The Evolving Employer: Effective Strategies for a Complex Global Landscape

As technology, globalisation, and shifting workforce expectations redefine the employment landscape, organisations face unprecedented opportunities and complex legal challenges. This forward-thinking session will explore some of the biggest changes coming to workplaces, the risks and opportunities that lie ahead and how employers can strike a balance between technological progress and managing employment risks.

With pay transparency laws accelerating worldwide, employers must navigate complex compliance challenges. This session examines the EU Pay Transparency Directive and its practical application, the latest Member State positions on implementation progress, and strategies for compliance across jurisdictions. The session will also explore critical equal value and data privacy considerations, including pay structures, managing small data groups and ensuring the lawful handling of employee information for reporting.

Join us for an interactive breakout session designed to give delegates a dynamic, multi-regional view of employment law developments. Participants will rotate between tables hosted by expert speakers from across the globe. Each table will focus on key regional developments and trends, including compliance and litigation hot spots and recent legislative changes, with an opportunity to ask questions, share experiences, and gain actionable insights from local specialists.

Employer of record models are transforming global talent engagement. However, these arrangements can create significant legal, tax, and compliance challenges if not managed carefully. This session will explore the key risks and obligations associated with such arrangements, along with practical guidance on mitigating exposure and ensuring compliant workforce solutions.

Effective and legal ways of effectively fostering inclusion and collaboration across differences in faith, politics, personal values, age and worldviews continues to be a challenge for global employers. This breakout session explores strategies for managing belief-related disputes, balancing competing rights and expectations, and creating policies that align with local laws and global standards.

Public relations is a vital tool for managing workforce challenges. This session, led by a PR and crisis management expert, explores how strategic communication builds trust, strengthens internal culture, and safeguards reputation during times of change. The session will consider practical approaches to leverage positive PR for employee engagement, crisis mitigation, and talent attraction in today’s competitive landscape.

Speaker: Simon Baugh CBE

Workforce restructuring can take a number of different forms, from revising employment terms and modernising work practices to re-sizing the workforce through more traditional downsizing projects. Each approach carries distinct legal obligations across jurisdictions, including the involvement of representative bodies, making strategic planning essential. This session examines common and divergent legal requirements for restructuring projects worldwide, offering practical guidance from our experts on managing cross-border projects.

This session explores the evolving role of employee representatives in global industrial relations, with a focus on the increasing complexity of cross-border engagement. We will examine developments under the EWC Directive, the growing influence of collective representation in multinational organizations, and the rise of class actions involving unions.

Employment litigation is rising worldwide, and the landscape is becoming more complex than ever. Claimant strategies are evolving rapidly, with new challenges such as AI-generated claims, weaponised data subject access requests, and the amplified reputational risks posed by social media. At the same time, varying rules across jurisdictions on privilege, evidence, and disclosure add another layer of difficulty for those managing global disputes. This breakout session will examine some of the key differences in litigation rules across jurisdictions, and explore proactive strategies to mitigate risk.

Harassment laws continue to evolve globally, often placing greater responsibility on employers to prevent and address workplace harassment. This breakout session will examine recent developments and practical compliance challenges, including enforcement trends. Participants will discuss strategies for implementing effective policies, managing cross-border risks, and reducing legal exposure.

This breakout session provides an overview of recent EU directives on topics including platform work, trainees, the right to disconnect, and AI regulation. It also looks ahead to upcoming EU legislative developments based on directives currently moving through the EU legislative process and on the EU’s long-term strategy, including the impact of the Omnibus Regulations.

Rapid technological and organisational change places powerful demands on the human brain. This session explores the neuroscience behind how the modern world and the rise of AI is affecting our cognitive functions such as attention, memory and decision making and what this means for workforce skills and training.

We’ll unpack the brain’s response to modern uncertainty (such as restructuring and rising demands) and we will look at the impact of stress, increased cognitive load and emotional fatigue shape behaviour and performance. The discussion also examines the biological foundations of wellbeing: protecting executive function under pressure, sustaining mental clarity and why sleep is one of the most effective tools for preserving judgement and resilience.

This is a science based look at how leaders can support healthy, high performing minds during periods of profound change.

Speaker: Dr Helena Boschi