional labour from high stress employee issues without compromising their own capacity and mental health.

HR teams are under pressure to build more inclusive workplaces and broaden access to opportunity, yet progress can stall without practical routes to change.  Turning inclusion ambitions into sustained organisational impact remains a persistent challenge.  This CIPD Trust session explores how professional skills volunteering can deliver meaningful social impact while also strengthening core organisational capability.

Hear how HR leaders are supporting individuals to overcome barriers to work, and how these experiences translate into tangible improvements inside their organisations. With over 68% of CIPD Trust volunteer mentors reporting positive workplace changes as a result of their involvement in our programmes, this session will demonstrate how HR can drive systemic change both within our workplaces and across the wider world of work.

Key takeaways:

• how professional skills volunteering can support inclusion and talent outcomes, while helping individuals overcome barriers to work
• what makes skills-based volunteering effective in practice
• practical examples of workplace changes mentors have made, and how HR teams can translate learning into improvements in inclusive recruitment, progression and workplace experiences.

If Nike, Uber, and Microsoft can miss compliance risks, what about you? Discover the unseen payroll and people pitfalls threatening growth - and how leaders can stay ahead.

- Spot the blind spots: Why payroll, people data, and compliance often fail to align.

- Learn from the giants: What Nike, Uber, and Microsoft’s costly mistakes reveal. 

- See the true cost: Penalties as symptoms of deeper leadership and growth risks.

- Practical takeaway: How unified payroll and people data reduce risk and unlock growth.

As AI becomes increasingly embedded across workflows, decision-making, and organisational operations, businesses are entering a new era of AI-mediated work. This shift is changing not only how employees learn, but how organisations build capability, adapt to change, govern decisions, and sustain performance.

Traditional learning models were designed for slower-moving environments where skills evolved incrementally and training often sat separately from operational execution. In AI-mediated organisations, learning is becoming far more than a support function, it is becoming central to organisational adaptability, workforce resilience, decision quality, and business performance.

This session explores how organisations can move beyond fragmented training initiatives towards more connected, adaptive, and strategically aligned workforce capability models. Drawing on practical transformation experience, emerging workforce research, and the PXB Ecosystem™, Tess Hilson-Greener will examine how HR, Learning & Development, and business leaders can redesign capability strategies to support human judgement, organisational agility, ethical AI adoption, and future readiness.

The session will challenge traditional assumptions about workplace learning and explore why learning is increasingly becoming part of the operational infrastructure of AI-mediated organisations.

Key takeaways

1. Understand how AI-mediated organisations are reshaping workforce capability, organisational learning, and business performance
   
2. Explore why learning is becoming central to organisational adaptability, governance, and decision-making
   
3. Identify the risks of fragmented AI adoption, capability gaps, and outdated operating models
   
4. Learn practical approaches for redesigning workforce capability strategies to support future organisational resilience and performance.
   

Employee engagement and performance are most impactful when they are directly aligned with organisational goals. This panel explores how organisations can connect individual contributions to broader business strategy, optimise productivity, and create a culture of continuous improvement. Attendees will leave with practical insights on linking engagement, performance, and productivity to business outcomes, ensuring people strategies drive tangible results.

Key takeaways:

• implement best practice for setting clear, measurable goals that tie individual performance to organisational objectives
• explore performance management tools and frameworks that help track alignment and progress
• manage underperformance; strategies to address gaps proactively, support development, and maintain high standards without disengaging employees.

This session explores how organisations can enable sustainable work life integration to support parental inclusion. It examines how differing circumstances and expectations shape flexibility needs, and how clear boundaries, flexible working models and visible leadership behaviours can prevent burnout and support long term performance.

Key takeaways:

• establish and clearly articulate flexible working options (e.g. hybrid working, compressed hours, flexitime) that support varied life stages while maintaining fairness
• upskill leaders to model healthy work practices, manage workload effectively and hold meaningful capacity and flexibility conversations.
• challenge assumptions about what’s possible in front-line roles, including how organisation culture and practices can be adapted to support flexibility without compromising operational requirements.
• ensure an organisation's practices support all parents by having an approach that reflects diverse parenthoods.

