The HR Gazette was invited to the recent #DisruptHRCayman event and we had a blast!
The HR Gazette has partnered with various DisruptHR events including, Toronto, Vancouver, Madison, Calgary and London. When we reached out to the main organizer of the Cayman edition, Chris Bailey, to ask how we could support the first DisruptHR session in the Carribean, Chris suggested we come down and get a feel for what he and his team are trying to build in the region. Given the stellar line-up and that weather is a little better than our HQ in Toronto.. we decided to give it a go.
We were not disappointed. Chris Bailey and team from the Cayman Islands Society of Human Resources Professionals (CISHRP) delivered an event that would compare well against any of the bigger, more established summits in the space.
The line up of speakers was simply amazing! Kris Dunn – CHRO & Partner at Kinetix (@kris_dunn), Joy Baldridge – President & Founder of Baldridge Seminars International (@joybaldridge), Samantha Nehra – Business Coach at Shirlaws (Cayman) Ltd (@SamanthaNehra), Carmen Hudson – Principal Consultant at Recruiting Toolbox, Virginia Czarnocki – Performance Coach at WB Financial & Consulting (Cayman) Services Limited, Dr. Graeme Close – Sports Nutrition Consultant at Close Nutrition (@close_nutrition), Marzeta Bodden – Founder and Lead Guide at Cayman Food Tours (@MarzetaBodden), Kobi Dorenbush, Tim Sackett – President of HRU Technical Resources (@TimSackett), Tara Tvedt – GALLUP® Certified Strengths Coach at SquarePeg Ltd, Dawn Hrdlica-Burke – VP of People at DAXKO (@DawnHBurke), Jennifer McClure – CEO of DisruptHR LLC & President of Unbridled Talent LLC (@JenniferMcClure) and.. the king of HR Tech, William Tincup – CEO of Tincup & Co. (@williamtincup), brought real celebrity and awesome insights to the islands.
Held on Wednesday, May 25, 2016, the event was live-streamed via Cayman Life TV and the recording is available for those not able to tune in in real time. In addition to the video exposure, the event made a big impact on social media – reaching, for example, 100,000s of HR and leadership Twitter accounts across the globe.
The brainchild of Jennifer McClure and Chris Ostoich, The DisruptHR series offers a fast-paced format with big-name participants; meaning that the franchise is sweeping across the HR and Talent world!
Chris Bailey, GPHR, SHRM-SCP, VP of the Cayman Islands Society of Human Resources Professionals and Director at PwC, did a top job organizing the Cayman event.
“HR… has gone through a massive overhaul in the last ten years” explains Bailey.
Chris believes that the public image of HR has not served it well, and the time is right to disrupt traditional ideas.
“DisruptHR,” he says, is built on the belief that the way we have approached people and talent in the past won’t be the best way to approach [them] in the future.
A company’s internal departments – marketing, IT, research, facilities and accounts, for example – need to be, if not subsidiary to HR, continually mindful of HR’s function and what it is trying to achieve, Bailey says.
“Everyone needs to understand the strategic direction and the vision to know why they are doing what they do and how they can help achieve that goal. “They also have to believe in that goal,” he says, underscoring the need for a “buy-in” from every employee.
“That, my friend, is what makes HR sexy,” Bailey says, using a description all too rarely related with “HR… HR is dull if it is not part of making the above happen. If HR is simply about making sure payroll, time sheets, healthcare, and pensions are filled in correctly, then it is just an administration task, and companies are missing the whole point of what HR can really do.”
About DisruptHR
DisruptHR is so popular that it is scheduled to assemble in over 30 cities on three continents. Other DisruptHR locations include Calgary (Alberta, Canada), Philadelphia, Regina (Saskatchewan, Canada), Phoenix, New York, Edmonton and London, Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, and Lyon.
About the CISHRP
The Cayman Islands Society for HR Professionals (CISHRP) was formed in April 2000. The organization’s vision is to be recognized in the Cayman Islands as the authority on the most critical people management issues of today and tomorrow.
About Chris Bailey
Chris Bailey is, in our humble opinion, quite simply one of the nicest and most impressive people in the HR and Talent space.
Chris has developed a considerable skill set in Talent Acquisition, HR, Business Development and outsourcing during a successful career covering several jurisdictions including Europe, Bermuda and Grand Cayman.
Chris is highly experienced in international HR, search and selection, and leads some of the most successful offshore HR & Recruiting teams in Grand Cayman and the Caribbean.
As a qualified HR practitioner holding both the GPHR and SHRM-SCP, he has been the conference Co Chair & Chair for the last three of Cayman’s biggest HR events and will be the incoming President of the 2016/17 Cayman Islands HR Society. He holds several board appointments for other charities and is a supporter of the Guatemala Literacy Project.
In addition to being an expert connector, Chris’s specialties include: Business Development, Talent Acquisition, HR, BPO, RPO, Recruiting via Social Media consulting, Account Management, Sales Strategy, People Management, Training.