The CIPD Festival of Work is an exciting two-day event that brings together business leaders, human resources professionals, and people passionate about the future of work. The event aims to answer the question: How can we create a workplace that supports people and works well for everybody?
The conference offers attendees extensive events and activities, including talks on six stages: the ESG Main Stage, Employee Experience Stage, Wellbeing Stage, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion Stage, Internal Communications Stage, and Learning & Development Stage. With over 100 sessions of content, 150 exhibitors, and 7 session formats, the festival features the best of the industry.
Event format
Each stage focused on different aspects of the future of work. The ESG Main Stage delved into responsible business practices and delivered a people-focused ESG agenda. The Employee Experience Stage explored optimising employee engagement and experience, centring around topics crucial to employees.
The Wellbeing Stage emphasised integrating well-being strategies and fostering a work culture that supports individuals through physical, emotional, mental, or financial health challenges. The Equality, Diversity, Inclusion Stage was dedicated to creating inclusive working environments that embrace diversity and drive equality.
The Internal Communications Stage highlighted the importance of building a culture of trust and transparency through effective internal communications. The Learning & Development Stage examined how to transform L&D programmes into innovative and enhanced learner experiences.
In addition to the informative sessions, the digital experience of the festival enabled interactive engagement, facilitating connections, collaboration, and inspiration among attendees from around the world.
The CIPD Festival of Work provided ample networking opportunities, allowing the over 5,000 festival-goers from various industries to learn from and connect with their peers.
Gaining insights: talks, panels and presentations
The CIPD Festival of Work, spanning two days, included various presentations and discussions about current workplace issues.
CIPD led a session on maintaining equality, diversity, and inclusion despite budget limitations. Jill Miller, Lutfur R. Ali, and Ian Nicholas, experts in the field, offered helpful insights, prompting active involvement and many questions from the audience.
Sponsor, Insights contributed to the event's learning environment with Tanya Boyd hosting a conversation on promoting a sense of belonging within teams to achieve true inclusion. Lizzie Penny and Alex Hirst also expressed their views on the role of independent work in shaping the future of work.
Petra Velzeboer introduced a new perspective on the link between wellness and inclusion strategies. Her session resonated with the audience, offering valuable and intriguing content.
Annie Cullotty was part of a panel discussion on cultural intelligence and the value of ESG. Attendees learned about Bias in AI and were motivated by Kanya King CBE's keynote speech on Diversity & Inclusion. The variety of content triggered many ideas for improving workplace culture.
Mark Seemann presented 'The hidden signals of disengagement' at the Internal Comms stage, which drew a large crowd. His talk illuminated what employees may not outwardly express, giving critical insights into employee engagement.
Fearne Cotton's keynote speech on self-care and setting boundaries was well received, creating a positive and energetic mood throughout the event.
CIPD Festival of Work offered a comprehensive exploration of the modern workplace, with insightful presentations, valuable networking opportunities, and innovative tech demonstrations contributing to a successful and engaging event.
Zinc’s attendance at CIPD: Festival of Work
As exhibitors at the CIPD Festival of Work, Zinc engaged with a broad spectrum of interested individuals. Zinc's stand was consistently bustling, with attendees eager to explore their automated background-checking solution.
Zinc entertained visitors with three competitions designed to infuse fun into the event. The first competition challenged participants to guess the number of coffee beans in a jar. The second contest was a photo competition featuring Zinc branded coffee. Lastly, Zinc hosted a spin-wheel raffle where attendees could win a luxury Fortnum and Mason hamper.
To see the winners of our competitions, be sure to follow us on Linkedin.
In addition to these exciting competitions, Zinc treated attendees to free cupcakes while distributing branded notebooks, stickers, and pens - all of which proved to be a hit among visitors.
However, the true highlight for the Zinc team was engaging in meaningful conversations with attendees about their current challenges with background checks.
We had the chance to delve into the current concerns and frustrations many experiences with the process of traditional background checks. These exchanges didn't just highlighted the standard background verification procedures' intricacies and time-consuming nature and served as an invaluable window into real-world issues.
Having these conversations allowed us to showcase the advantages of our automated background-checking solution. We were able to demonstrate how our innovative approach could streamline their recruitment processes. We explored how Zinc stays compliant with necessary regulations and standards, an aspect of critical importance in today's data protection and privacy-focused world.
We discussed how our solution could save crucial time for HR teams. Automating a large part of the process showed that HR staff could use their time on more strategic tasks instead of administrative ones. These interactions painted a vivid picture of how our solution can transform and optimise the overall recruitment process.
We had the opportunity to enhance our visibility and open doors to future partnerships and collaborations. These interactions enhanced our understanding of market needs and trends across industries., These valuable learnings will feed directly into our product development and improvement cycle, ensuring our solution stays relevant and effective in a rapidly evolving industry.
Overall, our involvement at the festival enriched our understanding, fostered a stronger relationship between Zinc and potential clients, and reinforced our commitment to providing a streamlined, efficient solution for background checks.
Thanks to all the organisers of the CIPD Festival of Work for providing such a fantastic event. We look forward to participating in future hr events!
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