School-age parenting is where the juggle really kicks in. When the parental leave period ends, many employees are left battling mismatched school/work hours, endless school holidays, evolving family dynamics, rising neurodiversity needs, mental health pressures and the growing complexity of guiding young people through career choices. And it doesn’t stop there — the dual care workforce is at breaking point, juggling childcare and eldercare against the backdrop of rising costs and demanding hybrid Work. This session uncovers why leading employers are shifting to a family lifecycle approach to wellbeing to attract and retain the brightest talent who are no longer willing to “live to work.” They expect - and deserve - workplaces that support real life, not just working life. You’ll learn the smartest, most impactful actions that strengthen wellbeing, boost EVP and protect performance in 2026 and beyond.

Key Takeaways:

• clarity on the realities of combining career and family and what the latest research means for your people strategy.
• the cost of doing nothing - plus the ROI behind today’s most effective support options.
• practical steps to boost retention, resilience and productivity across your entire workforce.

Change is constant - but are leaders ready to rise to the challenge? This session explores HR’s critical role in enabling leaders to unlock agility, drive career mobility, and foster engagement, connection, and belonging during organisational transformation. 

Key takeaways:

• practical strategies to help your leaders move beyond managing change to inspiring it
• position HR and L&D as catalysts for leadership capability and organisational resilience
• future-proof your workforce and ensure leaders step up to drive transformation.

The Employment Rights Act has delivered the most significant overhaul of UK employment legislation in years. For HR, the challenge now is moving from legal awareness to practical, compliant implementation. This session will cover what you need to know, focusing on how to update operational practices to stay fully compliant under new changes to UK employment law.

CIPD/Omni research found that nearly a third of organisations are using some form of AI or machine learning in recruitment and onboarding. This figure continues to rise and, while many employers report improved hiring efficiency, AI use also raises important questions around fairness, trust and risk.

As organisations use AI to draft job descriptions, screen applications and streamline hiring, a parallel challenge is emerging around candidate use of the same technology. If employers are using AI to improve recruitment outcomes, is it reasonable to prevent job seekers from doing the same? This session explores how organisations can take a more nuanced approach to AI use in recruitment, balancing efficiency, fairness and the realities of an AI-enabled workplace.

Attendees will explore:

• The opportunities and risks of using AI in recruitment and onboarding, including the implications for fairness, efficiency and candidate quality
• The organisational benefits of a well-designed approach to AI in recruitment, including improved efficiency, more robust hiring decisions and better alignment with future skills needs
• How organisations can take a more nuanced approach to candidate use of AI, including when to permit, discourage or assess it as part of fair and effective selection processes

Psychological safety is not a soft cultural ideal, it is a leadership capability that directly influences engagement, performance, and retention. It’s essential to equip your line managers with the right skills and capabilities to create psychological safety and create a team environment.

In this session, Dr Shaun Lundy and Dr Christopher Davis explore the critical link between psychosocial risk management, controlling workplace factors that can cause psychological harm, and psychological safety, creating team environments where people feel able to speak up and contribute without fear.

The connection is leadership, the same management behaviours that reduce psychosocial risk also build trust, enable voice, and create meaning in work. One protects people from harm; the other creates conditions for improved performance. Together, they shape whether people thrive or come to harm.

This session provides practical strategies to align wellbeing governance, risk management and leadership development into a coherent people strategy.

AI is reshaping work at pace - but people determine whether transformation succeeds. In this keynote, Sharon Doherty shares how Lloyds Banking Group is preparing 67,000, colleagues, for an AIpowered future, grounded in an honest, practical story of cultural reset, leadership transformation and the shift to simpler, modern ways of working. Expect real lessons, real stories and a clear, humancentred view of how confidence, capability and responsibility sit at the heart of AI adoption at scale.  

Key takeaways:

• the people transformation that makes AI adoption possible 
• how Lloyds built the narrative and momentum for largescale change 
• practical ways we’re preparing colleagues for an AI enabled future 
• what agentic AI means for work - and how we’re preparing now 
• leadership habits that accelerate workforce transformation.

Hybrid working has moved from a post-pandemic experiment to a defining feature of workforce strategy – and for some a source of organisational tension. Employers are balancing productivity, collaboration, culture, learning and customer needs with employee expectations for flexibility, wellbeing and inclusion. CIPD research highlights that 41 per cent of employers link increased hybrid working with improved performance and efficiency.

