Last week I sent this letter to the CEO of CIPD....

Open Letter to Peter Cheese, Chartered Institute of Personnel Development – CIPD

Dear Peter, 

I’m writing to you as a passionate, people practitioner who has devoted the last 15 years to my profession within Human Resources and has diligently paid my membership subscription each year.  I’ll be frank, I’m getting fed up with the CIPD. I hate to break it to you, but I’m not the only one, so too are many other HR professionals. 

 I felt compelled to write this open letter after reading an article in the latest edition of ‘People Management’ - ‘The multibillion-dollar firm with no people team – why some businesses choose to forgo the function and what HR can do about it’ (pp. 38 – 41). I rolled my eyes after reading the first few sentences when the article opened with ‘what can the profession do to prove its worth’….   Here we go again, this is where the fatigue and fed up’ness comes from. For the last 15 years CIPD has had the same rhetoric about HR proving its worth… it’s getting really boring now. Something is clearly wrong with the profession if it’s still suffering with this issue. We need to stop ignoring this fact and do something about it! We have stagnated. We need to start radically innovating… there is a whole movement of us starting to do this work already, with or without CIPD. 

 What annoyed me, was that a progressive, forward thinking, 21st Century Organisation (Octopus Energy), has taken an innovative approach around its people practices and how to best utilise people experts.  Rather than taking the stance of ‘what can we learn from it’, the narrative was ‘what can we do about it’. As a progressive and innovative People Practitioner myself, I want to continuously learn and evolve how I deploy people practices within organisations, this could have been a great learning moment. Instead, the article was peppered with a bland and moaning narrative that focussed on addressing the issue as a PR problem and how HR needs to promote itself better, share more success stories and talk about how excellent we are. It remained somewhat silent on the question raised about why people have had a less than positive experience of the profession. 

 I’ll be bold and say as a profession we are not excellent. Yes, there are many talented and wonderful people who work within HR, but we are bound and constricted by outdated employment legislation and policies that frankly seek to protect against litigation rather than problem solve, resolve conflict, and drive performance. Most HR people know that grievances procedures don’t resolve problems and disciplinary’s are not a ‘learning experience’ (see ACAS). The CIPD should be lobbying for change in legislation that maintains the protection of people in work but is more humane and person-centred. As a starter for ten, why are we still calling ourselves ‘Human Resources’? How outdated is this terminology! Same as CIPD still referencing ‘Personnel’ in its name! I know changing what we call ourselves is the tip of the iceberg, but language is important, it’s how we make sense of the world. 

 I implore the CIPD to stop whingeing and get on and evolve the profession. As mentioned, there is a growing movement within the People Practitioner community calling for change and doing this already. CIPD needs to become part of this movement or risk alienating large swathes of the community. As organisations increasingly change their ways of working, to meet the 21st Century needs of the technology and knowledge economy, People Specialists and the likes of CIPD need to be leading the way on this stuff. 

For the first time in 15 years, I’ve debated whether to renew my CIPD membership. I’m not alone in this consideration either. I’m disenchanted and fed up. I’m holding out one last hope that CIPD still take the reins and lead the forefront of this exciting movement (I’ll be honest though, I’m not convinced). 

To all the People Practitioners out there who crave change and a better way of looking after people in organisations, to those who are open to adapting and evolving in our roles as People Specialists - keep up the good work! Progress is slow but change is coming and COVID has accelerated the scale and pace of change. We need to get uncomfortable, for in the discomfort is where we will evolve and grow – we can’t be protectionist or ignorant anymore, it’s time to innovate. 

Yours sincerely 

Kathryn