CIPD Profession Map 2020

The Profession Map helps practitioners in all fields make the right decisions to support organisational performance and progress. The map has core knowledge areas, core behaviours and specialist knowledge areas that guide professionals in driving organisational change. The Profession Map is relevant not only to the CIPD practitioners, but also to other professionals taking charge of different roles within organisations.  The Profession Map is as shown in the figure below with the relevant areas;

Figure 1: The Profession Map

In each area, there are expectations that professionals should meet in order to excel and progress in their careers. Professionals consider these areas to be the standards that support their behaviours and knowledge in the different levels. Professionals identify their levels depending on the representations that they make in their different fields. CIPD has developed four levels that people move through as they progress in their careers. As the professionals move through those levels, their roles become strategic and this helps them to perform in the best way they can to create personal and organisational impacts. Professionals should seek to find out the descriptions of each level on the identified areas to make sure that they understand elements or issues that represent their work. The four levels as developed by CIPD include;

Foundation level

At the foundation level, professionals engage in tactical work as they work on delivering daily organisational tasks. The information on all the specified areas of the Profession Map helps one understand the nature of work they are engaged in, the organisation they work for and their professionalism to meeting the required standards. Professionals work directly with colleagues, customers and managers to deliver immediate organisational outcomes.

Associate level

Professionals in the Associate Level deliver complex tasks and work to keep the organisation operational. They engage in critical thinking as they use available information to manage and complete their tasks. Associate level professionals make personal informed choices and decisions to create short-term value for their own selves and for the wider audiences.

Chartered Member level

Chartered professionals are strategic thinkers and deal with complex issues that are significant to the people and the organistaion. The professionals analyse information to make critical decisions influencing people and organisations. Chartered members work with different stakeholders to create value to the wider audiences in need of their support.

Chartered Fellow level

Professionals in this level are strategic thinkers and work to deliver complex organisational issues as they also drive change in the workplace. Chartered Fellow professionals work with other professionals to create people value and improve on organisational functions.

Core knowledge

Core knowledge is required for experts to deliver work roles and drive change in organisations. Core knowledge support people into becoming effective practitioners taking charge of the different assignments that they have to work on to deliver value to people and organisations. There are six core knowledge areas that professional require to create value and impact change in the world of work. They include;

1. People practice

People practice is a core knowledge area that guides professionals on understanding the knowledge that drives people to work and change. People practice is relevant to professionals who tend to evaluate the different ways people work together and impact each other in the workplace. Examples of people practices include but are not limited to;

• Creating talent pools
• Developing policies to guide people in the workplace
• Analysing data on people in the workplace
• Recruiting employees
• Managing grievances

The fundamental people practices for all professionals guide them I following laws and regulations, planning for organisational workforce, improving on performance management, developing employee well-being and creating flexible working for the employees.

2. Culture and behaviour

Understanding organisational culture is very important for all people professionals for them to be able to have a common knowledge and understanding of their culture and behaviours to be able to influence each other.

Professionals learn culture and behaviours is to help learners understand the different leadership practices, the way different ethical perspectives, and their impact. Professionals give people a meaningful voice that influences their behaviours positive and unlocks their potential enhancing organisational culture. They learn how to affect employees’ engagement, promote learning and development and create awareness on different ways that can be used to approach different situations for both individuals and teams in an organisation. They also get to identify on how to develop the strength to withstand and be able to handle from different challenges in an organisation.

The objective of culture and behaviours is to help learners understand the different culture and behaviours standards.

3. Business Acumen

People professionals need to understand the whole organisation and its contribution to supporting organisational stakeholders including employees, customers and the society. Understanding organisations means evaluating the external trends and internal issues that impact organisational success. Understanding the wider organisation helps professionals add and create value towards promoting organisational sustainability and organisational development. Understanding the business acumen also helps professionals become aware of the business skills needed to manage organisational operations. Some of these skills include understand of the business model, knowledge on financial literacy needed to manage the organisation and strategic planning skills. It is through these skills that professionals get to understand the world of work and deliver success through the various organisational issues impacting organisational success and performance. For the different levels, professionals need to understand the concept as represented in the table below.

4. Evidence-based Practice

Evidence-based practice involves using data, information, evidence, and insight to make organisational decisions. It is a core knowledge area that people professionals consider while making structured people and organisational decisions. They also use the data and evidence to develop solutions to the challenges experienced in the workplace. Evidence-based practice is considered worthwhile in the work done by different practitioners to establish positive business outcomes. Using stakeholders’ insight and organisational data and evidence helps practitioners identify possible business risks and problems. It is through the data and evidence that people professionals learn of the different needs and concerns that professionals manage to support organisational stakeholders and positive business outcomes.  In each of the four levels of professionalism, different insights have been explained to explain professional roles and responsibilities as they move up to engaging in more complex strategic actions to support the organisation. The insights are as shown in the table below;

5. Technology and People

The knowledge area brings an understanding of how technology impacts people and their work within the organisation. Technology is the source of workforce productivity and facilitates collaborative working. It brings about agility among workers. Technology is very crucial in the changing nature of work where changed patterns of work have been implemented. For example with the Covid-19 pandemic and the implemented people practices, practitioners have resulted to hybrid and remote working. With these changes, the practitioners have been using technology to complete their roles and achieve organisational goals. Employers are responsible in providing the right technology to support organisational functioning and identify opportunities that maximise technology benefits. Professionals at the different levels have to understand the following issues relating to technology and people.

