HR networking in Shanghai: why HR leaders need time with each other, not another agenda
HR networking in Shanghai: why HR leaders need time with each other, not another agenda
Most HR networking in Shanghai looks the same: a panel, a slide deck, ten minutes of coffee, then everyone rushes back to the office. HR leaders leave with business cards and a few notes, but rarely with the conversation they actually needed.
That’s a strange gap for a profession whose job is to create connection for everyone else. HR leaders plan the offsite, run the engagement survey, design the onboarding that helps new hires find their people. Then they go back to a role where very few people inside the company do the same job.
We run R.E.D., a peer community for HR leaders in Shanghai and across APAC. Over the past months, our members have told us very clearly what they want more of. It isn’t more content.
What our members told us about HR networking in Shanghai
At our October 16 learning day, hosted by Autoliv and focused on getting headquarters to listen, we tried something simple. We gave participants 30 minutes to exchange best practices, with no moderator, no topic and no slides.
In the feedback, those 30 minutes came back as one of the highlights of the day, alongside the company visit.
Our member interviews say the same thing in different words. One member explained why the community matters to her: “In corporate environments it’s not easy to go and ask other colleagues’ opinions. Here you have an outside view.”
The same member flagged the limit too: “When we are more than 4 or 5, we don’t have quality time.” And when we asked how we could help members build deeper relationships, her answer was: “Free time. Lunch, breakfast, a walk, a museum.”
The outside view is the thing you can’t get internally
Inside a company, an HR leader asking a colleague for advice is never a neutral act. The question can read as uncertainty, the answer can travel, and the colleague often has a stake in the outcome.
A peer from another company has none of that. They’ve dealt with a similar restructuring, a similar union conversation or a similar HQ request, and they can tell you what actually happened. That’s the value our members describe: concrete, honest input from someone outside the system.
That kind of exchange needs two things that most networking formats remove: time, and a group small enough to talk.
Why we take the agenda away on purpose
Why we take the agenda away on purpose
This is why R.E.D. runs two kinds of events. Some are built around a specific HR topic, with a panel or a learning day. Others, our social events, deliberately step away from work topics.
We’ve gathered around tea, Tai Chi and tarot cards. On paper, none of those have anything to do with HR. In practice, they do the one thing a panel can’t: they give people a shared experience, and the conversation takes care of itself.
Our next one goes further. On November 6, Clarisse, a trilingual French guide whose company ARCADE runs private tours of Shanghai, is taking a small group of HR leaders on a tour she is building exclusively for the R.E.D. community, around the history of work in Shanghai: how people worked, how they fought for their rights, the companies that shaped business culture here and the family businesses that have lasted generations. It’s a walk (as requested), capped at 16 people, and every stop is a conversation starter about our own work.
The Unscripted Time Check: is your network actually working for you?
If you’re an HR leader in Shanghai, ask yourself these four questions about your own peer network:
- The last real conversation. When did you last talk with an HR peer outside your company for more than 20 minutes, with no agenda and no slides?
- The stuck problem. Is there one person outside your company who knows the problem you’re stuck on this month?
- The quick benchmark. When you need to know how others handle something, do you have someone to message?
- The group size. In the events you attend an event, are you ever in a group small enough that everyone actually talks and shares?
If you answered “no” or “not recently” to two or more, your network is giving you business cards contacts, but not conversations that will help you / your organization.
The fix isn’t more events.
It’s more unscripted time, in smaller groups, with people who do your job.
Bring unscripted time to your own leadership team
If your leadership team only connects in meetings with a fixed agenda, the honest conversations are probably happening in corridors, or not at all. Intandid designs and facilitates the sessions that make room for them: team coaching, CliftonStrengths workshops, leadership training and facilitated offsites where people step away from the daily agenda and talk about how they actually work together.
Participants describe our sessions as dynamic, with people who genuinely want to take part, and say they feel safe enough to talk openly. That’s where the real issues come out, and where teams start solving them together.
If that’s what your team needs, contact us.
Want to join the November 6 tour? It’s open to HR leaders only, with 16 seats and a sign-up deadline of November 3. Register here.
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