Twin HR summit coming to Cebu in February

Human Resources, as a vital component of management in every organization, whether business, government, or NGO, is now called Human Capital. The community of HR professionals all over the country is holding two major events this coming February 4 and 5 virtually, of course, and the virtual venue is Cebu. Hundreds are attending and big names from Europe, America, and the Asia-Pacific are going to speak via digital platforms.

Of the four pillars of Human Capital, namely Talent Acquisition (the new name for Recruitment), Learning and Development (Training), Total Rewards (Compensation and Benefits) and Organizational Justice (the new name for Employee and Labor Relations), the last two are topic of a twin summit and many HR professionals, both the veterans and well-experienced as well as the new emerging HR practitioners are joining. Governor Gwen Garcia and Mayor Edgar Labella are speaking before the plenary, and Vice Mayor Mike Rama, an excellent HR manager before he entered politics, will be one of the major resource persons. There are a number of foreign speakers representing an array of industries in the HR profession, and our own HR community looks forward to a very intensive and extensive learning experience.

There will be a tripartite colloquium with top officials of the Federation of Free Workers representing the labor sector, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines representing the management, and DOLE officials representing the government. One of the most important topics is the nagging question on the relevance of a 1974-vintage Labor Code of the Philippines. The HR community is raining issues on the many incongruous provisions of the Labor Code which make the functions of HR more difficult, and pose too many obstacles and unnecessary burdens to the employers as they try to survive the health crisis and economic recession. The speakers are expected to provide proposed solutions to the problems involving people, from hiring to retiring, given the formidable challenges of the times.

The first day of the twin summit, to be chaired by this writer, shall focus on Organizational Justice, which includes employee relations, labor relations, and industrial relations. Employee relations refer to the proactive, non-adversarial and collaborative interactions between management and the employees, in order to build stronger and friendlier relationships and cooperation. They include sports activities, outing, family activities and the likes as well as team-building and other non-work activities. Labor Relations refer to more formal, structured, and serious discussions like labor-management councils, collective bargaining negotiations, grievance procedures and disciplinary or administrative investigations. Industrial relations is the legal component of organizational justice, which includes handling of cases under conciliation, mediation, or arbitration, both voluntary and compulsory, as well as appeals to DOLE, NLRC, the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court.

The second day, focused on Total Rewards, shall be chaired by Mr. Freddie Marquez, the country's top expert in Compensation and Benefits. The speakers coming from other countries as well as our own shall tackle the latest trends in executive, managerial, and supervisory compensation matrices, presenting comparative analyses of how much top executives are paid in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, as compared to USA, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India, and China. They will also tackle new systems of employee rewards, both monetary and non-monetary. One very interesting area is HMO or Health Maintenance Organization in the midst of the COVID crisis. How do companies in Europe, America, Asia, and in the ASEAN region take care of the health, safety, and welfare of their people?

We are thus calling on all companies, particularly the owners, the top executives, and most especially their HR group and their unions and employee councils to attend this very important event. The content is very extensive and useful, but the process flow is very customer-friendly. This is one event that you should not be missing. You can attend without leaving your offices and homes. The benefits for attending are tremendous and incalculable. There will be no other opportunity like this, so better be there or you shall be missing a lot.