Yet while the debate is often framed as ‘back to the office’ versus ‘work from anywhere’, this obscures the real organisational challenge. In practice, there are multiple viable models, each with benefits and trade-offs across performance, collaboration, learning, culture, inclusion, wellbeing and cost. This session explores the evidence on what different working models enable and supports organisations to make informed choices, designing a solution that is consistent, and sustainable.

Key takeaways:

• what flexibility can look like whether you are primarily site-based, a hybrid worker, or fully remote and how to translate this into a clear strategy
• how to review, adapt and measure the effectiveness and impact of various working arrangements – including what data to measure and use
• the impact flexibility is having on productivity and performance in the workplace.

This session focuses on harnessing cognitive differences (e.g. Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia) as a competitive advantage. It provides practical, systemic interventions for recruitment, onboarding and daily tasks to ensure the organisation benefits from this often overlooked talent pool.

Key takeaways:

• adapt recruitment and interview processes to remove unnecessary barriers, focusing on skills assessment over traditional social presentation (e.g. using work trials and structured interviews)
• implement practical, low cost adjustments such as clear communication and quiet zones to support focused work
• train managers and HR to understand neurodivergent communication, promote strengths based conversations and ensure fair performance management.

Empowering teams to adapt to change takes skill - so how can you prepare leaders to harness agility and drive performance? Discover how to support your leaders to drive change and avoid change fatigue.

Key takeaways:

• build a culture of resilience, that values logic and learning
• lead with openness and accountability, to promote cultures of shared responsibility
• communicate with clarity and purpose to drive change forward, even when facing resistance and the path is not clear.

Everyone is talking about AI, but who is actually doing the work? This session shows HR leaders how to "unlock" their Apprenticeship Levy to turn existing staff into the data-savvy, AI-ready workforce your business needs. No jargon, no complex coding, just a practical roadmap to digital transformation that’s already paid for.

Key takeaways:

• stop hiring for AI and start building an internal talent pipeline, identifying 'digital champions' who can lead the way
• discover how "AI-plus" apprentices use GenAI tools to automate repetitive tasks and administrative bottlenecks
• understand how to map existing levy-funded pathways to your organization's long-term digital strategy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is unavoidable in the modern workplace, especially agentic AI, but how organisations frame emerging technologies can change employee perception and engagement.

Key takeaways:

• what is the impact of positioning agentic AI as a digital colleague, intelligent assistant, or a straightforward tool?
• how does each positioning strategy can influence behaviour, performance and organisational culture?
• how can you introduce AI in a way that enhances collaboration, reduces resistance, and unlocks meaningful productivity gains?

Shifting expectations, data-driven insight and business pressures are redefining L&D’s role in the workplace. In recent years, L&D professionals have a vital role in shaping organisational performance, so how can we collaborate with leaders, aligning learning to measurable outcomes and influencing strategy?

In this fishbowl, we will discuss: 

• how much should be expected from L&D professionals as a strategic performance partner?
• what are the barriers for L&D to be more strategic and value-creating?
• what changes need to be made to keep L&D professionals in this space?

In today’s fast-moving world of work, building high-performing teams isn’t just about hiring great talent, it’s about creating the conditions where people can consistently perform at their best. In this fireside chat, we’ll sit down with Hayley Mann, Chief People Officer at Formula E to explore what it really takes to lead in a high-performance environment where speed, precision, and adaptability are critical to success. Drawing on lessons from one of the world’s most dynamic sporting organisations, we’ll unpack how leaders can balance performance and wellbeing, foster accountability without burnout, and create a culture where individuals and teams thrive under pressure.

We’ll also explore what HR leaders can take from the world of elite sport into their own organisations, from building resilience and trust, to aligning people strategy with business outcomes.

Key takeaways:

• how to navigate change successfully
• strategies for elevating team performance
• practical insights on leading teams that deliver consistently

What 1,100 UK workers told us about AI fears, benefits, and the decisions they want humans to make — and how organisations acted on it. We will share how our customers have transformed their HR function, and what it really takes to build an AI-enabled people strategy your workforce will get behind. 

