World Employment Confederation - World Employment Conference 2021

The World Employment Confederation appointed LAUREA for the organisation of its annual World Employment Conferences in 2021 and also in 2022.

As an expert in designing learning experiences, LAUREA co-created a tailormade concept and took on the actual organisation of the conference. This client case covers LAUREA’s assignment for 2021.

The World Employment Confederation (WEC) represents the private employment sector at global level. It is an umbrella organisation of national federations and companies from around the world that offer employment services. Today, Members of the WEC offer a wide range of HR services, including temporary employment, direct recruitment, career management, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) and Managed Service Provider (MSP).

Every year, the WEC organises the World Employment Conference aimed at the global recruitment and employment industry. The conference brings together senior executives of national staffing federation and heads of workforce solutions firms. In all previous editions, the Conference was organised by a national member federation. For its 52nd edition, the Board decided to entrust the lead to organise the Conference to the head office of the Confederation. LAUREA was asked to co-create the concept and to organise the Conference, in close collaboration with the head office of the World Employment Confederation.

Designing the learning experience

So that the learning experience of the participants could be more captivating, unique and memorable, we developed a tailormade concept for the conference in conjunction with the client. This included the suggestion of e-tools to facilitate a more interactive and streamlined experience and the arrangement of preparatory meetings with the master of ceremony, moderators and key speakers.

A hassle-free conference

Once the concept had been established, we took all organisational tasks off the hands of the client.

We identified venues that met the requirements of the WEC and subsequently visited these venues and negotiated & managed the contracts. We sourced and coordinated suppliers to handle catering, travel, IT, audio-visual services and many more.

Our project director, project coordinator and operations manager coordinated the entire conference using an advanced online project management tool, resulting in a high-level milestone timeline. We also handled all logistics for the speakers and staff.

Finally, the finances. We drafted a detailed budget – based on quotes submitted by the main suppliers – and updated it every quarter. We managed all financial aspects of the conference on behalf of our client. This included billing of delegates and sponsors, payment of suppliers and follow-up of unpaid invoices. All funds were collected and managed by us on a bank account dedicated to the World Employment Conference. We communicated with the WEC about VAT & bookkeeping, and with the bank on cash management.

An elaborate e-platform

To further enrich the conference and ensure it ran smoothly, we implemented and configured different e-platforms for participants and speakers.

This included not only a Conference website but also a registration platform offering different ticket types and promotional codes, and offered an online payment system that guaranteed a secure payment gateway to the participants.

Apart from the website and registration platform, we configured an event platform that was used by the participants and speakers to create their own personal agenda, send messages to peers, schedule 1-1 meetings and join the sessions remotely. Via interactive tools and networking break-out sessions, both he onsite and online participants all joined together in an interactive learning experience.

The platform helped us collect extensive data about the participants and speakers, and about the way in which they interacted during the conference.

Powerful marketing

In addition to implementing the e-platform, we contributed to the implementation of  marketing activities. This included the co-creation of a marketing campaign plan and the implementation of specific promotional activities, as well as the sourcing of – and cooperation with – a digital agency that implemented a paid social media campaign.

We also implemented structured data collection and analysis, based on participant data, online surveys, e-platform usage and social media metrics. This resulted in comprehensive post-conference insights.