Talent & Training Conference 2024

9.30am – 10.00am: Registration

10.00am – 10.30am: Katy Moses shares Katy Moses, managing director of sector insight consultancy KAM, talks through exclusive research on the current state of recruitment and retention across the sector, and where it could be doing better.

10.30am – 11.00am: Kathryn York, chief people officer at KFC UK and Ireland, talks through the success of the brands “The Hatch” youth employment programme, which looks to help young people into their first job, and its “The Kentucky Club”, which hosts jobs-based pop-up events around the country for young people.

11.00am – 11.30am: Ceri Gott, people and performance director at Hawksmoor, discusses how the award-winning business has dealt with talent shortages, how it keeps its teams energized, and how it finds the right people to help make match its ambition to open “world class restaurants in world class cities”.

11.30am – 12.00pm: Lorraine Copes, founder of Be Inclusive Hospitality, looks at how the sector ensures it maximises the benefits of inclusivity and diversity with panelists including Hannah Plumb, talent and culture director at The Alchemist, Raj Jones, head of diversity, equity and inclusion at Sodexo, and Georgina Warren, global diversity, equity and inclusion director, at IHG Hotels & Resorts.

12.00pm – 1.00pm: Lunch

1.00pm – 1.30pm: The Culture Debate – Defining, creating, developing and improving culture is often quite a mysterious art. No one metric can quantify it and everyone defines it so differently. This panel featuring Trudi Parr of Mollies, Jo Harley of Korero, Craig Bunting of Bear Coffee, and Josh Light of The Sababah Group, will debate their thoughts on all things culture and why it supersedes everything – Hosted by Abi Dunn, founder of Sixty Eight People.

1.30pm – 2.00pm: To Test or not to Test? L&D heavy weights, including Tom Vivace, head of talent at Turtle Bay, Gina Knight, head of people for Flat Iron, and Rachel Masing, people director ETM, debate the pros and cons of psychometric profiling. Has anyone found the magic formula that correlates pre appointment testing and high performance? – Hosted by Abi Dunn, founder of Sixty Eight People.

2.00pm – 2.30pm: High impact people teams: Josie Adam, Jenni Haywood and Dominique Macaly who head up the Incipio Group’s people team talk about the incredible culture they have created and their new strategy for the company’s upcoming flagship Olympia project – Hosted by Abi Dunn, founder of Sixty Eight People.

2.30pm – 3.00pm: Coffee Break

3.00pm – 3.30pm: Karen Turton, founder of Purple Story, discusses the challenges around career development in a fast-moving, broad sector with Barrie Robinson, operations director at Parkdean Resorts, Mat Heather Group operations director at Old Spike Roastery, Travis Fish, operations director at Comptoir Libanais, and Valerie Graham, operations director at Premier Inn.

3.30pm – 3.45pm: Liz Robertson, people director of the Inn Collection, delves into the award-winning company’s mission statement of “making people happy”, which aims to support its people in their personal and professional development.

3.45pm – 4.00pm: Matt Hudson, people director at Popeyes UK, talks about creating evolving a people culture whilst opening up to 30 sites a year.

4.00pm – 4.25pm: Greene King’s people and culture director Vickie Elsey, on how the brewer and pub operator is championing diversity and inclusion through various training programmes, including reverse mentoring, which flips organisational hierarchy on its head.

4.25pm – 5.10pm: Jill Scatchard, HR director at Oakman Group, on how the award-winning business has kept its staff retention at an all-time high, how its ongoing efforts in six core pillars of engagement; Reward & Recognition, Information Sharing, Empowerment, Wellbeing, Instilling Pride and Job satisfaction, continue to gain it recognition in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list, and how ensuring it provides a positive workplace and commitment to the wellbeing of our team, pays dividends.