During the past 18 months we’ve been on a truly breathtaking journey in terms of CIPD professional standards and membership. Our membership manager, Christine Williams, has been with the institute for the best part of two decades. She’s clear that as the work of the past year comes to fruition, it marks the biggest change in our approach to membership in 20 years.
When Jackie Orme joined us as our new chief executive, we already knew our professional standards needed more than just another update. But Jackie made clear that we needed to look at transforming them to reflect the enormous changes in the profession, so we were equipped to help build an HR profession fit for the future.
The first result was the CIPD HR profession map. We’ve had a lot to say about that over the past year. It is a piece of work we’re incredibly proud of, and that we’re confident equips us to support professionals operating at all levels, as specialists or generalists. And it is flexible enough to take into account the fast evolving nature of the profession.
But the map, as the name suggests, is a navigation tool. If we’re to make the impact we want on current and future generations of HR professionals, we need to ensure the standards created in the map translate into meaningful criteria for membership – into destinations people can aspire to.
And this is where we’ve now got to. After rigorous work, building on the solid foundations of the map and wide consultation with the profession, we’re now ready to announce a transformational evolution in our membership structure.
The most immediately visible change is the introduction of a completely new level of professional membership. The new associate member level will sit below the existing chartered member and chartered fellow levels. It will enable us to provide real professional recognition for the thousands of HR professionals who are making a substantial contribution to the organisations they work for, but who are not yet at chartered member standard.
But the new associate member level of membership is no soft option. It’s not CIPD-lite. To access the new level, professionals will need to meet certain criteria; we’ve used the map to clearly and rigorously set these out. The requirements are robust enough to bear the weight of real assessment: assessment that covers not only what you know but also what you do – and how you do it.
It is this focus on knowledge, activity and behaviours – and their assessment in the workplace – that is the real revolution. This extends well beyond the new associate level of membership. We’ll be applying this approach just as firmly to the entry requirements for chartered member and chartered fellow. The new approach marks a shift from a past where our primary focus was on requesting people to demonstrate attainment in the classroom, to a future where our firm focus will be on demonstrating impact in the workplace. New assessment processes will be in place for the middle of 2010, and we’ll be sharing more details with members early in the new year.
So what does it actually mean in practice? The first thing to say is that qualifications will remain a key part of the route into membership for many. Knowledge will continue to be underpinned and most readily demonstrated by qualifications. But we’ll also be requiring future applicants for the professional levels of membership to demonstrate their impact in the workplace. This will need to be backed up, wherever appropriate, by input from managers, colleagues and clients – the people we work alongside in our professional lives. You could look at it as a kind of 360-degree appraisal process to demonstrate true professional competence.
We’re confident that this will raise the bar in terms of membership standards, without being onerous – we’re aware of the level of contribution our members and aspiring members make in the workplace, day in, day out. We’re also clear that the new, robust criteria will make it possible for us to offer new routes into professional membership: routes relevant to the thousands of practitioners out there already operating at a senior level, having entered the profession from other disciplines, or having worked their way up without a CIPD qualification. These people are a valuable part of our profession, but we’ve not had the framework before to robustly measure their contribution, and therefore to award a badge of professional competence.
By making these changes, we’re setting a new gold standard for the profession. What we’ve set out to build are badges of competence that are powerfully relevant to employers and HR professionals. For employers, the rigour of the criteria we’ve established will provide a real assurance that they are hiring someone who can give them what they need in the workplace. And, by extension, for the individual we’re offering a badge of competence that will, more than ever before, enhance their career prospects by being truly portable from employer to employer, sector to sector, and around the globe.
When we told people about the journey we were on as little as a year ago, many told us we couldn’t achieve what we’d set out to achieve in the timescales we’d set for ourselves. But we have. I’m proud of the work we’ve done. And I’m confident that with the map and our new membership criteria we’ve established a standard that will enhance the career prospects and professional standing of the next generation of HR professionals. So we’re able to put our hands on our hearts and say that we’re contributing to the delivery of a profession that is truly fit for the future.
The CIPD HR Profession Map
The CIPD’s new HR profession map sets out what HR practitioners need to know and do, and how they need to go about doing it at all stages in their careers, be they specialists or generalists, working in the UK or internationally. It was created with input from HR practitioners drawn from every size of organisation and across every sector.
Its three-dimensional structure allows us to consider the knowledge and activities required to demonstrate competence across 10 professional areas and four different levels within HR careers. The third dimension is the behaviours – how you do what you do. And it is designed to be flexible and dynamic enough to set out clearly what is required today, while also being capable of adapting to the future requirements of the profession. The map provides a framework to help navigate your own professional career paths. It underpins our approach to qualifications and membership levels. But we’ll also be using it to provide online assessment tools to help you plot the next steps in your career, as well as using it to develop new advice, guidance, tools and services to help professionals progress from the beginning of their careers to the very pinnacle of the profession.
Professor David Farnham, Portsmouth University and CIPD author:
“I think it’s very appropriate that definitions of professional competence at all levels should be based on both knowledge acquisition and practical application. Qualifications are important, but so too is the ability to demonstrate application of knowledge in the workplace. This will benefit the profession and everyone involved in it.”
Sue Roberts, professional HR consultant and member of the CIPD’s membership and education committee:
“I’ve seen the immense amount of work that has gone into these changes. The new approach to membership is grounded firmly in the impressive HR profession map.
I believe the new approach to levels of CIPD membership will create even stronger badges of professional competence for the HR professionals of the future.”
Tanith Dodge, HR director, Marks and Spencer:
“The world has changed since I started out in HR. Then, the main focus was on practical skills – recruitment, training and the like. Now you need more. You need to demonstrate an understanding of business strategy, and an ability to apply that understanding, working in partnership with the senior people in the business, to contribute to organisational performance. The CIPD’s map and new approach to membership reflect these changes, and will help to boost capability in the profession.”
Siobhan Sheridan, HR director, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
“I see an HR profession today where people enter at different levels, often from different disciplines, bringing transferable skill sets. One of the strengths of this new approach to membership is that I can see the CIPD will be able to assess and recognise the contribution these people are making to the profession, often at the most senior levels, in a consistent and rigorous way. It is the way that it is so firmly grounded in the workplace that appeals most strongly to me.”