We were delighted to welcome back Dr. Laura Penn, of The Leadership Speaking School, for another virtual workshop on elevating your virtual conversations.

“How the average person shows up online is not working – people get tired and don’t pay attention.”

As many of us continue to conduct lots of work online, her Leadership Speaking Online: Elevate Your Virtual Conversations workshop couldn’t have come at a better time. We hosted Dr. Laura Penn for a 40-minute session, followed by a 20-minute Q&A with our Swiss Country Director.

She went through her leadership speaking toolbox, giving some fantastic pieces of advice to our network. Whether you’re taking part in a virtual conversation or are presenting live face-to-face, Dr. Penn teaches an elevated form of public speaking.

The workshop aimed to disrupt our thinking and the status quo, to make us think about our intention today, and to make a conscious effort to connect with our audience.

Through some helpful steps and tips, followed by individual exercises, Dr. Penn engaged with the group to deliver an energetic and inspiring conversation.

In fact, some members of the group had some interesting questions on how they can apply this advice to their everyday lives – especially when dreaded technical issues disrupt online calls!

Dr. Penn’s focus on creating a culture of good habits is something that all of us can bring into our personal and professional lives. It’s especially important in these disturbing times, as we try to communicate with our networks in different ways.

We were pleased to welcome Dr. Penn back to the EMEA Recruitment network, after hosting her workshop back in May.

We have further virtual events coming up soon, including Wies Bratby’s How to Get a Career you Love and Negotiate the Heck out of it for women in our Dutch network, and the CIPS and CSCMP Procurement & Supply Chain conference.  

If you’re interested in attending any of these events or would like more information, please contact Sarah James at [email protected]

In September, we were proud to sponsor the fifth joint Procurement & Supply Chain (P&SC) event, organised by CIPS (Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply) and CSCMP (Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals).

With a slightly different format to previous years, our aim was to continue the same momentum enjoyed by so many P&SC professionals annually.

"The future is shaped by our response to events, not by the events themselves."

At this year’s conference, business leaders in Zug questioned what ‘robust’ means in the world of Procurement & Supply Chain today.

Having just experienced the most unsettled peace-time period in modern history, speakers explored how our response to events – rather than the events themselves – shape the future.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, production was altered overnight, factories were repurposed within weeks, goods have been held at borders through confusion about emergency legislation, and countries have faced urgent demands for critical supplies.

Amidst this operational turbulence, we still face an enormous question: what will the world look like afterwards?

On Tuesday 22nd September 2020, 17:30-19:00 CET, CIPS and CSCMP brought together top Procurement & Supply Chain leaders:

• Stephane Guelat – General Manager Global Supply Chain, GrafTech International
• Oliver King – Global Lead, Distribution & Logistics, Biogen
• Miriam Meeuwissen – Global Head Life Cycle Management, Biogen
• David Hauxwell – Global Head of Procurement, Anheuser-Busch InBev

We’re proud to have sponsored this virtual event for Procurement & Supply Chain professionals in our Swiss network. 

For your Procurement & Supply Chain needs, please contact Neil Cope via email: [email protected]

As we continue to adapt to a ‘new normal’ in our daily home lives and work lives, video calls via Zoom, Skype, Teams and other services have become central to team meetings, job interviews, networking, social events and so much more.

Recently, our co-founder Paul Toms started discussions amongst his connections to find ways of how EMEA Recruitment could really help people during this crisis.

A common theme during these discussions was that many people had a desire to up-skill not just generally, but particularly in the area of how they can present themselves in a better way online, in order to communicate more effectively and have a greater online presence.

Therefore, on Friday, 8th May, 2020, EMEA Recruitment invited Dr. Laura Penn to host her fantastic ‘Leadership Speaking Online: Elevate Your Virtual Conversations’ workshop via Zoom, attended by a number of our partners from both the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Laura started her career in environmental conservation communication before reinventing herself as the founder of a public speaking coaching business based in Switzerland. Since then, she has won multiple high-level awards, published her book and hosted three TEDX talks.

Following this success, she renamed her business to The Leadership Speaking School, with the aim of empowering people with the skills necessary in order to make their public speaking matter.

In the workshop on Friday, Laura shared tips and strategies from her extensive breadth of knowledge, with ideas such as using your own presence to make your message clear, ensuring your set up is congruent with your presence. 

