The world of HR can be a fairly intimate one. People tend to know each other, at least by the six degrees of separation rule. Within specific sectors, HR directors may meet in forums, know what their peers are up to, and may manage a team comprised of some previous members of their competitors teams (it’s the same in HR journalism too, by the way).

At some of the larger HR conferences though, the sheer mass of people can make the profession seem somewhat anonymous, and the eye tends to desperately scan the room for a familiar face we can rush over to to reminisce about, well, about last year’s conference usually…

On a trip to Northern Ireland last week though, I was pleasantly struck by just how close the connections were. Whoever I met in the HR profession knew, often very closely, the next person I was going to meet, or knew their wife, or used to work for them some time ago: “Oh Ken, sure I know Ken, we worked together in…”. No matter what industry, public or private sector, even across business and politics, everyone had an anecdote about the other. And rather than seeming claustrophobic, it seemed an extremely useful and healthy atmosphere in which to do business.

A lot is made of connections and networks within large global organisations, and the value of one colleague knowing the person on the other end of the phone when they ring up with a problem or a query. On a different scale, I had the impression that the HR and business community in Northern Ireland worked in this way too, and are the better for it.