So what's new for 2008? With the CPI at 9% - how does this affect your Remuneration and Reward strategy - gone are the days where companies throw money around and never reap the benefits! Make IIR's 17th Annual Paycon 2008 a beneficial experience; by making sure your reward strategy supports staff retention in the current competitive labor market. Ensure that you are au fait with developing effective strategies for matching your reward strategy to your organisational objectives and the needs of your employees. PLUS! Discover how major organisations are using reward strategies to address key issues of changing economic and workforce conditions.

Join specialised HR professionals for first-class learning and networking opportunities by hearing from a mix of presentations, workshops, round table sessions and panel discussions. Reap the benefits of a highly sought after speaker line-up from major regional and international employers and employers of choice such as KPMG, Vodacom, Edward Nathan, Synchrona, Deloitte, Business Connexion, Debswana Diamond Co., Pick 'n Pay, PriceWaterhouseCooper, SARA, Beyond Outsoursing and Tsogo Sun Group.

In today's highly competitive business environment, you need to optimise your HR transformation in order to enhance your value add to your business bottom line. To successfully move your organisation from transition to transformation, you need to proven models of organisation design, new approaches to talent management and alternative methods of providing HR business solutions.

Join industry executives, thought leaders and experts across industry at this Africa's only guru HR event and find out how you can reshape your capabilities, processes and culture to improve inter-agency collaboration, attain higher levels of service, and achieve organisational excellence through proven HR transformation optimisation methodologies.

This world-class event will explore case study focused strategies for unlocking the hidden potential in your oraganisation. The 5th Annual HR Africa Summit 2008 will be an event not to be missed - it promises to be a landmark event for all your HR transformation challenges and issues!

Due the pressure in the global market HR is forced to keep on coming up with innovative strategies to manage talent in order to deliver on business competitiveness. IIR's 2nd Annual HR West Africa Conference 2008 is focused at bringing to the fore the current HR issues and how global drivers can be leveraged to deliver on HR strategies. Attend this much needed event and:

• Join strategic HR leaders from across West Africa for an extraordinary and in-depth analysis of the changing global dynamics and trends driving the new innovative HR strategies


• Global drivers and new realities


• New challenges of talent management and leadership development


• Organisational transformations


• Explore new alternatives for tapping the best out of global talent through effective diversity management and overcome cultural challenges


• earn how new enterprise ownership through Mergers and Acquisitions can change your talent management strategy, learn how to avoid post M&A trauma


• Benchmark against leading multinational on creating sustainable HR strategies, defining global metrics and accelerating leadership development


• Discover how to succeed in a virtual global environment


• Continue your professional development- the HR world is moving and changing quickly and by coming to this event you will stay on top of the latest developments, with exclusive insights into where HR is heading

With the current skills crisis in South Africa there is a need to share knowledge across industry to develop the critical and scarce skills. IIR's 15th Annual Artisan Development Conference will provide a platform where novel approaches and strategies will be showcased.

Join business leaders, respected government officials, local set as and associations as they brainstorm and share new thoughts, tested and tried ideas on skills development. And since artisans shortage is not a national phenomenon but a global one, an international experience on artisan development from the Canadian Apprenticeship forum will also be highlighted at this event so you can benchmark your initiatives internationally. Hot topics include:

• Leveraging on industry partnerships to develop artisans in your organisation


• Connecting the youth with apprenticeship to increase awareness and make the artisanship career more attractive


• Creating a better image for the artisan career in order to attract more apprentices Delivering on artisan development from an FET provider perspective: How can organisations give input and participate with providers in developing relevant artisans?

Skills Africa Summit, 23, 24 & 25 July 2008, The Wanderers, Johannesburg,South Africa Due to massive skills shortage in South Africa, the Government has amended other legislative pieces and introduced new ones. These skills development policies will affect the way organisations draw and implement their workplace skills development plans. A pertinent part of this event, therefore, will explore the implications and practical outflows of the new regulatory framework on skills development.

Of high interest to businesses is the changing labour market. With skills shortage as one of the forces driving SA's labour market, the importance of skills development has been raised and has become a business imperative. What this means is that organisations that are able to attract, retain and develop people will win in the long-term. As such, businesses are looking for tools they can use to analyse changes in SA's labour market and devise effective strategies to respond to the changes.

HR West Africa - Nigeria, 14-16 July 2008
The HR West Africa Conference 2008 will undoubtedly provide HR Professionals with a 7 step guide to align their HR department with business needs by defining the elements for strategic HR excellence and will provide a Roadmap to achieving strategic alignment.

Artisans, 27-29 August, Garden Court, OR Tambo, South Africa
This conference is designed to provide you with all the information that you need to effectively source and implement learners in the workplace to develop quality artisans. Benchmark against expert presentations on training assessments and SAQA standards to ensure that your organisation attains full accreditation and is complying with the legal requirements.

HR Africa, 24-27 November, Vodaworld , Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
In the wake of this new era in HR practices the 5th Annual HR Africa Summit is vastly becoming the platform for HR Executives, Practitioners and Directors across Africa to gather and share concerns, challenges and achievements in the HR world. Without a sound understanding of how the business operates, the concerns of your stakeholders and how to talk the business language, HR will retain a minor league status in a major league environment.

For Showcasing & Sponsorship opportunities at these leading events please contact Ian Edwards on iedwards@iir.co.za or +27 11 771 7206

For more information or to register for one of these leading events call +27 11 771 7000 or email nanderson@iir.co.za