On the 13th of May 2010, the Conference took place with the presence of the (former) honourable Minister of Labour, Mrs. Soteroula Charalambous, who addressed the Conference in the presence of distinguished guests from academia and the business communities.

This year’s Conference topics revolved around practices and recipes for human resource talent emergence and building better leadership aimed at organizational effectiveness and coming out of the economic crisis.

The keynote speaker of the Conference was a Cypriot professional Mrs. Ellie Patsalos, Vice-Chair and Partner at Deloitte UK, who provided us with her personal experiences and gave tips on practices that enabled her to achieve her career aspirations while at the same time managing the demands and obligations of her family.

The second speaker was Mrs. Linda Holbeche, Director at The Holbeche Partnership, UK, who explored the role HR can play for a more sustainable route to recovery, in particular focusing on managing through the economic downturn, maintaining and rebuilding employee engagement, new approaches to leadership and management and developing organizational capabilities for future success.

In order to explore the effects of the economic crisis, how were managed, what specific measures were taken, to what extent they have succeeded and finally what lessons can be extracted for the future, a panel consisting of 4 Cypriot HR Managers coordinated by Mr. Charalambos Stylianou, District Manager at Marfin Laiki Bank discussed these issues. The panel consisted of Mr. Andreas Loizou, Human Resources and Quality Director at Four Seasons Hotel, Mrs. Melanie Michaelidou, Head of HR and Corporate Affairs of Papaellinas Group of Companies, Mr. Emilios Rotsides, HR Manager of A. Zorbas & Sons Ltd and Mrs. Elena Pantazidou of Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (Cyprus).

The next speaker, Δρ. Andrew Mayo, Executive Director at Mayo Learning International, UK, spoke about developing leadership as a strategic objective in organizations, as the culture, structure and ethos of leaders impact the followers’ behaviour.

Then, Mr. Ken Moore, President of Ken Moore Associates,USA spoke about the 4 distinct generations working and playing together simultaneously for the first time in history and that each generation brings unique strengths, values, attitudes and concepts.

Afterwards, Mr. Robert Browton, Senior Consultant at Hay Group Insight, UK, talked us through the way employee surveys add value to an organization.

The last speaker of the Conference, Mr. Michael Lazan, global Vice-President of Arbinger Institute, USA, talked about self-deception, which keeps people focused on their own needs at the expense of the organization’s needs, severely hurting performance and devouring organizational resources and killing organizational effectiveness.