Tag: membership

Making Way – I’m Not Renewing My CIPD Membership

I am a supporter of the CIPD and have been for a few years. I’ve done volunteer work through and for them and carried out a small piece of paid work too. In 2013, I decided to join the CIPD to see what being a member felt like. Then, in December 2013 the CIPD invited me to take part in a consultation survey about the future for members. Note: the grammatical errors in the text below are exactly as they appeared in the original invitation.

As a valued CIPD Affiliate member, Id like to get your help and views about some changes we want to make to how we structure CIPD membership and the services we offer to members. We want to ensure were evolving membership to meet the changing needs of the profession. So, through this important consultation survey, wed like to understand the specific professional and personal needs which led you to become an Affiliate Member of CIPD.

I completed the survey, one of the clunkiest and leading (as in leading you towards a conclusion we’ve already reached) pieces of consultation I’ve ever participated in, and subsequently blogged about a few ways the CIPD could cocreate better value for its members. Usually when I take part in a survey I expect to see some results published publicly, or at least shared with the participants. In this case, none were forthcoming and after waiting and feeding back my  disappointment with the absence of feedback, I forgot about my participation – until news of a reshaped membership and fee structure became public.

Student membership fees are being reduced, and I may be wrong but I think every other level of membership is being increased. The membership fee at my level (Affiliate), is going up this year from £138 to £225, an increase of 63% (wouldn’t it be fascinating to see the results of the earlier consultation to see how they correlate with this action?). £225 is not a huge amount of money to me, and I was already sure the fee was going to rise, loads of questions in the survey I mentioned earlier were about putting fees up (hey – just call me Sherlock). Nevertheless, 63% is a big hike, and this prompted me to stop and think, ‘How, if at all, have things changed for me, since becoming a member of the CIPD?’

I’ve been wrestling with the question for a while, and honestly, I’m struggling to come up with an answer. Yes, I now get a monthly magazine in the post, which I confess I always read, and often enjoy, but a lot of other benefits the institute offers, just don’t attract me. On reflection, I’m not surprised, for although my work is all about people, I’m not in HR.

CIPD Profession Map

When I look at the CIPD Profession Map, what interests me is most of the behavioural stuff around the edge of the circle, plus two or three of the professional areas. These things are not the preserve of HR, far from it – and to be fair to the CIPD I don’t think they seem themselves as being the sole custodians and guardians of this stuff either. But the point is, I don’t need to be a member to sharpen my own practice in these things.

If you’d like to play with the map and see how it could work for you – click on the picture and you’ll be taken to the CIPD website interactive version.

I can see value for people in the profession and for people interested in pursuing and retaining professional qualifications, but for me in particular, and for Affiliates in general, I think it’s far less clear what the value proposition is. So – I’m calling a halt to my experiment. I will continue to provide support and constructive criticism as I have done since I became aware of the CIPD, but I will no longer be doing this as a member.

Instead of renewing my own membership, I’d like to offer to pay for two student membership renewals at the new rate of £90. That feels like a much more useful, and potentially valuable course of action to me. Are you a student member of the CIPD, and would you like one of these renewal offers? If you would, then please contact me so we can work out a way to get the money to you. First come – first served.

Update : I received lots of interest to my offer to map for two student member subscriptions, and I’m pleased that I was able to assist a couple of people along the road with their career development.

Creating Greater Value for CIPD Members

Back in August 2013 I shared some thoughts with the CIPD on how they could move the relationship with their members from something that currently feels quite transactional to something of greater shared value. I mapped out a few things, not including fees and qualifications, which I’ve been meaning to share with you ever since. Yesterday evening I received an email from the CIPD asking me to complete a survey about some of this stuff in my capacity as an affiliate member:

I’d like to get your help and views about some changes we want to make to how we structure CIPD membership and the services we offer to members. We want to ensure we’re evolving membership to meet the changing needs of the profession. So, through this important consultation survey, we’d like to understand the specific professional and personal needs which led you to become an Affiliate Member of CIPD.

I have completed the survey, and because I think this stuff is important and has relevance to people beyond the current membership of the CIPD, here’s what I previously shared with the CIPD:

Creating Greater Value for CIPD Members

This map is more about questions than answers, and I’ll now try and explain a little more of what I was thinking when I drew it up. I’d be really interested in your questions and comments too, whether you’re a member or not.

Participation

An important of feeling a part of a community is participation, whether that is attending local branch events, using the thriving online communities space, taking advantage of membership offers or any number of other things. What does participation mean for CIPD members and how, if they want it, can it happen most effectively?

Events

What opportunities are there for interaction at events? There are plenty, and even though the CIPD has worked hard at the online side of things in recent years, I think that went up another few notches at the annual conference in November. Live streaming some sessions meant that plenty of people who weren’t there were able to get a feel for what is important to the profession. What else could be done to include people unable to be there in person? The HRUnscrambled fringe session Meg Peppin and I facilitated went well and I hope that side of things can be developed in future. How about the way in which speakers are engaged? Could members have a say on some of the content, and who is asked to deliver it? Could you use technology to gather live feedback to inform the dialogue during an event and to get event feedback in the moment?

Communications

I’ve already mention the CIPD online communities which serve members here in the UK well. How can the CIPD reach out and engage with other HR professionals internationally? There have been improvements in the quality of content in People Management magazine – what else could be done to help the flow of information, in all directions?

Consultation

What are the best ways of keeping in touch, of finding out what’s hot and what’s not? There are a number of different methods the CIPD could use to source opinions from members, and importantly, from other interested parties too. Involving people beyond your core community is often overlooked or undervalued when looking to do things differently. With the technology available, reach should not be a problem and for what it’s worth, I think that wide online reach is well supplemented with some more in depth conversational stuff too. As a member or not, what might you expect? Maybe some of the best known HR blogs (People Management published a recommended reading list recently) could form a part of that consultative web?

Broadening Membership

There are a number of professions and organisations the CIPD might work with in order to increase reach and relevance. I wonder what ex members would have to say about the CIPD, and I wonder what might encourage some of them to rejoin? How about the Learning and Development profession? There seems to be a groundswell of interest around L&D again lately, how might that be developed? And what of the many managers out there who are responsible for teams of people and just need some advice and help from time to time. What opportunities could be created to give those people access to important and useful research and more?

Hopefully this will give you some food for thought. This map is not exhaustive, it’s bound to have gaps and as you spot them perhaps you’d like to fill them in?