From 10 to 11 October 2022, the World Customs Organization successfully organized its HCM Global Conference in a hybrid format , with the theme of Well-being at Work – Taking care of our Human Capital. The conference brought together over 1200 participants, including 150 in-person, from 175 countries worldwide. The Conference focused on how Customs administrations and international public and private sector organizations implement measures to promote a human-centred approach to the workplace, leveraging the critical role of technology as an enabler. This Conference was organized by the WCO, taking into account the outcomes of the discussions held at the 13th Session of the Capacity Building Committee, the 86th Session of the Policy Commission and the 139th/140th Sessions of the Council regarding working arrangements and practices in a post-pandemic environment.
The Conference was kicked off by Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, Secretary General of the WCO. In his opening remarks, Dr. Mikuriya emphasized the importance of considering technology and data in the new working model of Customs while putting People at the centre.
Benefiting from experiences and learnings from 21 (9 women and 12 men) widely recognized leaders in their industry (Customs Administration DGs and Customs HRM Directors, international organizations, the private sector, and consultants), the conference served as a platform for sharing and collecting international best practices relating to well-being at work and staff and organizational resilience. The outstanding deliberations and discussions during the conference provided participants with up-to-date advice and top tips on how Customs administrations can embed a well-being culture into their organization, taking into consideration the new working models, and practical and actionable recommendations on how Customs leaders and HCM professionals can implement effective well-being programmes.
As a way forward, WCO informed participants that the first meeting of the Customs’ Work Organization Forum (CWOF) would be held virtually on 24/10/2022. In addition, the WCO will soon conduct a survey and a call for case studies to collect trends and bests practices in the area of Customs’ work setup, workplace design and workforce management in the future. The inputs will feed into the development of a Compendium on best practices in this field.
The panelists and participants shared their appreciation to the WCO for considering this topic in its schedule and for an informative and well-organized conference and encouraged the WCO to organize people-focused global conferences or events regularly.
For more information about this conference and the WCO People Development offer, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org.