CIPD Diaries- The CIPD Profession Map (2018) & Values

I am so excited to share that after much thought and consideration over the past year, I have finally decided to start my CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development) Level 5 Diploma in People Management qualification, whilst carrying out my full-time job as an Operations Manager at Embryo. I am a huge advocate for doing as much as we can to develop our own skillset, both personally and professionally, so, having this qualification will help me to strengthen my HR knowledge in people management, which is exactly what I enjoy doing! Whilst I am studying the course, I will also be able to apply my knowledge in my everyday practice, therefore, bringing a wider benefit to the company, as we consistently grow and develop our team. 

Here is my first official diary entry for my CIPD diaries, so that I can share my journey every step of the way over the next 12-18 months. My first unit focuses on ‘Professional Behaviours & Valuing People’. 

Purpose

You will see in the image that ‘purpose’ is at the heart of the profession map. CIPD (2018) suggests that the purpose of the people profession is to promote better work and working lives. Everyone related to the world of work has a responsibility to deliver this. Surrounding ‘purpose’, you will see the three key aspects that contribute to delivering in people practice:

• Evidence-based

Having the ability to back up and support your decisions from a variety of sources, provides you with much more value and credibility. It is important to put forward the ‘why’ with any supporting theory or evidence you have identified when putting your case across.

• Outcomes-driven

The people profession should make an impact on every level when encouraging better work and working lives. We should consider the impact on a personal, professional and social level. 

• Principles-led

Three key principles should be considered to making good decisions: work matters, people matters,  and professionalism matters. Work should drive a positive outcome to society and benefit each individual apart of it. It should create a purpose for us to be able to utilise our skills and knowledge effectively. People should have the opportunity to work and be provided with the support they need to develop within their roles. People have the right to be treated fairly, allowing them to have a voice on matters that affect them. Within the people profession, professionalism matters mean that we are all advocates for the above, and we must act with integrity, ensuring that we promote continuous learning and development, ensuring that we make values-based decisions. We must assess and understand the implications of our decisions and the impact they have, not only within our organisation but across society. 

There are 6 key areas of core knowledge below that you need to be aware of to consider yourself an expert on people.

Core knowledge 

• People practice
• Culture & behaviour 
• Analytics & creating value
• Change
• Business acumen
• Digital working

There are 8 core behaviours that have been identified through academic research, that we must take into account to be an effective people professional.

Core behaviours 

• Ethical practice
• Professional courage & influence
• Valuing people
• Working inclusively
• Commercial drive
• Passion for learning
• Situational decision-making
• Insights focused

CIPD (2018) suggest 9 key areas of specialist knowledge within the people profession:

Specialist Knowledge 

• Employee experience
• Employee relations
• Diversity & inclusion
• Learning & development
• Reward
• Talent management
• Resourcing
• Organisation development & design
• People analytics

Now that we have gone through the profession map, let’s take a look at values and how we apply those to people practice. 

What are values? 

We all each have our very own values that we live by. Our values allow us to provide a level of importance and priority to the actions we carry out every single day. There are three types of values: professional, organisational, and personal values:

Professional values are those that are established within a specific profession, for example, doctors will act in an altruistic and empathetic way throughout their careers. 

Organisational values are established within a company to reflect what they stand for a business. This helps to create internal processes and policies that employees can therefore uphold to ensure that they act and behave within those values, to best represent the organisation. 

Personal values are what we as individuals represent and find of importance to us. For example, my personal core three values are hard work, development, and honesty. 

When applying values to people practice, it is important to start to establish this from within the organisation and not at the recruitment phase. If a business does not identify and understand its values, then how will employees know how to act and behave? The process must start from within the organisation to establish the correct policies and procedures to put in place. It is at this point, that you can then incorporate values into your recruitment process. This avoids the risk of new members of staff becoming disengaged once they realise that the culture of the organisation was not what was initially set out to them in the interview phase.

I think many businesses overlook the benefits of establishing values, and how important it is for their employees to be aware of them. Here at Embryo, we have established the four key values that we operate by day-to-day: 

As a business, we actively promote our values from within the organisation and nominate who we think best reflected our company values that month and why. Once all of the votes have been submitted, we share the positive feedback with the team in our company-wide town hall meeting, providing us with a positive end to the month and motivating us for the following month ahead.  Now it’s time for you to reflect on your personal and organisational values, if you are an employee, do you know what they are? If you are an employer, have you made your values clear to the team? Once you are aware and understand these, you may start to understand people’s behaviour more and the way we each react to different situations. In turn, championing better work and working lives which as we know, is the key purpose of people practice and profession. 

References

CIPD Staff. (2019). Principles-led. Explore the three key principles to making good decisions. Available: https://peopleprofession.cipd.org/profession-map/core-purpose/principles-led. [Accessed 6th April 2021] 

CIPD Staff. (2018). Explore the new profession map. Face the challenges of today and the future with confidence. Available: https://www.cipd.org/uk/the-people-profession/the-profession-map/  [Accessed 6th April 2021] 

CIPD Staff. (2018). The CIPD Profession Map. Available: https://www.cipd.org/uk/the-people-profession/the-profession-map/. [Accessed 6th April 2021]