On the 25-26 September 2024, the HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest will return to Sydney for two inspiring and learning-filled days of discussion and networking with the best the industry has to offer.

If you’re a HR or L&D professional, this is your opportunity to stay at the cutting edge of all that currently influences the way we work, learn, pay, recruit and retain, as well as all that will shape workplace culture and organisational change into the future.

Named ‘the global standard for HR + L&D events’ by Amazon, the HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest program is designed to explore the latest innovations shaping the way we learn, as well as the endless possibilities of re-invigorating the way we work.

Here’s everything you need to know about this exciting event, as well as what you can expect to get out of it if you’re thinking of coming along.

What is the HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest?

The short answer: this is THE event that
you NEED to be at if you’re a HR or L&D professional.

Essentially, Sydney’s HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest is designed to help make your life easier by:

• addressing the challenges that professionals like you are facing right now in the industry, as well as
• the impacts that these challenges are having or may have in the future.

This expo is an amazing opportunity to connect with industry experts and members of the community through discussion groups and breakout rooms designed to bring these challenges to the surface and enable you to gain different perspectives on how best to approach each one.

With a huge focus on education, the expo offers more than 55 sessions including multiple keynotes and the opportunity to hear from 60+ speakers, as well as access to more than 40+ exhibitors each working in the technology space to design better solutions for HR and L&D professionals like you.

There will also be plenty of opportunities to network with speakers, experts, sponsors and other professionals during regular breaks, lunches and particularly as we celebrate our 10th birthday with exclusive evening drinks at the Hyatt Regency’s luxury rooftop cocktail bar, Zephyr Bar.

Set over two jam-packed days, each day will bring something new and different for you to learn, discover and apply to your career or organisation.

Who is the HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest for?

Essentially, anyone with a high-level role in Human Resources or Learning & Development stands to gain immense insight and practical solutions for their organisation at this event – as well as hear from and connect directly with various experts in the space.

Whether you’re a Senior HR Professional, a CEO, or a Tech, IT, Digital, HR or L&D Manager, this event will have something for you.

Trust us, if you’re serious about your HR or L&D role, your career and your organisation, you won’t want to be anywhere else. The attendee list will be released soon, see who you could be networking alongside!

What can you expect to get out of this year’s HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest?

This year’s event promises plenty of learning and new insights, not only from those discussing their own experiences, but also through hearing about what’s new in the industry and what’s still to come – making this a great opportunity to find the solutions to the challenges your organisation is currently facing.

Here are the six core topics that this year’s event will primarily focus on to help drive the HR and L&D sector forward:

1. Developing Leaders & Managers
2. Talent Acquisition & Retention: Curating Opportunities for Different Generations of Employees
3. Generative AI for HR + L&D
4. Diversity, Equality, Inclusion & Belonging
5. Future Workforce Skills
6. The Evolving Role of Technology in HR + L&D

For more information, check out the 2024 Agenda on our website.

Of course, those who stand to gain the most from this event are the ones who are willing to learn and ready to take full advantage of new technology.

As it stands, only 15% of professionals believe that the technology for HR and L&D in their organisation is future-proof and meeting their evolving needs.

So, if you’re one of the 85% who believe your organisation’s tech isn’t up to scratch, this is the place to be to discover the latest solutions and ensure you’re staying on top of all the evolving trends and innovations.

What’s new at the 2024 HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest?

First and foremost, this year will see us transition to our new home at the Hyatt Regency.

This venue change has been made to help foster a more exclusive and intimate setting to facilitate invaluable networking opportunities and create a more VIP experience.

Several other changes and additions have been made to this year’s event as well, including:

• Greater interactivity with the option to participate in Discussion Groups and Fire-side Chats
• Content has been streamlined into five main streams to optimise your time and ensure comprehensive engagement
• You now have the opportunity to schedule meetings in advance with fellow attendees and sponsors over the course of two days
• A specialised content stream tailored for Chief People Officers (CPO) and Human Resources Directors (HRD)
• Exclusive networking opportunities at the elevated Zephyr Bar

2024 also marks the 10th anniversary of the first HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest.

From humble beginnings, this event has now grown into a hugely successful annual expo that continues to provide greater value to all HR and L&D professionals and attendees with each passing year.

Hear from some of the key speakers at this year’s event.

To help give you a bit of a taste of what’s to come, we’ve asked some of the keynote speakers lined up for the 2024 HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest to tell us more about what they will be discussing as leaders in their respective spaces.

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Daniel Murray – CEO, Empathic Consulting

Founder of Empathic Consulting, Daniel Murray is a seasoned conference and event speaker.

As a leadership expert, he focuses on how leaders can be more engaged, more empathic and care about their people while continuing to uphold their standards and ensure they’re effectively driving performance and supporting their teams.

We recently spoke to Daniel to get his take on the upcoming HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest in Sydney.

What excites you most about the upcoming HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest?

