BSHRM International HR Conference 2015/February 28, 2015/BICC

Small is Beautiful: BSHRM Conference Dhaka

My views by T. V. Rao

I wrote almost 15 years ago about ASTD 2000 conference I have attended on lessons for Conference Management. It was  attended by over 15000 delegates in Dallas. I attended a one Day Conference on “ People Drive Business” at Dhaka on 28^th February 2015. I am touched by the way it was organised. Communications in the beginning were not very elaborate. I was invited to be one of the two International Keynote speakers for the Conference: Peter Wilson Secretary General of the World Federation of Personnel Management Associations and myself.  The president pof BSHRM Md. Musharrof Hossain is the third keynote. 

In the beginning I wondered what can be done in one day but after I attended the full conference I changed my mind and felt that a lot can be accomplished in one day and small could be really beautiful. BSHRM has 1600 members and is a five years old body. The conference was addressed, in one day by a large number of people: five CEOs (one hour panel discussion on the Future of HR and “How Shall the HR Leaders of Tomorrow Prepare for the Future?”), three Keynote speakers (one hour each with 15 minutes of Q&A), five representatives of Personnel Management Associations and Universities from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, SHRM, etc.         (Panel discussion on HR Challenges and Opportunities from Regional Perspective: “What Do We Learn , from Each Other ? for an hour), Competency Model of SHRM presentation by SHRM India,  Student debate on whether skills development is the only way GDP in Bangladesh can be improved with participation by two teams from two prominent Universities presenting a heated parliamentary debate, Vice Chancellors chairing the sessions and honouring he Founders of  BSHRM.  The conference started on time and ended almost on time with time schedules largely intact with except marginal variations with a couple of insertions.

It is amazing how a small country and a small association like BSHRM have been able to organize such an event. In the evening there was a courtesy dinner by BSHRM organising committee for all the international delegates (about 15 of them from Australia, Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh itself along with the organising committee and the executive members of the BHRM where there was the usual Asian tradition of exchanging gifts and mementoes. I was touched by each Personnel Management President from other counties and Chapters getting small mementoes to the BSHRM. My gifts to them were a few of my books.

As a part of my session they invited the Publisher of the books relevant to the theme Sage to bring the books by the speaker. I spoke of how HR Audit can drive more people to drive more business.  Due to disturbances across the border my publisher could send only limited copies but I was told all of them (over a hundred were sold-out in the first hour itself). I did not realise until I went there that there are many book lovers of professional books in Bangladesh. There seems to be a high thirst for knowledge. I have seen the book signing by speakers if they happen to be authors arranged  in conference organisers in most conferences I attended in the USA, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. 

The conference was organised very professionally and attended by over 400 delegates. There was good representation by the corporate sector, NGOs, Educational Institutions, Banks, Government, Health and other sector NGOs etc.

As I was boarding jet airways at the counter I overheard someone from Face book team commenting to her neighbour that the Human Development in Bangladesh seems to be better than India. Facts may be different but at that time, to me, the comment seemed to be true. The conference Chair’s brother-in-law expired and he head to rush to his sisters home in the middle of the conference. No one knew except some of the invitee guests like me. He quietly went and was very apologetic that he had to leave. He returned within two hours and participated in the conference and only at the end it was announced that if here is any goof up due to his absence, he should be excused as he had no alternative but to leave due to a death in the family. In spite of all that, in the evening he took some of the foreign delegates in his car to show round Dhaka after the conference and was present at the dinner. There was also a bomb blast in front of his car as he was taking the guests around- luckily no one was hurt.

The Conference was over at 5.00 PM and we were handed over the CDs containing the pictures and video shoots of the conference at Dinner time 8. PM. Reminded of the fist NHRDN conference in 1987, where we had given books at the time of registration for the conference and then on the tradition continued. Now with technological advances handing over the CD at the end of the conference is one of the best things any professional body could do.

Human resource Development = Competence building, commitment Building and Culture building.

BSHRM seems to be well on its way to practice HRD is its true spirit and I hope they will continue to do marvellous job.

Conference Chair: Md. Mashequr Rahman Khan

President BSHRM: Md. Musharrof Hossain

Panel Discussion 1: Session Chair: Professor, Anwar Hossain, Vice Chancellor, Southeast University

·         Mohd. Noor Ali, MD, Unique Group

§  Md. Jalalul Azim, MD, Pragati Life Insurance  Ltd.

§  Sheepa Hafiza, Head, Gender Issues, BRAC

§  Sabur Khan, Chairman, Daffodil Group

§  Professor Dr. M.A. Rashid, CEO, Ibrahim Cardiac Hospital and Research Institute

§  Mehboobur Rehman, Founder President, BSHR

Panel Discussion 2: Session Chair: Professor Imran Rahman, Vice Chancellor, University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh (ULAB)

§  Rohitha Amarapala, President, IPM, Sri Lanka

§  Somesh Dasgupta, National President, NIPM, India

§  Noor Mohammad,CHRO Airtel Bangladesh Ltd.

§  Asif Zaman, SEVP & Head of HR, Premier Bank

§  Archana Jerath, Business Head – Membership & Quality, SHRM, India