HR for SMEs Conference

Registration

When Google’s Playbook Backfires: HR Trends That Can Kill Culture & Performance in SMEs

From unlimited vacation to KPI-driven performance cultures, many SMEs rush to adopt HR trends that originated in Silicon Valley giants like Google or Amazon. While these practices may have driven innovation at scale, blindly copy-pasting them into smaller businesses can do more harm than good. In this provocative and practical session, I’ll share how trends like OKRs, radical transparency, or hyper-flexibility can backfire in SMEs — and what to do instead. We’ll look at real-world examples, explore why KPIs often fail, and provide a simple decision framework to help leaders assess which people practices fit their company’s culture and maturity stage.

From Learning Support to Strategic Impact – Unlocking the Power of Skill-Based Learning

Based on over ten years of collaboration with more than 650 organizations, it becomes clear: HR development can be much more than a learning companion. Properly positioned, it becomes a strategic partner and driver of corporate growth. Dr. Jörn Heyenrath will show: 🔹 Why skill-based learning is the key to modern HR development 🔹 How Studytube’s Skill Navigator enables organizations to systematically close skill gaps 🔹 How learning processes can be designed to create real impact – for employees and the business alike

AI integration in AI-not-ready SMB

Would be happy to talk about my current organisation situation where driving force of AI implementation is coming from an unusual place (i.e People Team), where org lacking behind the knowledge as well as passion for tools and possibilities and how to spark that interest, run surveys, create bottom-up approach and move the needle forward.

Coffee break/Networking

Why Does Everyone Hate Performance Management?

Right now, performance management is more critical than ever, especially with budget cuts and the tougher realities many startups and SMEs face. It is supposed to help people grow, align teams, and guide fair decisions. In reality, it has become one of the most dreaded parts of HR for employees, for managers, and especially for HR itself. In this session, we will unpack what is behind it.

Scaling with Integrity: HR at the Center of Growth, Change and Tough Decisions

Scaling a company isn’t just about adding people, clients, or locations. It’s about making the right calls at the right time, often under pressure. In this live dialogue, Mandy-Lee Smarz, Head of People & Culture at Forte Digital, reflects on the human side of rapid growth, the challenges of integrating new teams, and what it means to lead with integrity in a fast-moving digital consultancy shaped by Scandinavian pragmatism. The conversation explores how leadership principles, feedback culture, and pragmatic decision-making shape the foundation for sustainable growth. It also reflects on the role of technology as both an enabler and a driver of change and how HR can stay grounded in core values while adapting to evolving digital realities. From navigating integration to making tough calls, this session offers a candid perspective on building resilient people strategies in a fast-paced, tech-driven environment.

Lunch Break

The Great Debate - Interactive Session

Learning Strategy Compass. Leveraging Skills and Conversational Search for Business Impact

A successful learning function generates value for learners, contributes to business goals, and stays ahead of innovation. It sounds like a lot to manage, but not with the right frameworks. This talk will present the Learning Strategy Compass, a framework that ensures the alignment of all key aspects to elevate learning to a strategic business partner. We'll use a concrete case study from Spryker to show how leveraging a skills framework and conversational search allowed the learning department to accelerate customer project timelines which in turn won the table at the executives table. You'll learn: - How to use the Learning Strategy Compass to build a robust and resilient learning strategy. - How to drive impactful initiatives with quantifiable results. - Why you should combine "just-in-time" learning and a skills framework. - How to use data to drive decision-making for your learning initiatives. This session is for leaders who want to achieve both quantifiable business impact and learning innovation.

Coffee break/Networking

Trust as a Growth Multiplier

How can HR deliver up to 8.5x higher RPE (revenue per employee) for the company? The world has changed, and old leadership models no longer work. Companies with a high culture of trust and empowerment achieve up to 8.5x higher RPE. In this session, you’ll discover why empowering leadership is emerging as a must-have skill for any company that wants to retain talent and grow. What is this skill? How leaders can turn empowerment into measurable business outcomes: from growth and innovation to agility and speed – directly into RPE growth? How exactly do you create that culture, especially when budgets are tight? Must be a massive and expensive exercise? No! In the session, I’ll share what this looks like in practice and how a moderate but focused effort investment creates a direct and lasting boost in growth and revenue.

From Chaos to Clarity: Designing Your Startup’s First Few HR Processes

In the early stages of a startup, the energy is high, but structure is often lacking. This session will explore how to transform messy realities into a foundation for scalable success. We will walk through the first critical HR processes, how to prioritize, balancing agility with structure, the mistakes made, and how to avoid them.

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