Connect Live Frankfurt: Talent Mobility and Digital Transformation

After our two flagship events in Europe last year – Connect Live in London and Paris, we kicked off this year with Connect Live Mumbai. Following Mumbai, for the first time, in Germany, we held our Connect Live Frankfurt event, where the excitement was palpable.

Connect Live Frankfurt was held on March 8 at the beautiful Palmengarten, surrounded by lush green vegetation, a sight to see indeed. The main conference room with its Victorian era style, architecture was filled with various historical paintings along with two immense hanging chandeliers.

Customers were filled to the brink in the large main room, who had come together to connect with peers and learn all about Cornerstone’s latest news and innovations. Additionally, several of Cornerstone’s executive leadership team presented, including our CIO, Vincent Belliveau, our CTO, Karthik Suri, and our CCO, Toya Del Valle. An incredibly rare treat to get so many of our leaders under one roof!

Vincent Bellieveau, our CIO, started the day by telling us about the new Cornerstone. The acceleration of the global transformation and modernisation of the workplace has seen demand grow for new technologies to help HR leaders engage their workforce, close skills gaps, retain talent and improve organisational agility.

Vincent explained it is Cornerstone who is taking responsibility for creating the platform to unleash the power of learning and unlock the limitless potential of people, and revealed what's coming around the corner at Cornerstone. Cornerstone looks to support today's talent leaders and has imagined a fully connected journey that is future-proof and harnesses the power of learning and data to create powerful growth opportunities for our community and your people. The new Cornerstone TXP creates inspiring and aligned growth opportunities for people while optimising decision-making and improving agility for organisations.

Karthik Suri, our CTO, then took to the stage to give the audience a closer look at the new Cornerstone TXP. Karthik showed the room a behind the scenes of how the TXP offers a comprehensive, holistic growth experience, powered by an intelligent and AI-driven tech fabric. The platform offers best-in-class learning and talent management, and brings a future-proof architecture that is flexible and open – able to seamlessly connect to other applications across the ecosystem.

Live demos of Cornerstone Learning, Skills, Content and Opportunity Marketplace were shown to the audience. Opportunity Marketplace, available soon in the end of the first quarter of 2023, is Cornerstone’s latest innovation built on the foundation of EdCast. It extends the learning, performance and development experience by connecting career growth and mobility opportunities to employees.

A huge part of our Connect Live events is shining the limelight on our beloved customers and hearing their stories and experiences. Toya Del Valle, our CCO, shared the stage with our customers: Frank Schmalfeldt, VP People Experience, DPDHL, Jana Eggerding-Tenhagen, CHRO, DKV Mobility and Dr. Gloria Gonzales, Technology Product Owner - Global LXP, Roche. Toya speaks to each of them about people's experiences.

As well as advancements within Cornerstone, our Connect Live events are 100% about our customers. We don't call ourselves customer obsessed for no reason! And we were sure to hand over the mic and share the spotlight with our customers. We had our Cornerstars talking with Deutsche Post DHL, Temenos, BPW Bergische Achsen KG and HAI Group this time.

One of the sessions at Cornerstone Connect Live Frankfurt was on AI-based learning signed for and delivered at Deutsche Post DHL with Steve Migunda, senior project manager – talent digitalization & strategy of DPDHL, and Svetoslava Dilkova, our customer success manager. The world’s leading logistics company, Deutsche Post DHL Group, uses AI to help align skills with future challenges. Steve and Svetoslava explored how DHL uses a talent marketplace to give employees a holistic development and growth experience while enabling talent leaders to connect learning initiatives to broader skilling initiatives. Attendees discovered how AI identifies skills gaps that might otherwise pass unnoticed, how employees can visualize and build a flexible path for fulfilling career goals, and how personalized career opportunities based on skills and aspirations accelerate professional growth.

Another session was on how learning powers the future-ready workforce, with our Cornerstar Anja Freiheit and Roberto Montani from Temenos. Roberto revealed how this global financial software provider uses Cornerstone to reimagine learning for internal employees and external business partners. He explored how Cornerstone helped them rethink their organisation's learning experience and drive growth. Attendees discovered how relevant, personalized virtual or in-person training drives growth, how flexible learning spaces and curated content drive engagement, and how real-time insights surface learning, skills and compliance trends.

Birk Alwes, Michael Ley and Anja Freiheit presented another session about turning leaders into entrepreneurs. Two manufacturing customers shared two compelling content perspectives. Michael Ley of BPW Bergische Achsen KG revealed how social platforms like Instagram are helping them deliver short learning bites and adapt offerings to meet new learning trends. Birk Alwes of HAI Group highlighted why a data-centric approach to content is imperative to building people’s future skills. Attendees learned how manufacturing is adjusting to the modern workplace, how curated, engaging content creates a culture of learning, and how personalised content builds the power skills everybody needs.

One of the most exciting announcements from the event was the Cornerstone Talent Experience Platform's roadmap for 2023, presented by our Cornerstars Thorsten Rusch, director of solution consulting DACH, Nordics & Eastern Europe, and Ingrid Rfflenbeul, account manager EMEA International. The platform, which provides a comprehensive suite of talent management tools, will undergo major updates in the coming year. These updates include new features and enhancements designed to streamline HR processes further and improve the employee experience. Thorsten and Ingrid took through the learning journey of a fictional employee, "Lisa" that wants to drive her career, and showed us how our TXP could help:

One of the major themes that emerged from the event was the importance of talent transformation and the skills-led organization. In today's rapidly changing business landscape, companies must prioritize reskilling and upskilling their employees to remain competitive. Rouven Fuchs, managing mirector at Accenture, talked about the constant and ever-increasing need for change and transformation is compressed. Leaders need to drive faster growth and change with more certainty and predictability and in a human-centric way. The focus was creating a skills-led organization that delivers successful business outcomes by building and managing talent, driving transformation and innovating culture.

Armin Trost, Professor and Author, discuss with Alessa Jungnickel, content manager, HELM AG and our Cornerstar Throsten Rusch, director solution consulting DACH, Nordics & Eastern Europe, whether traditional talent management is dead or not. He speaks about how In the past, talent management involved identifying talented individuals and promoting them through predefined career paths, with managers and HR responsible for their long-term development. This approach left some employees feeling stuck in their careers. However, the future of talent management will be different, with talented individuals taking charge of their careers based on their personal talents and life plans using AI and colleagues for support.

Dr. Nico Rose's keynote focused on the misconception that positive emotions like happiness are 'nice to have' but not essential. Drawing on current psychological science and his leadership experience, he explained the close connection between positive emotions and organizational effectiveness in innovation, retention, and health management. While all human emotions are valid and helpful, Dr. Rose highlighted the distinct quality of positive emotions, such as optimism and joy, and their crucial role in long-term business success, particularly in leadership.

The Cornerstone Connect Live Frankfurt event was a huge success, and we are grateful to have been a part of it. It allowed our customers to share their thoughts, insights and experiences with us, and it was clear that we gained a great deal from their experience. HR is alive more than ever. A "new" HR business model, including traditional and innovative elements, is evolving. It's about doing the right things and positively impacting our people. And it's about making bold decisions.

Finally, we would like to wrap up by saying a big thank you to all the customers, leaders, guests, and Cornerstars who attended the event. Your enthusiasm and passion for HR and talent management made the event a truly memorable experience, and we look forward to connecting with you again this year. Until then, let's continue pushing the boundaries of talent management and HR and working together to build a brighter future for our organisations and employees. For more information about our TXP, go here.