From left: Ken Vijayakumar - Chairman, NHRC 2017 Organizing Committee with Co-chairs of the IPM Great HR Practices 2017 Organizing Committee Dr Jayantha Pathiratne and Samantha Rathnayake    

Over the years, the Human Resource Management (HRM) discipline has played a significant role in adding value to organizations. 
Such contributions are widely known and published in the global literature, most prominent being practices emanating from the developed world. Although many novel and value-adding HR practices have emerged in the Sri Lankan HR landscape, there is still a lacuna in the domain of literature relating to ‘Great HR Practices’ in Sri Lanka. 
In view of this, the organizing committee of the NHRC 2017 has initiated a meaningful new addition to this year’s conference – ‘Great HR Practices’ which aims at bridging this ‘information gap’ that prevails in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, presentations by 4 Sri Lankan corporates on four selected best practices in HR, in line with this year’s conference theme will be showcased to the country’s HR fraternity at the National HR Conference 2017 as a featured event. It is envisaged that this new segment would further enhance the level of HR awareness among the country’s business leaders thereby facilitating greater organizational efficiency, productivity and employee engagement across the workplaces.
“The National HR Conference is a platform created by IPM Sri Lanka to raise the bar on human resource management by sharing knowledge, best practices and insights. The Great HR Practices 2017 is an innovative initiative that will further enhance the value of the NHRC by helping to share HR related best practices that have been deployed by Sri Lankan companies to drive results driven outcomes,” said Ken Vijayakumar, Chairman of the NHRC 2017 Organizing Committee.      
‘Great HR Practices’ is a special knowledge sharing forum where the participating organizations will present their “Great HR Practices” at the proceedings of the NHRC 2017. The 4 companies were selected based on a structured evaluation process by an eminent panel of HR practitioners and academics. The evaluation takes into consideration the originality of the particular HR practice, its effectiveness and sustainability, and most importantly its extent of value creation within the business landscape. These great HR practices are those that have been initiated during the past 5 years and are currently ongoing.  
The Great HR Practices 2017 Project is co-chaired by Samantha Rathnayake, Management Consultant, Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and Dr Jayantha Pathiratne, Management Consultant.
The 4 companies that have been selected to present their Great HR Practices are Standard Chartered Bank on Employee Engagement, Polytex Garments Ltd on Industrial Relations, DSI Samson Group on Employee Motivation through Rewards and Camso Loadstar (Pvt) Ltd on Performance Management.