2009 Symposium: Challenging Times Ahead for Workforce Planners June 17, 2009

In today's complex business environment workforce planners must not only be faster and better, they must be able to do a complete "about face." Boards of directors and corporate executives often provide mixed and moving messages about what the business needs to do to retain its brand name, be a leader, and achieve market advantage. Uncertainty surrounds resizing, cost reduction, innovation, and post-recession ramp up initiatives. Alongside this, the effects of disruptive change are stalking business. The twin threats to business continuity, demographic and technological change, remain prominent and focus attention on the ability of firms to respond.

This symposium takes on these challenges and more. Managers who want to discover, contribute, and share their ideas on how to be better, move faster, do a complete about face, and explore alternatives that have worked and failed are encouraged to attend. It is quite possible that more questions will be raised than answered, but this is a risk that is minimal compared to maintaining the status quo.

This symposium will:

* Explore how workforce planners are meeting challenges and improving efficiencies of current business processes in 2009
* Discover the challenges that disruptive changes pose for workforce planners
* Discuss what options exist for workforce planners to address both efficiency improvement and disruptive change cycles
* Assess the need to transform current HR workforce planning functions into a corporate-wide, talent-focused function
* Leave participants with workforce planning options that are both relevant and practical to consider at the strategic planning table.

This symposium will be limited to 40 attendees across various industries, which will include Pepperdine alumni and friends, corporate clients, and experts from our two sponsors. It is ideally suited for strategic officers, CFOs, VPs of global businesses, human resources executives, product engineers and as well as those responsible for determining work requirements for business units.

Persons attending will be asked to participate in working groups, share issues and experiences and contribute to the discussions.

Registration fee: $200 per attendee. Includes morning, afternoon and evening general sessions, small break out groups to explore challenges in detail, pre-session collateral materials and surveys, post-session presentations, panel summaries, morning and afternoon opportunities to follow up with persons of interest, on-site breakfast and lunch, and an off-site dinner and reception hosted by the symposium co-sponsors.

After registering, attendees will be asked to complete a survey to identify current and future workforce planning challenges and how they are being addressed in their companies. The results will be summarized and presented in the opening session. Approximately two weeks before the symposium attendees who have completed surveys will be able to access global surveys on workforce planning as well as case studies, published articles and research compiled by the co-chairs on the symposium Web site under "Symposium Materials." Attendees will also be encouraged to share documents they have found particularly useful in meeting workforce planning challenges. The session proceedings, discussions and findings will be documented and are expected to be available in the Symposium Materials area near the end of June.

Official Website: https://bschool.pepperdine.edu/newsevents/workforceplanning/