Last week for the first time I visited Riyadh, Saudi Arabia! It was to attend a HR conference, meet some clients and prospects.
The first take for me was how dynamic Saudi Arabia is! It is a young country with the average age of 35 years old and you can feel it. I found Riyadh a buzzing city with lots of café, restaurants, and malls, extremely busy even on weekday nights!
On the 2 days HR conference side, there were some great panel sessions highlighting some of the experiences of those working in HR in KSA. Good discussions given the hot topics such as working in hybrid workplace. It was interesting to see how different organizations are facing this challenge in the aftermath of the global pandemic.
Naturally, I was most interested in the people development topics that were addressed. As one would expect, it was about how do we develop employees to deal with the upcoming changes with the fourth industrial revolution. Several speakers and panelists addressed this very topic. They spoke about processes and measures that companies can put in place to ensure that no one is left behind.
Several familiar key themes discussed on the L&D front as well. These are topics that have been discussed at length for the past few years. Topics such as: