Germany´s HCAS and EMEA Conference

I am already late for my first day!
Surprisingly I am not too worried when I step off of the airplane. I will just call Nicole, the amazing assistant to Udo, and she will tell me what to do. Or not... My phone doesn't work and I can not figure out the public phones. The Customs guy and I did not get off to a great start. He pulled me and my piles of luggage inside a separate room and began asking tons of questions. Why so much luggage for one person? You are going to live here, then where is your residence or work permit? You don´t have one, interesting... What´s in that big box? How about those other 7 pieces of luggage? Thankfully, I had homemade cookies from my mom to share with him and he instantly became much nicer. Thanks Mom! He eventually let me go.

After a very long trip to Bad Reichenhall, a small German town near Salzburg, Austria, I finally arrived at the conference. Perfect timing, lunch time! I met nearly all of the German practitioners before the day was over. I ended my first day by building a raft with my coworkers and rafting down a river. What a first day!

Jana, Me, Nicole, and Carmen all ready to build our raft.

We had two more days of our German HCAS (Human Capital Advisory Services) meeting. There are three US expats in the German practice this summer so they switched back and forth between English and German. The rest of EMEA´s leaders came on Wednesday to begin their conference. Many of us German practitioners were lucky enough to participate in the conference and get to know people from all over the world. Thursday night we had Bavarian Olympics which involved throwing a boot into a bucket, bow and arrow shooting, shooting a gun, riding Segways, and sawing pieces of wood. The night continued with more Bavarian entertainment and food.

Udo showing everyone how to do a Bavarian dance.

Beer in Bavaria, delicious.

Udo, a proud Austrian, in his German football jersey from Brett. He gave the tapper to Brett to tap the first barrel of beer.

These guys played a mix of Bavarian and American music all night long. It was pretty funny to listen to so many people sing along to very American songs.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone at this conference and am so glad that I came in time to attend it. It was interesting to learn more about the work that the German HCAS practice is doing and it´s plans to grow. There are about 45-50 people in all of Human Capital, so even smaller than our Chicago HRT group. I am excited to be here while they are going through all of these changes.

I attended the HR BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) training led by an American and two people from the UK. There were people from all over Europe that had very different ideas on what works and what doesn't work in Europe compared to the United States. It generated a great discussion on the European market for BPOs vs. HR Outsourcing. Almost all of the participants there thought that large BPOs will never occur in Europe and were more interested in learning about smaller HR Outsourcing projects. I thought the trainers did a great job in directing the conversation to future business opportunities where these types of projects may happen in Europe.

Our hotel for the week.

Gardens behind the hotel.