Recruiting the right people is a challenge faced by every organisation, but SMEs in particular may face more challenges than most. Limited time and resources as well as competition from larger companies can make it much more difficult for smaller firms to find and recruit the best candidates.

The world of continuing professional development (CPD) is changing. Organisations and professional institutions are increasingly shifting their emphasis from classroom-based learning and compulsory hours or units to a much more personalised, flexible and informal approach. This podcast takes a closer look at CPD in the HR profession, exploring the benefits and challenges of a voluntary system, how it compares to other professions, the opportunities it offers for the individual and the organisation and ultimately, how CPD can contribute to building and maintaining the HR profession as a whole. In a round-table discussion, our guest speakers David D’Souza, Head of London at CIPD, Simon Collins, Talent Manager at Caterpillar and Rebecca Normand, International Business Manager at CIPD, talk about their own experiences of CPD, both in HR and other professions, the new and innovative ways that companies are engaging their employees and encouraging ongoing learning and how they see CPD evolving in the future.

It’s our 100th podcast! To celebrate this milestone we asked you, our listeners, to take the lead and give us your wise words and views on the HR profession; its highs and lows, how it’s changing, the best advice you’ve been given in your career and what you love about working in HR. We also put your questions to our trio of expert speakers: HR Director of Telefonica, UK, Ann Pickering, Stefan Stern, visiting professor as CASS Business School, and Max Blumberg, Research Fellow at Goldsmiths University. Ann, Stefan and Max also give their expert insight on successful HR careers, industry trends and buzzwords, and what HR means today.

Parents of babies born or adopted on or after 5 April 2015 will be able to take advantage of shared parental leave, one of the biggest family friendly working reforms in years. But does this legislation do enough to truly suit the needs of the future workforce? In this podcast we discuss the future of family friendly working and the advantages to be gained from embracing a culture of agile working. We hear from Jo Swinson, Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Women and Equalities Minister, about how shared parental leave will work and what she expects the take up to be. Jo also discusses why legislation like shared parental leave will help challenge conceptions in society and drive change to achieve a more level playing field for male and female employees. Tim Munden, Vice President of HR at Unilever, discusses how Unilever are looking to go beyond implementing the new legislation to start incorporating parental and other family absences (like eldercare) into their talent planning pipelines and the importance of line managers and role models in communicating this type of culture. We also speak to Jennifer Liston-Smith from My Family Care about the issue of pay and why employers should consider the business case for embracing family friendly working in terms of recruitment and retention. Jennifer also gives her advice for employers who want to embrace the future of family friendly working, including how to equip managers to handle requests for leave. To discuss this episode on Twitter, use the hashtag #cipdpodcasts.

Business partnerships are on the rise, with 25% more organisations setting one up in 2014 than in 2013. This episode follows on from the December episode which looked at the key considerations that should be made when approaching business partnerships. In this episode we speak to representatives from Shell and Rolls Royce about their experiences of business partnerships. Sofiah Umar, VP for HR Strategy and Planning for Shell tells us about using business partnerships as a way to collaborate with competitors and the challenges HR face in accepting the change of mindset required for success, while Charlotte Dearnley, Head of HR for Controls and Data Services at Rolls Royce, speaks about her role in building an individual culture and identity for her business unit, while remaining part of Rolls Royce, and the importance of fostering communication. Philippa Stokes, Head of Global Employment Relations at Rolls Royce echoes this point by describing why it is crucial to foster common understanding. We also hear from Paul Sparrow, Director of the Centre for Performance-led HR and Professor of International Human Resource Management at Lancaster University Management School on the role of HR in launching and sustaining successful business partnerships.

Welcome to the first podcast for 2015! In this podcast Chief Executive Peter Cheese explains the key themes the CIPD will be focusing on in the coming year and introduces 4 important thinkers discussing what they think is significant and cutting edge for the profession right now. First we speak to Nick Chater, Professor of Behavioural Science at the Warwick Business School, about the science of human behaviour and its relevance to HR issues. Next we hear from James Rule, Director of HR Solution Effectiveness at Thomson Reuters who describes a scheme called ‘partnering for performance’ that embodies the idea of aligning talent within the business with opportunity and how they have used technology to achieve this. We also hear from Arnab Banerjee, an HR Transformation and Technology expert, who describes the ways technology can optimise HR and his predictions for what will happen in this space. Finally we hear from Rita Gunther McGrath, a Professor at Columbia Business School, who outlines why she believes that businesses should stop focusing on sustaining a competitive advantage and instead work towards identifying different opportunities and working in an agile way to take advantage of these opportunities.

As the nature of organisations changes to become less insular and more networked, strategic business partnerships are on the rise and HR’s role in these partnerships is critical This podcast looks at HR’s role in business partnerships and the key considerations that should be made when approaching business partnerships. We speak to to Paul Sparrow, Director of the Centre for Performance-led HR and Professor of International Human Resource Management at Lancaster University Management School about why business partnerships are on the rise, the concept of mutual benefits and the three overaching themes that his research has identified as affecting the outcome of partnering arrangements; risk and capability, governance and sharing knowledge and learning beyond your own organisation. This podcast will be followed up by the February episode where we speak to Shell and Rolls Royce to learn about their experience of HR’s role in the success of their business partnerships.

This podcast explores the tricky business of team creation and discusses the role and contribution of evolving technology, the importance of communication patterns and shared values.

In this podcast we discuss the impact of increasing numbers of migrant workers on the UK workforce and in particular the effect that this is having on young people as they seek employment. We speak to Gerwyn Davies, Public Policy Adviser at the CIPD, who sets the scene for the numbers of migrant workers compared to 10 years ago. We discuss the rising number of skilled EU workers entering the UK workforce and the impact on the UK employment rate. We also speak to Alex Gennie, Senior Research Fellow, IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) and Sinead Lawrence, Senior Policy Adviser, CBI (Confederation of British Industry) about how the employment landscape is changing in general and why it is important to consider the impact of EU migrant workers as part of this changing landscape. We go on to discuss what EU migrants bring to the workforce in terms of skills and values and the effect this is having on young people in particular.

In this podcast Sandy Pepper, Professor of Management Practice at LSE, Deborah Hargreaves, Director of the High Pay Centre and Mark Childs, Managing Director of Total Reward Group, discuss the issues and questions about executive pay.