Weedie Sisson, Chair of the HR networking group the London HR Connection, explains how sharpening your networking skills can be hugely beneficial in these more ‘uncertain’ times.

Like many in business today, a lot of HR professionals are more than a little worried about the impact that a possible recession will have on their career. The media is full of advice and wise counsel for companies on what they need to do as an organisation in order to prepare themselves to weather the likely economic downturn but I have still to read much that talks about what we, at the London HR Connection, have found to be key to personal and often corporate survival – the ability to network.

For networking, and the ability to network, not to feature as an important consideration for both an organisation’s and an employee’s personal and professional future is to seriously ignore what should be a core capability of any organisation and the people who work in it.

Coming in at a lowly number eight in a recent ‘top tips for redundancy’ piece was the suggestion that you should ‘reawaken your network’. Not only does that presuppose that there is a network to waken but, with all due respect, we would suggest that it’s a mite ‘too little too late’. Long before the threat of economic downturns and their side effects, HR professionals should be investing time and effort in this part of their own personal and career development.

Riders of the Storm

It has been said that HR leadership is ‘positioned to be one of the riders of the economic storm’. Why then, is ‘being effectively connected’ - one of the most fundamental aspects of overall business success - so absent from the HR survival kit?

Is it, perhaps, yet another example of HR working in an organisational vacuum - misaligned to business objectives? Or is it because networking is considered by many to be such a second nature capability that we take it for granted or assume everyone uses it naturally? Whilst we would love to believe it is the latter, we fear it is the former.

An HR professionals first step should be to take a leaf from their CEO’s book and begin to build better personal and professional links both within and outside of the organisation and across business areas. Not only will this help them to develop confidence in presenting/showcasing themselves and their achievements, but it will help them build potential choice and opportunities if and when things get tough.

Shared Responsibility for Networking

It has been our experience that networking is often regarded as an activity that takes place after hours and in personal time. We believe that HR can help to shift this by creating a networking mindset from which we all work. In doing this we all begin to take professional ownership of building and maintaining our employability whether the economy is in our favour or not. HR must help establish a feeling of shared responsibility for developing networking skills between employer and employee. Where employers provide employees with the time and space to network with set goals against which they are measured.

We’ve all read about ‘best employer’, ‘employers of choice’, the ‘extra-mile employer’ and related HR initiatives which lead to and support these accolades. However, HR has an opportunity to demonstrate uniquely that these awards have real substance by ensuring from the interview stages that employees are aware of the expectation to network (and why), the various networking opportunities and related coaching available.

The organisational benefits of networking are well documented. Employees with strong networks will increase their employer’s brand profile and cost-effectively generate new business through their personal efforts. And we all know that people do business with people they know and trust. Networking is a core skill that can help you ride out any recession and being part of the right network (such as the London HR Connection) should educate, inspire and inform in equal measure.



A version of this article first appeared in the newsletter of the CIPD’s Central London Branch. Now, a CIPD Special Interest Group, the London HR Connection is a professional network providing regular informal lunches – away from the daily grind – for anyone with a vested interest in HR, to network with their peers and hear from experts on challenging and stimulating topics. In the coming months we will share time with experts in the fields of vocal impact, corporate styling, social networking, generational differences and working under pressure. For membership information and details on forthcoming events, please visit www.londonhr.org

Weedie Sisson is Chair of the London HR Connection and a former HR director herself. She is also the founder of People First, a leading consultancy that helps organisations get the best out of people through tailored business coaching and HR consulting.

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