SLASSCOM’s Annual “People Summit” concludes successfully for the 10th consecutive year

From left: Dr. Michael Mol, Alex Draper and Pia Lauritzen 

The SLASSCOM People Summit, the country’s premier gathering of senior HR decision-makers dedicated to finding the best approach to achieving their talent management goals for their company’s and beyond, has over the last decade provided valued insights on a range of solutions from leadership development, diversity and inclusion, culture change, flexible working and employee engagement

Celebrating 10 consecutive years of success, the theme of this year’s event was centred on “Engaging, Coaching and Leading People in a Hybrid World”. With a dedicated agenda featuring in-depth discussions on hot topics, the event offered proven, research-based HR strategies for the new normal.

The topics ranged from discussions on Leadership Skill Sets in the era of Hybrid Teams, navigating through retention challenges in the wake of the great resignation, driving high performance and engagement through workplace learning, drive engagement, wellbeing and productivity in the “New Normal Environment Social Governance, The leadership challenges and opportunities of a Hybrid Working Mode, how to rapidly build psychological safety with a dispersed and diverse team, a data-centric approach to planning leadership succession and the confluence of individual and team coaching in a virtual world.

Thought provoking presentations were made on subjects titled “The Boss is the Glue, The four leadership hacks on how to use questions to ensure impact and “What is your organisation’s knowledge culture?”.

A team of high-profile and renowned global speakers comprising of Dr. Michael Mol, Sarah Bolton Howard, Ole Bent Rye, Kavitha Iyer, Charles Jennings, Isabell Dittmar ,  Nikhil Raval, Alex Draper, David King, Suresh Naithan, Dr. Birjendu Gupta and Pia Lauritzen, along with experts from the local arena that included Rasika Karunatilake and  Jehan Perinpanayagam, shared their views, learnings and innovations based on their own unique experiences, where they outlined case studies with real-business examples of challenges, failures and successes giving participants useful take-home data and expertise. 

The event also consisted of an interesting panel discussion that focused on the key aspects of the next generation talent pool titled “View on Workforce by Leaders» that was followed by Gen Z and Millennials expressing expectations in the hybrid world themed “Chat with Next Gen”. 

Exploring future trends to develop actionable strategies for 2022 from evidence-based solutions from research and data from global HR professionals, and unique insights from successful business leaders of some of the most successful international companies, the Summit’s content touched on relevant market developments and practical, progressive ideas and strategies that can be adopted by leadership teams of companies in Sri Lanka. 

As such, the participants got to experience a dynamic program featuring visionary keynote presentations, real-life case studies and interactive forums delivered by compelling speakers and expert moderators.  This has resulted in the summit becoming a central point of attraction for Human Resources professionals in the country and a much looked forward event that conducted on a local scale has a global feel to its agenda.  

SLASSCOM Chairperson Sandra De Zoysa explained the aim of this event was to ensure that the speakers’ content, presentations and experiences help local businesses to use the insights and strategies provided, to create a workable vision that will help them effectively harness their talent and utilise them in the best possible way to shape the future of their businesses.

Sysco LABS Vice President and General Manager Rasika Karunatilake added “The SLASSCOM People Summit is one of the largest and most esteemed conferences in Sri Lanka’s annual event calendar. This year’s edition that centred on the most pertinent theme of hybrid work exceeded all expectations and delivered excellent value to the 350+ participants.’’

The event was organised by the SLASSCOM HR Forum and was held in partnership with Sysco LABS as the Exclusive Strategic Sponsor, Dialog as the Corporate Sponsor, IFS as the Gold Partner, 99x as the Silver Sponsor, hSenid as the Technology Partner, NDB as the Banking Partner, IIT as the Education Partner along with HRP, ACCA, CIMA and CFA as the Event Partners. The Print Media Partner for the event was Daily FT.