Member News: Summit Helps Businesses Prepare for Change

Harmonics recently hosted a Mid-West Region Global Summit on Future Proofing Organisations at the Strand Hotel.  Over 80 Local Senior Business Leaders from some of the largest employers in the Mid-West Region met Change, Leadership and Coaching Practitioners from the USA, South America, Canada, UK, Europe and Australia to share their diverse insights on Change, Leadership and Communication.

The well-received event featured excellent speakers from home and abroad, covering a wide variety of topics. There is exponential change happening in organisations in the region and this means the structures and systems that served us well in times of certainty are now impeding progress as they move to more agile models to adapt and pivot quickly to stay ahead of change.

Marie Toft delivered an impactful presentation on the power storytelling through video and how companies can connect emotionally and stand out from their competitors in an authentic way.  Marie is CEO of Emotionise & Former Senior Producer with RTE & BBC and works closely with Harmonics to help employers create emotionally connected messages to attract talent.

Neville Bourke, Organisation Change Specialist with Futurus OCM and Eugene Barrett, Site Director, GE Cork shared insights on the transformational change that GE as an organisation has undertaken and the people change journey over the past two years.

Gerry Cahill, Site Director, Roche in Clarecastle spoke in a refreshing, honest and vulnerable way on how he and his team in Roche worked to build greater capability and employability with all of their people over a 3-year period ahead of impending site closure.

John Fitzgerald, Founder and MD of Harmonics, shared the findings from a Harmonics global research project on the Future Workforce Readiness. It showed a gap between individualsā€™ perception of their future career readiness versus their actual level of readiness. Some headlines of note show 1 in 5 are actively seeking to leave their current employers, while 34 is the age when career growth declines for women. In fact, a staggering 42% of all those surveyed had either hit a career ceiling, become frustrated or described their workplace as toxic. The research survey is free for anyone to complete on www.futurecareerreadiness.com.

Global Perspectives were shared from a panel of OI Global Partner Leaders on a range of topics from growing emerging leaders, how to manage the ageing workforce, workplace trauma and transversal change. The Summit ended with collaborative round table discussions on the topics raised and how they related to businesses and Leaders in the region.

John Fitzgerald MD of Harmonics who was the brainchild behind the summit said, ā€œThe Future Proofing Summit was really well received. I am hearing from our local Leaders today and they want more events like this where they can share best practice and all learn from each other in a collaborative environment. This co-operation is how we continue to grow the Mid-West Region and future proof our regional businesses and their workforceā€.

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