Today’s post is brought to you by Janice Keyes. Janice is a wonderful, dedicated HR professional and coach who’s bringing her self care expertise (learned through her own challenges with 
bringing balance to life!) to Learn > Connect > Do next Thursday (15th March). All profits from these events go to Twenty:Twenty and when you join us you
#LearnConnectDo
Diversity and Inclusion comes to Learn > Connect > Do
It’s going to be big!! On 30th November Learn > Connect > Do is back with something a bit different. It’s our Christmas event – nice and early to avoid bumping into the partying and quality time with friends and family – and we’re bringing you four – yes four!! – experts to join our learning conversation about Diversity and Inclusion. If you already know you need this learning jump straight to the booking page on Eventbrite!
Creating Coaching Cultures : #LearnConnectDo June 17
After a slight delay because of the fabulous #CIPDNAP17 last Friday and Saturday, here’s a peak at what we did at Learn > Connect > Do on Thursday 8th June.
We had a small and perfectly formed group on the day – a great mix of in-house and freelance people, and it was fantastic to have Olivia from Twenty:Twenty there – her first event since we began our partnership this year, and which resulted in some opportunities for Twenty:Twenty to get involved with delegates’ businesses, supporting disadvantaged young people into work 🙂 – hooray!
#cipdnap17 : It’s all about community
The CIPD Northern Area Partnership Event is back on 9th and 10th June with a focus this year on Enhancing the Employee Experience. The thing I love most about NAP is the sense of community it creates, and so the purpose of this post is, yes, to tell you about what I’m up to at NAP this year, and it’s also to tell you about all the many, many ways you can connect with the fantastic HR and L&D community both online and in real life to extend your learning.
Shifting ideas of leadership
Last week at the CIPD L&D Show I – not surprisingly – was drawn to a number of sessions that were talking about coaching cultures and developing leaders as coaches. After day 1 Simon Heath posted his reflections from what he’d heard – and then drawn – and which I shared with this thought…..
Building for Collaboration
Today I’m delighted to welcome Shirley Marshall to the Wild Fig blog. Shirley’s an HR Partner at RCI and came to the last Learn > Connect > Do event in December. I was delighted when I heard that Shirley took her learning back to work and wrote an internal blog post to get others thinking and talking about the topic of workplace and collaboration, and she’s kindly given permission for it to be re-produced on here.
Learn > Connect > Do : Do we still need offices?
Last night Dan Pilling and I welcomed a great group of people to the first birthday of Learn > Connect > Do where we were talking about workplace + space and whether we do indeed still need offices.
Dan started the event with a Pecha Kucha about how the workplace has evolved as technology and work has changed. We no longer need all the desk space and personal office space we used to have in the 70’s. Instead that’s mostly been replaced by bland, row upon row, of simple-to-design-and-install identikit desks where people spend too much time sitting => which we now know is causing all sorts of health problems including impacting our sleep => and poor sleep affects our work performance. Oh, and the hours we spend sitting commuting to these offices…
Do we need offices?
BREAKING NEWS! Ian Ellison now also speaking at Learn > Connect > Do!! Read on….
On 1st December it’s Learn > Connect > Do, the event for people professionals who care about making work better.
This quarter we’re talking about our workplaces and spaces and stimulating the debate from the position of “Do we need offices?”. It’s fantastic to have Dan Pilling and now, not just Dan, but Ian Ellison too! They’ll be joining us to bring us their deign and workplace insights and get the discussion going. As the Chair and Deputy Chair of the BIFM Special Interest Group they know their stuff!
Street Wisdom Leicester
Last Thursday, on a lovely sunny day, Phil Willcox and I met up with an eager group of Street Wisdom’ers in Leicester for Learn > Connect > Do. Some had experience of Street Wisdom before, while for most it was their first time. I’m not going to write about the way these awesome sessions run, you can read more about that here, 
but I wanted to share some photos of a great afternoon, including the post-event debrief which was at Dolce & Verde – great coffee if you’re ever in Leicester or Rothley. After drinks and cakes, the Wisdomer’s went on their ways with thoughts and plans in their heads about how to keep a hold of their learning and put different actions in place for the questions they were asking.
Next month….. Learn > Connect > Do is back!
When we last met in December our focus was on line manager development – a topic which I massively care about because I continue to see people in leadership roles with little or no development, who then continue to be promoted (still with no development), and who therefore get to senior roles lacking the confidence or skill that the world expects them to have for the level they’re at. Imposter syndrome is ever-present and become incredibly unhelpful.