Understanding human beings and their behaviour in the context of what they mean to business is vitally important in an environment of continuous change and fierce competition. The Management of work is set amidst human activities, continuously supervised, monitored and assessed by people who are constantly interacting with each other. Thus the human side of management becomes crucially important. Nevertheless Managers do not always act as though they fully understand and acknowledge that success in management has to be based on an awareness and at least a broad knowledge of human behaviour including of course their own.

The famous Guru Peter Drucker in an article to the Harvard Business Review says "All organizations now routinely say ‘People are our greatest asset’. Yet few practice what they preach. Most still behave though perhaps not consciously, what 19th Century employers believed. People need us more than we need them. But in fact organizations have to market membership as much as they market products and services and perhaps more. They have to attract people, hold people, recognize and reward people, motivate people and serve and satisfy people".

Thus the National HR Conference 2008 focuses on the Human factor in business, the best practices to be adopted, HR value creation for business success and the need to strategize HRM and develop the competencies of HR practitioners and all others who play a role in managing people.

Geoff Armstrong, Director General, CIPD U.K. Chief Guest and Keynote Speaker at our Conference says "A huge transformation is taking place in what makes for a successful organization. We, the people specialists are right at the heart of making it happen". HR will dwell on change and how it has impacted on business and life in general today. He will also touch on the radical shift in business models that served well enough for most of the 20th century.

Prof. Rob Goffee, Head of the Department of Organizational Behaviour, London Business School speaks on his latest book "Why should anyone be led by you ?". He says "there is increasing desire for authentic leadership, yet organizations often kill rather than promote the vital qualities which are required. Rob will draw on 25 years of research, consulting and first hand experience and new work on leading clever people in increasingly knowledge based economies.

He will review on how leaders can communicate their true selves in a variety of contexts, balancing the tensions that inevitably are involved.

Prof. Dave Ulrich, the renowned HR Guru from the Michigan University, U.S.A. will speak on ‘Challenges and Opportunities for the new HR". He will identify the demands facing businesses today and how HR can and should respond. He will further focus on how HR must deliver value, the heart of the HR challenge for the future. His presentation will list a number of paradoxes and how HR Practitioners must learn to manage paradoxes. There will be focus on HR Vs line, Individual Vs organization, Inside Vs outside. At a pragmatic level, Dave will talk about how HR can and should transform to respond to the business demands and enact the paradoxes. The session will look at three questions of transformation viz: Why transform ?, What are the outcomes of transformation ?, How to transform HR practices, Departments and people. Dave will during this interactive session leave participants with specific tools which can be used when they return to work.

The Conference therefore looks at how "People drive Business". This powerful theme captures in essence the fit between human resource strategy and business or organization strategy. Business or organization strategy can be defined as the attempt by those who control an organization to find ways and means to position the business objectives so as to exploit the planning environment and maximize the future use of the capital and human assets. Human Resource Strategy is simply the process of bringing together people Plans and programmes of activity within an overall framework, which is designed to deliver against organizational objectives. There is a great need to integrate HR and business strategy at the policy level i.e. to bring together policies into business processes such as those related to quality, customer service, cost reduction, productivity improvements etc.

Gaining a competitive advantage in business through HR strategies would mean the employment of quality people who possess an unique set of competencies that should be a combination of rare and inimitable skills and knowledge with organizational systems such as speed of response to customers, Brand image, quality of products and services and the relationship marketing approach, which are parts of competitive strategy. The ways in which HRM seeks to contribute to organizational performance are through organization design and organization development approaches. Towards this process, there must be HR systems, programmes and policies which leverage on higher outputs or performance from existing assets.

Organization design and organization development seek to bring the social sciences to bear on problems of organizational change and to incorporate the culture change and value driven activities. There has been much research into the subject of ‘Best Practice" and the argument which emerges here is that an organization needs an HR function which selects the appropriate best practices from those which are known to be available for the issues in question. This means not following ‘fads’ and ‘fashions’, but rather analyzing very carefully what is needed before introducing new policies.

Thus at the strategic level, the HR strategy must be seen to fit the business or organizational strategy. The HR strategy must also be designed to deliver against the business objectives.

The National HR Conference on ‘People Drive Business’ will no doubt be a revelation to CEOs/Business Leaders, HR Practitioners, Line Managers and Management Personnel in many disciplines. IT will create fresh thinking on how to leverage on your Human assets to bring about positive and lasting results for your organization amidst enormous pressures of change driven by globalization, customer demands, technology innovations, demographic, social and economic change.