Sketchnotes from CIPD NAP Student Conference 2018

Rachel Burnham writes: It was lovely to have the chance to represent CIPD Manchester at the annual Northern Area Partnership (NAP) conference for CIPD students.  I got to meet lots of interesting students from across the whole of the North of England, from Liverpool to Humberside and from Sheffield to the NE. Why not check out the #CIPD18Student for tweets from the event? 

  

The speakers were excellent and the sessions covered a lot of ground from the ‘Future of Work and the People Profession’,  through to ‘personal resilience’ and ‘developing your networking skills and personal brand through the use of social media’.   Particular highlights for me were hearing the personal stories of Jennifer Hulme about heading up HR in a retail environment and Nicky Ingham sharing her story of developing personal resilience.   I thought the emphasis on the practical case studies in the event was very helpful.  It was good to hear from Mike Collins at River Island on how they have re- shaped Performance Management – which is a very topical issue and one that a lot of organisations are working on currently. 

But the stand-out session for me, was from Lisa Rigby and Helen Baggaley at Wigan Council, with how they approached transforming the culture at the council in the wake of the cuts from austerity measures.  I loved hearing how they decided not to use a ‘traditional training’ approach, but created an experience to engage employees instead.  This was a very unique ‘walk-through’ experience and involved colleagues acting as tour guides through a physical site showing the council ‘past, present and future’.  It included a film room showing videos with popcorn and everyone was encouraged to make pledges about what they would do differently as a result.  This wasn’t a stand-alone programme, but linked to many other supportive steps as well.   It was great to hear about the measurable impact this had.

This approach is very much what Nick Shackleton-Jones argues for - creating an ‘experience’ with an emotional impact and it was great to see this approach being developed as a practical response to addressing the particular concerns and needs within this council.

Here is my collection of Sketchnotes from the event: 

If you are a student studying CIPD courses and didn’t attend this year’s event, do look out for next year’s. 

Rachel Burnham

26/3/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.