Hello PPMA members and friends

As we enter a new year and are looking forward to 2024, I just want to briefly reflect on the challenges for, and achievements of, our profession over the course of 2023.

Throughout the year our agenda spanned the breadth of HR/OD activity and we’ve faced many challenges – both from an operational and a strategic perspective. And there’s much to be applauded with many steps forward, along with some inevitable drawbacks too, but all in all, our profession is one I’m certainly proud of and privileged to be part of.

As an Association, we’ve grown our membership significantly over the year and we’re delighted to say that we’ve had record numbers of colleagues taking part in our talent programmes, run many and varied webinars and we’ve had a number of face to face round table discussions in conjunction with our sponsors and partners. In readiness for the next 12 months, we already have a packed and exciting agenda of events planned for 2024 and we look forward to sharing that with you soon.

Thinking about priority areas for the profession in 2024, our recent Priorities and Challenges membership survey demonstrated that the agenda remains broad, but that many colleagues anticipate that they will do more work on strategic and long-term workforce priorities this year – this is really heartening after a couple of years of having to be very reactive. Examples of future priorities are leadership & management development, workforce and succession planning and EDI. If you haven’t already seen the results of our survey, you can read the full survey findings here.

As I mentioned above, we’ve already started work on our plans for 2024, but I’d like to draw your specific attention to a couple of our calendar highlights, firstly the 2024 PPMA Excellence in People Management Awards are open for entries and it’s free for PPMA members. There are 15 fantastic categories to choose from, but you don’t have long because they close on Friday 26th January. Here’s a brief summary of the awards:

The highlight of our events year is the PPMA Annual Conference and this also includes the Gala Dinner and award winner presentations. It’s going to be held in Birmingham at the Birmingham Conference and Events Centre and spans over 3 days from late morning on Wednesday 24th to lunchtime on Friday 26th April 2024.

This conference is all about practical learning, sparking fresh ideas, and building connections, so why not join us us for three days of insight, practical knowledge, and networking opportunities.  All of the booking information is on the PPMA website and an early bird booking discount is still available until 31st January!

Here’s a taster of what to expect!

On behalf of the PPMA board I would like to say ‘thank you’ to our wonderful members, sponsors, partners and friends for your support in 2023 and wish you a Happy New Year … here’s to a positive 2024!

Gordon McFarlane, PPMA President