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CIPDThe HR profession

Old jokes are not always the best

by Personnel Today 12 Jul 2005
by Personnel Today 12 Jul 2005

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) – the US version of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) – recently had its 57th Annual Conference & Exposition (ACE) in San Diego (SD).

Who should be asked to speak but Bill Cosby – a man once considered funny. Now this choice interests Guru for several reasons.

One: was no-one else available, or is HR in such ill-favour in the US that they had to resort to the man with the greatest collection of knitted jumpers in the world instead of someone more… er… contemporary?

Two: he chose to rev up the conference by saying he couldn’t understand who would be drawn to working in HR as it was such a thankless task. That must have really inspired the huddled masses.

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Now, before you know it the luckiest of you will be honoured to visit Horrorgate for the CIPD’s annual conference. Who could possibly beat Cosby as a keynote speaker? Perhaps comedians Jim Davidson and Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown debating the merits of diversity? The mind boggles.

Who would you like to see? Let Guru know at the usual address.




Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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Personnel Today
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