Emma Ogden

My name is Emma, and I was born, brought up, live and work within the region, so feel very passionately about Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. I currently work as a HR Consultant within Higher Education, and I also volunteer as Trust Board member for a Multi Academy Trust in Nottingham.

The scholarship will enable me to study the theme of nurturing and retaining talent within the region; looking at US universities, sporting organisations and examples of best practice within the private sector. We need to see a renewed focus on employee experiences and company culture to recruit, retain and develop talent, whether that be through reward, recognition, flexibility, better working environments, wellbeing support or progression and development. Insight shows that we are seeing a shift for talent; people are seeking new opportunities and the talent market is becoming sparce.

With that in mind, I hope to learn the following through my project:

1. How organisations are shifting their focus to consider engagement, talent, and culture to retain staff.
2. How leadership is being redefined.
3. How mid-region and smaller organisations retain talent within their location.
4. How talent is being sourced, attracted, and engaged.
5. Seek publicly known best practice insight and areas of differentiation and how they can apply to Nottingham / Nottinghamshire.
6. How Local or National Policy may adapt to meet the current issues around talent retention.

My trip will take me across the States to visit several US-universities, sporting teams, and private sector organisations who are really championing these approaches. I want to have the opportunity to see how this works both where people naturally gravitate (e.g., the coastal regions and large cities) as well as how mid-region organisations are retaining talent locally. Finally, I relish the opportunity to meet some links with FD Roosevelt as I passionately can see the alignment of my project with his own mission, aims and morals.

I hope to be able to share insights back with local organisations, sporting communities and universities to shape how our region can take the lead in developing talent. Through doing so, tangible benefits would include building a stronger identity and profile of the region, enhancing our community and community links, boost the regions economy, encourage talent to come to the region, support our locals from School to Employment to develop and create some new talent initiatives (such as more apprenticeships or flexible working opportunities).

The scholarship is an incredible opportunity to learn more about an area which is so important to me and see how others are tackling an issue which is critical to get right. Henry Ford invented the 9am to 5pm working pattern in the 1920s and yet we still work to it; we need to think about how we must change to adapt to our future workforce and talent!