Key takeaways:

• getting the foundations right is what makes AI adoption possible
• the confidence gap is real - and HR needs to close it
• HR's role is to lead AI adoption, not just implement it

Every HR team knows the feeling: you've invested in a benefits package you're proud of, launched the platform, sent the comms - and engagement data shows barely anyone is using it. Benefits engagement has become one of HR’s biggest challenges, limiting the ROI of wellbeing, financial and lifestyle perks. In this panel, three HR leaders from very different workforces share what’s actually improved engagement. From deskless and shift-based teams to globally distributed offices, they’ll discuss what worked, what didn’t, and what they wish they’d done sooner - giving HR leaders practical ideas they can take back to their teams immediately.

Key takeaways

• why traditional benefits comms fail, and the engagement strategies that work across deskless, shift-based and office-based workforces.
• how to measure benefits engagement properly, and the metrics that actually predict whether people will use what you offer.
• practical playbooks from three very different HR teams, with tactics you can apply regardless of company size, sector or workforce mix.

How do leaders stay grounded and effective when transformation no longer comes in neat programmes, but as a constant stream of shifting priorities, new tools, and stakeholder pressure?

Key takeaways: 

• explore Kind Resilience, a PhD‑researched framework for leading through continuous change with self‑care and purpose 
• learn from case studies and doctoral research into human practices that help people stay steady through uncertainty 
• discover a practical toolkit that leaders can use immediately with themselves and their teams.

Britain is facing a growing challenge: more people are leaving the workforce due to ill health, financial pressure and lack of timely support. While this is a national issue, employers are often the first place these challenges show up.​ 

Key takeaways: 

• explore what "keeping Britain working" looks like it reality through the lens of leadership
  
• draw on ​r​eal-world experience and insights from across UK employers
  
• ​focus on the role organisations can play in supporting their people earlier, more accessibly and in ways that reflect how work is actually done today​.
  

Most L&D teams are doing great work. But when leadership asks what difference it made, too many of us hesitate. 

This session explores why the shift from activity metrics to impact metrics isn't just a reporting change. It's a credibility change. 

Using the lens of L&D maturity, Steve Finch unpacks what separates reactive L&D functions from strategic ones, introduces a practical framework for benchmarking where your team sits across eight key domains, and leaves you with three questions you can start asking on Monday morning.

For HR and L&D teams running on Microsoft 365, Copilot promises a real productivity shift. But most teams are still stuck using it for summaries and generic content. This session is for people who want to move past the basics.

We'll walk through advanced, real-life use cases that genuinely optimise HR and L&D workflows. Then you'll pressure-test them at your table: sharing what's working, calling out where Copilot falls short, and debating what's worth the effort.

You'll leave with an honest benchmark of where your peers are finding success and a set of practical use cases you can apply immediately.

Key takeaways

• advanced use cases: High-value applications that go beyond basic prompting to accelerate workflows, data synthesis, and programme design
  
• friction points: An unvarnished look at where Copilot falls short, saving your team hours on non-viable use cases
  
• a practical next step: A clear action to elevate how your team uses your existing Microsoft 365 setup
  

Early career talent pipelines are coming under increasing strain. A disrupted labour market and accelerating technological changes are reshaping how people enter work. CIPD research suggests that more young people are delaying entry into work, creating a growing risk for employers. At the same time, AI and automation are pushing some organisations towards more diamond-shaped organisational structures, further limiting traditional entry-level roles.

For organisations, this presents both a strategic and an operational challenge. How do you redesign routes into work when entry-level roles are shrinking, expectations are shifting, and the skills landscape is moving faster than our talent systems can respond? How can people professionals rethink early career opportunities and rebuild progression pathways to ensure healthy talent pipelines, future capability and long-term organisational resilience?

Key takeaways:

• how young people’s entry into work is changing – and what this means for workforce planning, skills gaps and future talent pipelines
• what impact AI and automation are having on reshaping organisational structures, and what this means for entry-level opportunities
• ways to rebuild early career routes through role design, skills-first hiring and development that creates progression and protects future capability.

This session examines how fair pay, relevant rewards and consistent recognition drive employee satisfaction, performance and retention. It explores how transparency, tailored total reward and meaningful recognition work together to strengthen engagement and sustain contribution.

Key takeaways:

• build trust and retention through clear communication and defensible pay structures that support fairness and equity
• design flexible total reward packages that increase satisfaction by offering personalised value beyond base pay
• embed frequent, values led recognition to reinforce high performance, sustain motivation and reduce attrition.