She also included interactive exercises with the attendees, all with the goal to ‘disrupt their status quo’, become more self-aware in virtual meeting rooms and set them on their way to changing their mindset and becoming empowered, meaningful online communicators.

EMEA Recruitment would like to place on record our thanks to Dr. Laura Penn for hosting such an insightful and inspiring workshop.

If you’re interested in developing your own online leadership speaking skills, we highly encourage you to visit The Leadership Speaking School here for in-depth advice and strategies to help you become a talented public speaker, both online and in person.

We hope all of our partners, readers and their families are all keeping safe during the current period. If you have any ideas of further virtual workshops or events you’d like to see us run, don’t hesitate to contact Paul Toms or any of our consultants through our Meet The Team page.

Want to read more? Last month, we summarised the key benefits of working from home and looked at how it may benefit our overall health in the long term.

In May, we welcomed Wies Bratby to the EMEA Podcast with our founder, Paul Toms. In the podcast, Wies outlined how it is her life mission to help women negotiate their worth, and gave an overview of her current programme, Women In Negotiation (WIN).

Wies’ longterm passion for negotiation led her to begin her career as a lawyer in the Netherlands, before moving on to become a HR Director, setting up human resources across the globe.

Upon moving to Switzerland, Wies recognised that women around the world were struggling to find their dream jobs and negotiate fitting salaries for their hard work.

As a result, she launched WIN, which helps women across the world realise their worth, communicate it and get them the positions and salaries they want. WIN is consistently successful, with an average salary increase of 49.1% for promotions or new roles.

Following on from the inspirational podcast, on Friday, 5th June, EMEA once again partnered with Wies to host her ‘How to Get A Career You Love and Negotiate the Heck Out of It’ webinar session with a multitude of women from our Swiss network. 

In the webinar, Wies shared tips and insights into how our guests could transform their careers by finding their dream ‘unicorn’ job and negotiating a salary which truly reflects their hard work.

Primarily, the workshop explained in depth 5 key pieces of advice that any woman should take on board in order to find a job that they truly love:

• View the current pandemic crisis as an opportunity
• Raise your expectations
• Being a woman is an advantage
• Don’t focus on getting the job
• Invest in training

EMEA Recruitment would like to place on record our thanks to Wies Bratby for hosting a fantastic, empowering workshop, and if you’re interested in finding out more about how Women In Negotiation can help you, follow this link.

If you have any ideas of further virtual workshops or events you’d like to see us run in future, don’t hesitate to contact Paul or any of our consultants through our Meet The Team page.

Want to read more content relating to women in the workplace?

In early March, we posted a series of posts celebrating International Women’s Day 2020. These included a summary of the events and activities EMEA have carried out to support women’s equality and a roundtable discussion between our Managing Director, Richard Bailey, and 3 of our senior consultants, who shared their experiences regarding attitudes towards women in the workplace. 

Further to the success of our “Finance of the Future” programme of events, we are pleased to continue the theme, with a CFO Roundtable event coming up in Morges on 20th February 2020.

Accounting may not traditionally be considered a hotbed for innovation – but why shouldn’t it be? At its base, innovation is about solving problems and continuous improvement. In a profession dominated by spreadsheets and manual tasks, the opportunities for change seem endless. 

Our event will be co-hosted with Salesforce and will be targeted towards CFOs and Senior Finance Leaders, looking to learn from peers and discuss advances in this arena. 

We will hear from Stéphane Jacottet, EMEA & LATAM Financial Controller at Salesforce, discussing finance process digitalisation and the use of collaborative tools. Also, Luca Raffaelli, Head of Group Controlling and Risk Management at BOBST will be sharing experiences and demonstrations of smart automation, descriptive analytics and advanced analytics (modelling) using open-source tools, and explaining the ‘real-life’ impact on the controlling processes at BOBST. 
 
If you are interested to learn more please click below to contact John Bower.

With an internal CSR committee in place, we are excited to be embarking on various projects to make a positive social impact, including steps to reduce damage to the environment and support refugees and victims of human trafficking.

We are proud to support She Matters, a social enterprise recruitment agency, based in the Netherlands, which matches refugee women with companies seeking highly skilled talent. The organisation focuses on refugee women seeking employment opportunities aligned with their advanced education and skillsets.

On 12th February, EMEA Recruitment will co-host an event with Mercer in London, to promote the mission of She Matters, with Global Senior HR Leaders and Talent Acquisition Managers in attendance. Contact us for more details if you are interested in attending.