“It’s always such an interesting time getting a bunch of people who are so like-minded and passionate about people and HR in a room together.

Often when I work with big organisations, the HR team or the L&D team play more of a support role, whereas this conference is all about bringing them to the front, getting them engaged and having a good conversation.”

Can you share a preview of the key topics you’ll be discussing in your keynote?

“We’re going to really focus on empathic leadership. So, what does that mean? Why is it so hard? And so on.

We’re also going to talk about where this needs to be deployed when it comes to challenging situations, such as when there’s tension in the team or when there are people who aren’t the right fit in our teams anymore.

So, how do we support our leaders to have some of those challenging discussions? And how do we upskill our leaders in this really important field so we can maintain performance as we head into possibly challenging times in the future?”

How do you see the role of HR + L&D evolving over the next few years?

“There’s been a real pressure and tension coming into these spaces since we’ve gone through COVID.

That was traumatic, and through that period, there were certain expectation changes around people and leaders and the way they interacted, and I think what we’re starting to do now is not necessarily go back to what we had before, but try and create some sort of a new future.

That’s going to include things like greater flexibility, as well as challenges around managing performance remotely. There’s a whole range of issues that weren’t necessarily on the cards, and we’re going to have to adapt and support our business leaders to adapt as well.”

66% of respondents say hybrid working remains a
challenge for their organisation.

How can professionals stay ahead of industry trends and continue to innovate in their roles?

“I think through joining things like this conference and making sure you’re connecting with peers and other people who are seeing things differently to you.

There are always going to be lots of wonderful opinions from thought leaders and experts that you can chase down, but often it’s just being connected to those industry peers and sharing ideas openly.

We’re not really in competition, we all need to work together and support each other, so I think that’s really the important thing is building that network.”

What are you most looking forward to learning or experiencing at the HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest?

“It’s really the buzz in the room. It’s the connection with these people who share that passion.

I work with a lot of financial services organisations, mining companies, engineering firms and a lot of these different organisations, and you can sit around and talk about numbers and spreadsheets and that’s all great, but there are few times when I really get to just sit and talk with ‘people’ people about the wonderful world of dealing with humans in our organisations.

So, this is really a great time, and I would welcome anyone who has a chance to come by and have a chat. Let’s grab a coffee and just explore together.”

How can attendees make the most of the event?

“By being really engaged!

I’d love to tell everyone to lock their phones somewhere and not look at them throughout the day, but of course, that’s not going to happen. You’re going to use your phones, but really try and get engaged in the material and start those conversations.

In the breaks, what I really recommend people do is not just cluster around the three or four people you’ve come with, but go and talk to people who you don’t know and who you’ve got no real connection with yet.

I’d recommend people take away not only knowledge from this event, but a whole bunch of new connections and a network to help them through the next period.”

What are the key takeaways you feel people are going to get from this year’s event?

“I think this year is really about thinking about how we support businesses that are going through some pretty significant challenges in the future.

This isn’t necessarily different from past years, but the challenges are going to be different going forward.

We know we’re staring into tough labour markets and challenges for talent acquisition, employing the right people and dealing with hybrid and remote work. Now, organisations are looking to their HR and L&D people for practical tips they can put into practice straight away.

So, I think if people can take away what those practical pieces are then they can go and implement and do something about that, because part of the role of HR and L&D professionals is to take the theory and translate it into a language that their organisations can understand.”

In your opinion, what are the key qualities of an effective HR or L&D leader in today’s business environment?

“I think it’s the same for a lot of leaders, which is to be humble and open to learning, and really have a deep curiosity for what’s going on in the organisation. What makes it tick? Why are there challenges? Why are there tensions? What’s the story behind these numbers and outcomes?

I think they need to be more closely aligned to all parts of their organisation, and then be a nice little compartment that sits on the side. That relevance in that relationship is what makes a really strong leader.”

82% of respondents say they’re struggling to
develop leaders in their organisation.

What would you say to anyone who’s on the fence about coming to the HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest?

“This is an opportunity to spend time with people and invest in yourself.

Most HR and L&D leaders spend their career trying to help others invest in and develop and look after themselves, which is great, but you’ve got to invest in yourself as well.

You’ve got to invest in filling that cup again. I’ve met so many people who just put everything in and never take anything back for themselves, but this is an amazing opportunity to invest back into you and really reinvigorate that sense of passion.”

You can find more details about Daniel and his presentation here.

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Jocelyn Brewer – Psychologist & Cyberpsychology Consultant

Jocelyn Brewer is a Cyber Psychologist with an interesting story.

Originally wanting to be a vet, Jocelyn ended up studying an Arts Degree before becoming a high school Social Sciences teacher and eventually a school counsellor. As part of her Psychology Honours project, she studied the effects of computer games on boys, and this is where her interest in Cyber Psychology began.

