If HR professionals are still grappling with defining and delivering employee engagement in their own companies, do they have the emotional intelligence to make networking a valuable exercise when let out to play?

I attended the 2016 CIPD Employee Engagement Conference to find out if I can switch from introvert to showman to stand out from the crowd.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to read your own and other people’s feelings and emotions, and use this information to guide your thinking, behaviour and actions.

According to Myers-Briggs, I am quiet, serious, dependable and matter-of-fact. Good personality traits for the office, but not so useful when networking, especially as humans have a shorter attention span than goldfish, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones (Microsoft, 2015).

I would have to dig deep and rediscover the inner flirt that existed before social media changed how people connected.

The British Medical Association was the venue for the conference. I wanted to know if HR got people’s hearts pumping or whether they were looking for a career transplant to be HR customers instead of HR innovators. But before exploring people’s career goals, I had to play second fiddle to the selection of refreshments.

Networking begins at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: food and coffee while checking emails.

I would have to dig deep and rediscover the inner flirt that existed before social media changed how people connected.

"Everyone take your seats..."

The conference begins.

Yay, HR finally has a place at the table, but which table will I choose? There are about 90 attendees from across the UK to share their ideas on designing the employee experience, upskilling line managers and how to measure engagement.

Between sessions I learned where my tablemates work, what they do and why they are happy not working in London. I will never know what connections I would have made if I sat at the table where everyone seems to be having fun and making friends for life. But that’s just my unconscious bias and what if fantasies polluting my mind.

‘Those who want respect, give respect’ is my mantra for 2016.

Networking begins at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: food and coffee while checking emails.

I feel lost in the moment as corporate videos with pumping soundtracks and power statements fill the screen. It may be the singers making me feel like a superhero, but I believe in the companies that have adopted the soundtracks to convey success.

Music might be the secret to networking with a purpose. Everyone coming together in a musical mindfulness to find the missing link between employees and productivity.

The believers jumping off stage into the arms of their peers who carry them towards the corporate nirvana of 100% engagement.

I believe employee engagement is creating a synergy between company goals and employee motivation to build a sustainable organisation that can adapt and thrive in the changing world of work.

HR should focus on building resilience, developing effective communication channels to deliver the engagement strategy, and embedding a results-driven culture that incorporates health and wellbeing.

‘Those who want respect, give respect’ is my mantra for 2016.

What happens after the conference

The fixation with understanding Generation Y makes me think that networking will soon be a fleeting encounter in cyberspace with conditions attached to make it worth their precious time.

They may be the generation that tackles ‘busy being busy’ and ‘meetings with no purpose’.

Networking will become important in a flexible job market where reputation matters and everyone is your potential customer or stepping stone to a new job.

To be a good networker, you have to understand people.

Come 4pm, I understand that people want to go home. I met some committed and skilled HR professionals at the conference and joined an email action learning set. No-one has viewed my LinkedIn profile yet, but I do have a very common name and according to LinkedIn there are 25 Paul Carters more successful than me.

But success depends on what you want from life.

What do you think? 

This article first appeared on our sister site HRZone in February 2016.