4th National HR Summit

Last July 28, I attended a two-day conference at the SMX Convention Center at the SM Mall of Asia.  It was basically the "comic-con" equivalent for HR practitioners like me.  Organized by Powermax Consulting Group, the 4th National HR Summit was a great way to learn from industry experts in the field of HR.  This years' theme was "From Hiring to Retiring".

Companies that were also represented at the convention included:

• Del Monte Philippines
• DMCI
• Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
• Philippine Airlines Inc
• Filinvest Land Inc
• Gardenia Bakeries (Philippines) Inc
• Philippine Stock Exchange
• Petron Corporation
• Procter and Gamble
• SM Retail Inc
• Toyota Motors Phils. Corp
• Cats Motors Inc
• Toshiba Information Equipment (Phils.) Inc
• Cebu Pacific Air 

The speakers at the summit included:

• Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel (Senate of the Philippines)
• Rose O. Fuentes – President and Dean (SAIDE School of OD)
• Imelda Centeno – SVP, HRO (United Laboratories)
• Pat Sto. Tomas – Consultant, Former Secretary of DOLE / CSC & DPB Chairman
• Gerardo Cabochan – President & CEO (Pandayan)
• Manuel Quiambao – Corporate Secretary & Asst. Dean (College of Law, JRU)
• Auggie Cadua – Head HRD (MediaScape, Inc./ TV5)
• Virgel Binghay – Professor & Director (Center for Industry Productivity and Competitiveness SOLAIR, UP)
• Jesse Francis Rebustillo – AVP Classified Ads (Phil Daily Inquirer)
• Adrian Robles – Head, People and Leadership Dev (Meralco)
• Ricardo de Vera, MBA, CSP – Chairman Emeritus, PMA Chapters; Consultant - DTI and Certified International  Trainer - Singapore and Tokyo
• Dan Carlo M. Collado – Managing Director (PPL Developers Consultancy)
• Vic Alcuaz – Trainer and Consultant (Hospitality Headhunter)
• Howell Mabalot – Director, Training & Performance Improvement (Digitel LEC Division)
• George Ramos – Training Director (TeleDevelopment Services, Inc.)
• Rozanne V. Parungo – VP, HR and Training (Integra)
• Rita Bantigue – AVP & Head Learning and Dev (Meralco)
• Hans Montenegro – Country Manager (Northgate Arinso Ph)
• Felino “Jun” Palafox, Jr. – President (Management Asso. of the Ph) • Nonong Noriega – AVP, Employee Development (PLDT)

I was able to hear from a few of the break-out sessions, but it was really great to hear from people like Pat Sto. Tomas - a former head of the Department of Labor and the second Filipino to be the President of the International Labor Organization.  Her Q&A really became a free consultation exercise for the HR directors in attendance.  

Another insightful presentation was given by Ms. Rozanne Parungo, VP for HR & Training for Integra (a BPO).  We often hear a lot about how important branding is for a company, but seldom does someone show us how they had implemented it.  At Integra, they value thir stakeholder's perception of the company and they allow their employees to market the Integra brand.  They make use of Net Promoter Score not only for their employees or clients but also with their applicants.  In the BPO industry, it is normal to see long lines at the recruitment offices and for Integra to have an almost-perfect satisfaction score from their applicants is quite impressive.  

A talk on Social Media Recruitment was given by Mr. Augie Cadua of Mediascape.  He spoke to us about the use of social media in the realm of talent acquisition/recruitment.  It seems pretty logical that if you want to recruit Filipino talent, your company should go online.  Why? Well, more than 29.7 million Filipinos, or 30% of the Philippine population, use the internet.  And it should be cheaper then above-the-line tactics (i.e. traditional media such as Print, Radio, and Television).  He gave us a list of the top sites in the Philippines, which were:

10) wordpress.com

9)   sulit.com

8)   twitter.com

7)   wikipedia.com

6)   blogger.com

5)   yahoo.com

4)   youtube.com

3)   google.com.ph

2)   google.com (what's the difference? is it the .ph? Does the extra traffic mean more income for Google?)

And numero uno goes to

1)   well, this is a no-brainer: facebook.com

My favorite website for recruitment purposes, LinkedIn, was number 11 (the site recently outpaced Myspace in visits so I think this social network will continue to grow and make things easier for companies and jobhunters in finding the right fit). Other HR/Recruitment- relevant websites for the Philippines were the Philippine Daily Inquirer (23) and Jobstreet.com (25).  If you think like a recruiter during the job hunt, which you should, then these sites might be the place to see some job ads.  But LinkedIn should be worthy of your time, and I'll write something about LinkedIn soon enough.

There was also a nice and honest presentation given by Ms. Rita Bantigue, AVP and Head LEarning Development for Meralco.  Her discussion was about how she implemented a succession plan in Meralco, or rather, how the implementation is going.  She started the project in 2005, and it is still being implemented today.  Among the presentations, I have to say hers was very sincere and straightforward.  Being HR practitioners, I guess the audience empathized with her when she shared how challenging it was to go through different owners of such a large organization (i.e. Meralco was bought during the middle of her implementation of the succession plan) but that she was also fortunate that the current ownership is more supportive of the initiative.  I guess a caveat for those who will start their own succession plan: make sure you have buy-in from the top as well as from senior management.  Another challenge she encountered was the nomination of successors (i.e. incumbent managers apparently were hesitant to nominate their successors and it took her two years just to get a list of nominees!). 

The event was capped by a talk from Senator Nene Pimentel, a fellow Mindanaoan.  His airtime was about good governance and good management.  When he entered the hall, his staff distributed hard copies of his complaint on the election of Senator Zubiri who they claim had benefited from electioneering (and the casualty being his son, Koko Pimentel).  Looking back, it was intriguing because this was prior to the resignation of Senator Zubiri.  Now his son has been proclaimed, so if you do not know what I am talking about, you need not bother.  His talk was well-appreciated by the crowd, and I even got a photo op with the man (much to the disdain of the bodyguard). 

I'll look forward to next year's summit.  Good job, Powermax!


Alonto for the assist...

Khairy Alonto took his MBA at AIM and now works there. Follow him on Twitter @khairyalonto or view his profile on http://ph.linkedin.com/in/khairyalonto