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The 10th Women International Networking (W.I.N.) Conference took place on September 27th-29th in Oslo, Norway and as in previous years, HP was again the gold sponsor for the event. Each year, W.I.N. brings together professional women from all over Europe, offering leadership insight, discussion of business success, networking with other women and career planning advice.
For HP, this is a unique event to build relationships with professional women, make a contribution to the overall debate and understand better the challenges women face in their careers today. According to Ben Capell, programme manager for Diversity and Inclusion, HP EMEA, the overall lead for HP’s presence at W.I.N., more than 80 HP women employees attended in order to benefit from the professional development activities, the networking opportunities and to represent HP. The event also offers excellent recruitment opportunities.
The conference presented a unique opportunity for HP to understand better what professional women look for in a prospective employer and how they plan their next career move. According to Mara Lucini, programme manager for Staffing, HP EMEA, a survey that participants could fill in at the HP stand gave some interesting insights into what women are looking for in a prospective employer.
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CSR important in employer choice
The survey was aimed at identifying recruitment issues and career development preferences of the W.I.N. participants.
“The responses showed that the group of professional women here at W.I.N expected a good track record in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from their preferred employer, opportunities to grow within the company and to be rewarded financially for their work,” Mara said.
“I am also very pleased that a large majority of respondents saw HP as an employer of choice and were happy for us to approach them with career opportunities in future,” she added. Being a socially and environmentally responsible company that offers plenty of development opportunities and rewards its employees for their performance definitely helps to position HP as an employer of choice.
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HP attendees reap benefits from event
| HP employees came away from the event feeling motivated and proud to be part of a company that placed such importance on investing in their professional development. Many women employees had been encouraged by their managers or colleagues to attend and feedback on HP speakers and the overall experience of the event were positive throughout. And while the event focuses on questions of business leadership and career development for women, men are very welcome to attend. For HP participants, the event presented a professional development opportunity and a chance to grow their own professional network within HP and with other professional women at W.I.N. However, HP employees felt they also had a role as an ambassador for the company throughout the event and handed out details of HP’s recruitment pages along with their business cards.
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HP offers engaging presence
| An engaging and stimulating programme ensured that all attendees thought that the event was of excellent value throughout. For HP, Linda Sharkey, vice president for People Development, presented career development at HP, moderated the corporate forum. Gabi Zedlmayer, vice president, Corporate Marketing and Global Citizenship, HP EMEA, talked about how technology and the recent rise in Web 2.0 applications could help manage the multiple demands of a busy job and personal life. A workshop led by Jeannette Weisschuh, head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA, together with Daniela Opp, manager Social Investments and Economic Development, HP EMEA and Jelena Godjevac, executive director, MEA-I, provided WIN participants with some hands-on training of IT business skills. The training was a module that is part of the Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT (GET-IT) programme. GET-IT was launched by HP in May 2007 and delivers business and IT skills training to under- or unemployed youth through local training organisations across EMEA. Some of the GET-IT centers run by local training organisations focus specifically on training young women.
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Useful links
Further information
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Global Citizenship Reports 2006 (*) |
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Printable version
