K. J SIMSR 3rd International HR Conference on Employee Engagement 2016

The HR faculty of K. J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies & Research (K. J. SIMSR) organized the 3^rd International HR conference on Employee Engagement on February 4-5, 2016. This event was organized in collaboration with their academic partner California State University, sponsored by BPCL and supported by Humanist – the HR club of the institute.

“Employee Engagement” the theme for the conference has been attracting the attention of industry and the academia and gaining relevance in a multitude of contexts and human settings beyond the conventional workplace, such as the class room, sports, NGOs, health care amongst others. The conference sought to dwell on this ever evolving construct extensively.

The conference compendium comprising of 36 research contributions from 79 received was released in the inauguration ceremony by our honourable Provost Dr. Rajan Welukar. The two day conference had overwhelming response from across the country and elicited international participation from South Africa, Canada, Hungary, Nepal and Bahrain. Contributions included Research Papers, Conceptual Papers, Case Studies, View Points, Literature Reviews, and other genres from academics and industry practitioners. The conference successfully turned out to be congregation of academicians, research scholars, consultants, practitioners from the industry and students.

Leading Management Consultant and Executive Coach Mr. Vivek Patwardhan set the tone of the conference was followed by an engrossing panel discussion on sectoral practices by senior practitioners from the Industry. Mr. Ramesh Mitragotri CHRO, Chemical Sector, Aditya Birla Group, Mr. Rajesh Manik, Head HR, Deloitte and Ms. Sujata Chogle, GM – HR BPCL came up with illuminating insights on engagement scenario. Deliberations by Mr. Prasenjit Bhattacharya, CEO, Great Places to Work came up with glimpse of “future of work”. One of the leading academicians in Engagement Research, Prof. (Dr.) Jyotsna Bhatnagar, MDI, Gurgaon helped provide valuable insights on different dimensions of Employee Engagement. This conference served as a platform to blend the research and practice paradigms in Employee Engagement.

Research papers, after a rigorous review process  were selected for presentation in track sessions chaired by senior and acclaimed academicians drawn from reputed institutions such as Mumbai University and NITIE. Awards were given away to best papers.

The conference participants expressed their satisfaction from two days of learning experience that had unraveled issues and challenges that organizations will need to address to build engaging workplaces in future.