A Report on Participation in 6th

National HR Conference

Prepared by:
Laxmi Thapa
Sonika Dhakal
Surya Luitel

Submitted to:
Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Centre
Sanga Kavre, Nepal
 Table of Contents
Preface i
1. Emerging Trends of Employer Branding 1
2. Importance of Employer branding 1
3. Evolving Workplace by Rooster 1
4. Addressing the challenge of staying relevant 2
5. Future of Working Cultures in Nepal 2
a) New behaviors 2
b) Mobility 2
c) Globalization 2
d) Technology 2
e) Flexibility 2
6. Q&A (Questions and Answers) 3
7. Highlighting the Objectives 3
8. Participation 3
Preface

The Sixth National Human Resources Conference was held on 12 th September 2017, presenting an issue
including emerging trends of employer branding, evolving work place, future of working cultures and
labour related legal provisions in Nepal. Human Resources management has seen its stock rise
exponentially in Nepali organisations in the past decade. From instilling professional working culture,
catalysing productivity and playing a crucial role in employee retention, HR departments have evolved to
become crucial cogs in most organisation today. While Nepali corporate houses continue to play catch
up with global best practices, the HR Society Nepal has been working towards spreading awareness
regarding the importance of having a strong HR department as the one of the foundations for success
and productivity. One way the organisation has been doing this is through its annual HR conference.

We would like to give a thankful hand to SIRC for providing us a wonderful opportunity to learn from
this conference.

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1. Emerging Trends of Employer Branding

As a key note speaker on the theme ‘Emerging Trends of Employer Branding’, Colvyn Harris
stressed that the organizations/companies should devise human resource focused strategy to
realize the organizational goals. Companies can cultivate and guide their employer brand
through messaging, but they cannot totally control it -your brand boils down to what other
people think, what people say about you when you’re not in the room. You can only influence
this.

The following point highlights the key indication for employer branding:

 Creating a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome.

 Acting with courage, challenging the status quo and finding new ways to grow company
and each other.
 Being present, connecting with transparency, dignity, and respect.
 Delivering our very best in all we do, holding ourselves accountable for results.
 We are performance driven, through the lens of humanity.

2. Importance of Employer branding

 Employer’s visibility is must

 The crowd puller upshot
 Encourage promotion strategies
 Positivity among people in the organization
 Amplification & fertility of company’s name
 Recognition of employer’s brand image
 Enhances existing employee’s motivation level

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3. Evolving Workplace by Rooster

Some fundamental shifts are occurring in the workplace. It appears little has changed, as those
employees who have kept their jobs hunker down, try not to get noticed, and wait things out.
But, in fact, the workplace continues to evolve. New trends are emerging, and some old ones
are coming back, too.

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4. Addressing the challenge of staying relevant

Another keynote speaker Sandeep Bidani shared his experiences on how to address HR
challenges to stay relevant in today’s context. Earmarking innovation as the key to staying
relevant, Bidani said, “Innovation cannot be fostered in an environment where there is fear or
shame in failure.  If it creates insecurity or impacts people financially, they will stop trying new
things. So, in order to be creative, a company needs to remove the stigma of failure and realize
that failure is an important stepping stone towards eventual successes.”  

In today’s, world there are three challenges that every organization leader must face in order
for his or her company to stay relevant:

 The speed of technological advancement

 Information overload
 Human disposition toward change

5. Future of Working Cultures in Nepal

Karmath Dangol delivered his key note speech on the theme on ‘Future of Working Cultures in
Nepal’. With an overload of conversation around the changing nature of work, it can be helpful
to distill and understand how these changes will impact the work of HR in their work of
attracting, engaging and retaining employees. In fact, it is a complete reversal from top-down to
bottom-up. Employees are bringing new attitudes, ideas, values and expectations with them
into the workplace. These are all getting passed up to managers, who are being forced to adapt
in order to attract and retain top talent, and managers in turn are passing it up to the
organization, driving broad-based change across the entire company.

Future of Working Cultures in Nepal are as follows:

a) New behaviors, such as living a more public life, building communities, and increased sharing
and collaborating

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b) Mobility, which allows us to stay connected anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

c) Globalization, is giving organizations around the world the opportunity to operate in

markets where boundaries of any kind are diminishing.

d) Technology, such as big data, the Internet of things.

e) Flexibility, along with increased demand for flexible schedules, employee expectations are
also fluctuating to require flexibility from their organizations to address.
6. Q&A (Questions and Answers)

When asked about the motivation to participate in the conference, Asbin Pudasaini said, “I am
working as a manager at training and development department in Nepal Bank Limited where I
have to engage in capacity building and development activities of human resource working in
the bank. Such conference helps enrich knowledge and provides insights on trends of HR for
tomorrow”.

Similarly, another participant Sagar Prasai, project coordinator of Employment Creation for
People with Disabilities, shared that the event offered networking opportunities which would
be utilised in exploring suitable jobs for people living with disabilities.

Sonika Dhakal highlighted that the discussion on a wide range of HR issues has updated participants on
the policies and practices around it.

Bishal Dahal, who has been taking part in the HR conference since its third edition, commented that, “It
has given wider perspective on how HR would be crucial in managing work at local levels including cities
in the changed context of Nepal”.

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7. Highlighting the Objectives

HR Society Nepal President Kumar Joshi said the conference was organized to create awareness
on the importance of human capital by empowering and supporting HR professionals.

“The theme has come to explore new areas in the horizon of HR practices in Nepal. This is a
timely initiative to create a platform for all of us to have proper HR strategies in future”, he
said, adding, “We want our professionals become one of the important stakeholders in the
nation-building process”.

8. Participation

Around 250 participants representing private sector, I/NGOs, policy advocates, universities,
professional training providers and HR professionals across the country took part in the
conference