The HR/IR Committee of the Bengal Chamber organised an Eastern Regional Employee Relation Conference on "Shifting Paradigms - A Clarion Call for Competitive, Fair and Inclusive Workplace" on 25th of April 2014 along with the Employers' Federation of India.

The conference deliberated on issues relating to increased use of non- permanent workforce and high disparity in their remuneration compared to permanent workforce, existing and emerging skill gaps across key areas and ongoing signs of discontent across workforce.The Conference took a stock of Industrial Relations from the perspective of business as well as the employees. It created a forum to share employer's as well as trade union's perspectives on the current Industrial Relations scenario.The objective of this programme intended to benefit all those in different managerial and decision- making levels, as well as HR/IR Professionals and Line Managers who handle people and organizational issues and aimed to highlight and deliberate on important aspects of Industrial Relation issues including Human Resource Development.

The Inaugural Session of the programme witnessed the participation of Mr. Amal Roy Chowdhury, IAS, Secretary, Department of Labour, Govt. of West Bengal. The Inaugural Session was followed by a CEO's forum where the panel discussion focused on the "Current ER Scenario - Expectations & Approach". This session was attended by eminent speakers who are organizational heads like Rear Admiral A K Verma, CMD Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers, Mr. Harsh Sachdev, MD, Sail & Tata Mining Company and Mr. UK Basu, MD, Haldia Petrochemicals Limited. The 3rd session that had participation from Coal India, Berger Paints & CESC Limited focused on Issues and Approaches on Direct / Indirect Employee Relations. The last session was very interesting as success stories on employee relations were shared by organizations like Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Unilever and Thermax Limited.