Workforce health issues are becoming more complex, from long-term conditions and mental health to supporting an ageing workforce. At the same time, sickness absence is at record levels, creating tangible organisational costs through lost output, resourcing pressure and operational risk. Without a more proactive approach, these pressures will continue to undermine performance and capacity.

This session focuses on the organisational benefits of moving from reactive responses to preventative workforce health. It explores how stronger HR and occupational health (OH) collaboration, embedded within people strategy, can enable earlier intervention, better use of specialist expertise, and prevention through job quality, work design and health risk management - supporting healthier, more sustainable workforce performance.

Key takeaways:

• how stronger HR and OH collaboration enables earlier intervention and better use of specialist expertise, improving attendance, retention and performance
• what a clear HR – OH operating model looks like, with consistent referral routes and effective manager support
• the organisational benefits of earlier intervention and better use of OH.

The Royal Navy has long been a leader in operational excellence, but evolving challenges demanded a modern approach to leadership development. To strengthen its leadership pipeline, the organisation integrated objective talent assessment data into its succession planning and mobility strategy, ensuring the right people are ready for critical roles in high-pressure environments. ​Discover how to embed science-based assessments ​to enable smarter, data-driven leadership decisions.

Key takeaways:

• the leadership challenge faced by the Royal Navy and why traditional development methods were no longer sufficient
• how validated assessments uncover leadership potential, cognitive capability, and behavioural strengths
• how to embed objective talent data into succession planning and internal mobility practical lessons for building a resilient, future-proof leadership pipeline.

AI is already changing how work gets done. But for people professionals, the real question isn’t simply how to introduce new tools; it’s how to redesign work so humans and AI collaborate rather than compete. 

In many organisations, AI adoption is still at an early stage. HR and L&D teams are being asked to support productivity and transformation, yet job roles, workflows and skills frameworks were designed for a pre-AI world. Without intentional redesign, organisations risk automating the wrong tasks, overwhelming employees, or missing the opportunity to enhance human capability.

​This session will explore how HR leaders can take a more thoughtful approach to AI adoption by focusing on augmentation rather than automation alone.​ Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of how to balance efficiency and humanity, and how HR can play a leading role in shaping work for the AI era.

​K​ey takeaways:

• identify which tasks should be automated, augmented, or protected as human work
• spot emerging collaboration opportunities as AI reshapes roles and responsibilities
• strengthen the human distinctive skills that become more valuable in an AI-enabled workplace
• help your organisation adopt AI in a way that improves productivity while keeping people at the centre

Cotswold Outdoor Group faced a common challenge: how to connect with a highly diverse workforce of retail colleagues, head office teams and distribution staff spread across the UK, many without access to a work email or a desk.

The group started to use podcasts as a practical, low-tech solution to reach store-based, remote and on-the-road colleagues in ways that fit different lives, contracts and career stages. 

Key takeaways:

• measuring the impact of podcasts using click-throughs and listens
• how to create a easy tech set up
• allowing diverse employees to engage with internal communications in the level that suits them best
• embedding podcasts into internal communications strategy.

If AI is changing what L&D does, maybe the job isn't shrinking - it's shifting. When content generation takes an afternoon instead of a week, the scarce resource becomes something AI can't replicate: taste and intuition - knowing what good looks like, when a team is ready, and what conditions people actually need to develop. 

In this discussion-based, hands-on session, Matt will share a short provocation drawing on real experiments with AI in the L&D practice at Nesta - then hand it over to you. We'll discuss the human skills - practice, feedback, honest conversation - that are hardest to scale but most valuable to develop, and what that means for growing your L&D function in an AI-enabled world. Come ready to reflect, share and leave with something your peers helped you think through.

Key takeaways:

• reflect on where AI is already saving you time, and what you're doing with that saved time.
  
• consider how taste and intuition can become core strengths in your L&D practice
  
• identify the conditions that help your people develop judgment, and assess how well you're currently creating them.
  

Organisations are operating in a state of near-constant change — increasingly unpredictable and complex. Emerging technologies, evolving workforce expectations, and shifting business models are reshaping how work gets done, placing pressure on structure, leadership and ways of working. This results in uncertainty, fatigue and resistance that slows momentum and undermines performance.

For HR, this creates critical organisational challenge. How can people professionals build an enduring organisational capacity for change? This requires shifting the narrative away from ‘change delivery’ towards developing and shaping the conditions that enable individuals, teams and organisations to absorb, adapt to and sustain with progress over time? Developing this capability is now a core part of organisational resilience and long-term success.