According to Jocelyn, Cyber Psychology is all about how our human behaviour, our thoughts, our feelings, and how we live, love and learn are all impacted by the digital technologies that we use and consume every single day.

This digital technology has a huge impact on the way that we work, particularly in the age of remote and hybrid work.

Therefore, Jocelyn’s work is all about how we can completely reappraise our interactions with technology for leisure, learning and getting work done.

We asked Jocelyn a few questions to better understand what we can expect to hear from her at this year’s HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest:

How can the principles of Cyber Psychology be applied to employee wellbeing and productivity, especially in the remote work environment?

“Well, we’re already seeing this play out in terms of the Right to Disconnect laws. That right for employees to actually disconnect from their laptops and step away from their work will change boundaries, especially as we all work quite differently.

Our circadian rhythms, our energy for work, and our responsibilities outside of work are quite different, so the right to be able to disconnect is really, really important.

There’s also the power of knowing when you need to step away and understanding that this is different for everyone.

A young and excitable person early in their career is probably going to work a lot harder than somebody who’s 20 years in with three kids and lots of other pressures that make them feel quite burnt out and needing to establish those different boundaries.

Just as important too is how those boundaries are role-modelled. If you have executives sending emails on weekends and late at night, then that sends a really tricky message to people about when they should be working or not.”

21% of respondents say their organisation is struggling to manage employee wellbeing.

What do you see coming in your space that is going to wash over the HR and L&D industry?

“I think there’s going to be some wash-ups from the idea of organisations really needing to set up very clear digital and social contracts around communication and actually ensuring that employees are switching off, because if they’re not, they’re probably burning out. This comes back to the right to disconnect.

Also, we couldn’t really have this conversation without mentioning AI. I think it’s really important that we pause and look at how to implement AI well, as in going slow and not breaking things, but rather fixing things with AI.

We need to remember some of the lessons that we’ve learned from other Web 2.0 technologies, rather than just smash it out and be the first to apply and deploy.

As a whole, we all must think about what is fit for purpose for our own organisation, because it’s not a race to use AI, it’s a race to use AI well.”

64% of HR and L&D professionals believe it is essential to be able to utilise generative AI tools.

What do you think will be some of the key takeaways that HR and L&D professionals will get from your presentation?

“I think they’ll be surprised to see there is less technology in my presentation than they would imagine – and that’s the point.

I’ll also be giving them some great ideas around what AI can’t do as well – this knowledge will balance out how to make Learning and Development truly effective in both today’s and tomorrow’s world.

In terms of neuro-productivity hacks, well the main hack is that there are no hacks. There’s not one silver bullet, rather, there are lots of little things that we can do over a period of time that require discipline and determination.

If we want to do really good quality stuff and live a quality life, we have to make commitments to those things rather than just smash ourselves all the time.”

Jocelyn believes that, at the end of the day, HR is about helping humans, not machines or AI, and we need to remember that we are dealing with humans.

This means we need to be able to foster the wellbeing of the human and understand how we are looking after ourselves as well.

You can find more details about Jocelyn and her presentation here.

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Ben Crowe – Professional Mentor & Director, Mojo Crowe

Ben Crowe interweaves counter-intuitive principles and stories from his experience with some of the world’s most successful business leaders, coaches and athletes to illustrate how a deep focus on authenticity, vulnerability, connection and play can create not only an amazing culture and competitive advantage, but also help the audience work towards building more confidence and navigate life’s biggest distractions both in and outside of work.

In his presentation, Ben will focus on the themes of:

• Perspective and AAA mindset muscles – understanding that we are in control of our mindset.
• The 3 Mindsets (connection, purpose and performance) and how they closely interlink with the 3 Confidences (self-confidence, leadership confidence and performance confidence.
• The Connection mindset – how we connect with ourselves, embrace and celebrate our imperfections to own our story so we can have the courage to live a life true to ourselves.
• The Purpose Mindset – how we connect with others and shift our mindset from “I” to “we” and find our ‘why’ in the process.
• The Performance Mindset – how we can focus our attention in a world of distraction on the things we can control to bring out the best version of ourselves and remove the pressure and expectation from our lives.
• Redefining success – how we can start defining success for ourselves by having a focus on our internal scorecard (intrinsic motivations) vs our external scorecard (extrinsic motivations).
• Play – replacing the fear state with the play state to help us embrace change and drive innovation and creativity within our teams and organisations.

You can find more details about Ben and his presentation here.

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Speakers at the 2024 Sydney HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest

Click here for a list of the announced speakers at the 2024 HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest.

Don’t miss out!

Get your 2-for-1 tickets to the Sydney HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest before August 16!

We do this to help bring more amazing people into the space and make it an even better and more valuable event for all attendees.

So, find a colleague, a friend or someone you know in the industry and get your 2-for-1 tickets before they run out!

For more information, visit our website or check out the 2024 HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest agenda.

We cannot wait to see you there!