Key takeaways: 

• how HR can define, assess and build change readiness and change capacity at individual, team and organisational levels
• what role can HR play in reducing resistance by addressing the human factors of change, including trust, clarity and psychological safety
• practical implications for organisations managing change fatigue, competing priorities and ongoing transformation agendas

This session explores the big ideas shaping today’s workplace and what they mean for organisations and their people. We’ll look at how technology is laying the foundations for better ways of working, from smarter processes to more connected, human-centred employee experiences.

Key takeaways:

• the new big ideas that are shaping the modern world of work
• how technology can build the foundations and elevate the employee experience
• how AI comes into play and is changing the everyday norms of work

This session will explore the unique cultural and societal barriers that often prevent men from accessing or seeking mental health support, and offer concrete, actionable steps HR and People teams can take to restructure support systems and the working environment to be more accessible and effective for men.

Key takeaways:

• understand how traditional masculinity acts as a barrier and implement organisational culture changes to actively counter stoicism and encourage disclosure
• move beyond traditional employee assistance programmes by providing less formal, lower stakes entry points for support (e.g. peer to peer fitness groups or manager check ins)
• train line managers to spot the internalised signs of distress in men (e.g. irritability, avoidance) and offer non judgemental, pragmatic support.

The best leaders inspire, adapt and drive transformation - but what does it take to develop these characteristics? This session will examine how to drive effective leadership and gain fresh perspectives.

Key takeaways:

• understand new ideas around leadership in today’s world
• know the skills leaders need today to lead effectively 
• how can leaders drive performance and business outcomes?
• know the developmental experiences will be needed to build these skills and qualities.

The Employment Rights Act isn't just a legal update, it’s a total redesign of the employee lifecycle. This session moves beyond the 'what' of the legislation and dives into the 'how' - exploring the specific policy triggers, manager talking points, and the adjustments HR needs to implement to stay compliant. 

Key takeaways:

• assessing the impact the Employment Rights Act will have on your organisation to ensure operational priorities align with legislative changes 
• supporting line managers to understand how changes can affect day-to-day management
• stay up to date with developments as the legislative landscape evolves to identify areas that may need updating

Digital doppelgangers, AI-powered replicas of real employees, are moving from science fiction into mainstream workplaces, and HR leaders need to pay attention. This session will explore the growing workplace trend of creating “digital twins” of employees.  Organisations are using this technology primarily for knowledge retention, capturing the expertise of long-serving staff before retirement, as well as other productivity gains.

However, there are significant risks to navigate including data security, identity fraud, built-in bias, and employee concerns about trust and job security. Legal frameworks remain underdeveloped, and HR leaders will need to consider consent, governance, and human oversight in this emerging area.

Key takeaways:

• knowledge retention - digital twins could solve the age old problem of what happens when your most experienced people leave.
• governance - consent, incentives, data protection, and post-employment policies need to be thought through.
• human centred – how will you respond when your CEO asks you to help clone an employee?

Many organisations face challenges with unclear career progression, inconsistent development goals and limited visibility of digital skills. In this session, Davie Gow shares how the company addressed these issues by adopting a skills-based framework using SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age), creating transparent role profiles, defined skills expectations and structured development pathways.

This change was supported by APMG’s assessment and credentialing, which empowers employees to take ownership of their growth while improving organisational capability.

Key takeaways:

• how a practical, skills-based framework can support strategic workforce planning and improve engagement and retention
  
• how to build a culture of continuous learning
  
• how organisations can combine frameworks such as SFIA with recognised assessment and credentialing approaches to benchmark skills, support professional growth and create greater confidence in workforce capability
  

Join us for an exclusive fireside chat with Richard Osman, acclaimed TV presenter, producer, and best-selling author, as he reflects on a remarkable career defined by creativity, reinvention, and resilience. This session will explore the insights, challenges, and lessons that have shaped his professional and personal journey.

Richard will share how he pivoted careers mid-life, embraced creative risks, and leveraged transferable skills, as well as how storytelling can inspire and guide teams. He will also speak candidly about living with nystagmus, navigating anxiety and stress, and the importance of supportive, inclusive workplaces that allow people and ideas to thrive.