6. Change

Change is a core knowledge area that professionals should always be aware of for them to know how to enable and manage change. People professionals are always driving organisational change in organisations to support people and organisational success. They introduce new working approaches and develop measures that support the change. Professionals need to learn how to create change, plan on how to implement change, and deliver changes to support organisational operations. Creating a culture that supports change is a responsibility that professionals should be keen to achieve, by making sure that the right people are engaged in the change process. Changes introduced in the workplace should be innovative and creative to create long-term organisational success. In ach standard or level of professionalism, workers need to understand change elements as explained in the table below.

Core behaviours

Core behaviours provide the foundation for professional engagement in decision-making. Core behaviours provide the universal and consistent ways that professionals guide professionals in all situations, whether new or challenging. People professionals focus on core behaviours to make decisions. The core behaviours developed by CIPD include ethical practice, professional courage and influence, valuing people, working inclusively, commercial drive, passion for learning, insights focused and situational decision-making.

      1. Ethical practice

Ethical practice is the first core behaviour that guides the decisions made by professionals in their different practice and contribution to organisation success. Being ethical means following the moral compass to doing the right things. Ethical practice is crucial for professionals involved in making organisational decisions to ensure that decisions made are right. Making wrong organisational decisions have negative impacts on the people and may affect the organisation reputation. Professionals in this case should be principles and live by values that support good work practice. When organisational decisions have positive outcomes, it is possible for professionals to ethically manage organisation issues and ensure that people get the right treatment. There is need for professionals to become engaged in the decision-making process, which has to be a transparent process to support professional principles, values and integrity. Ethical practice in the different levels of professionalism is as described in the table below, showing the professional contribution on the relations that people have with each other.

      2. Professional Courage and Influence

People professionals have the obligation to influence others and create a positive organisational reputation. They need to have the ability and courage to manage challenges and make the right decisions to support others. Professionals need courage and influence in different cases experienced in the workplace. For example when seeking to introduce and implement change in the workplace, professionals should have the ability to influence others and manage challenges that they experience in their workplace. Professionals also need courage when they have made mistakes, and ensure that they become responsible for the mistakes. Additionally, professionals need to build relationships with others to learn how they can effectively influence them. Communication is an important element and skill that professionals need when managing different organisational challenges. The issues that professionals need to learn in managing the behaviours to influence others are as described in the four levels of professionalism.

      3. Valuing People

Valuing people is a knowledge area that creates purpose and value to the people with the purpose to promote people capability. Valuing people is an approach that balances people considerations, building compassion for them and creating fairness. Professionals should identify with behaviours that support people’s voices. Professionals need to be engaged in coaching managers and leaders, and ensure that they support management capability to create a culture that supports people development and improved people well-being. The professionals in the different levels need to understand their responsibilities as discussed in the table below.

      4. Working inclusively

This core behaviour guides professionals as they get to work across boundaries to achieve effective outcomes. Working inclusively means that professionals have to guide people to work together and should be ready to listen to the different voices that the employees have. Professionals should be involved in creating a culture that supports collaboration and inclusivity, create relationships that make them feel engaged and work to manage any form of conflict that may arise from the diversity differences. Working inclusively supports high collaboration level among the employees. In the different levels of CIPD, professionals are engaged in different activities and responsibilities as shown below.

       5. Commercial drive

The core behaviour element identifies people professionals’ involvement in approaches that support commercial drive and engage customers to delivering organisational values. Professionals work on identifying and focusing on the values that people need to fully support their workplaces and the general business operations. Professionals gave to partner with customers to promote commercial drive, become involved in businesses when creating change and being fully engaged in practices that support delivery of organisational responsibilities. Commercial drive has significant influence on organisational success and performance, and contributes greatly to organisations achieving competitive advantage. Professionals’ responsibility in supporting commercial drive enhances delivery of value to the organisation. Professionals are also expected to take responsibility in personally motivating their won selves and taking care when delivering work to support improved people and organisational success. The table below identifies with the professional’s understanding and responsibilities towards promoting commercial drive standards.

      6. Passion for learning

Passion for learning is a core behaviour that professionals commit to personal and professional development for their own selves and for others. Professionals are expected to be curious to learn and develop, and at the same time they should take advantage of the available opportunities to learn and improve in their work. Professionals need to connect with others, become innovative and develop approaches that help them obtain feedback on their development progress. The professionals’ approaches should be a reflection of what they learn, the skills they develop and the knowledge they use in decision-making and problem solving. Through learning, professionals learn how to do things differently and appropriately, which is he basis to improving work in the organisation. personal development in the organisation supports development of other people as well, which enhances value creation. The activities and professional responsibilities in the different CIPD levels supporting the core behaviour area on passion for learning are as described below.

      7. Insights focused

Insights focused core behaviour supports professionals as they strive to understand problems and diagnose solutions to those problems. It is a behavioural element that evaluate the useof evidence to develop people’s insights. The steps to evidence-based practice in creating insights include asking the right questiona, acquiring evidence from the responses given on the asked questions, assessing evidence and making an aggregate to understand the whole work situations and the implications that the issues have to the wider organisation. With the identified steps, professionals become aware of the challenges facing organisations and are focused on making appropriate decisions to support people professionals and at the organisation as well. The insights focused standards in the four levels of CIPD are as described below.

      8. Situational decision making

Situational decision-making core behaviour influences the actions and the decisions that professionals make in different work situations. In the changing nature of work, different decisions made may need to change and the professionals should be flexible to adapt to making new decisions to adapt to the changes. Professionals need to consider specific situations that they find the organisation in before making final decisions. This behaviour relates with the approach that no-size-fits-all strategy as thus means that there is need to be flexible in making different choices to support organisation success. Situational decision-making creates a platform to evaluating the future organisational practices and create diligence on all organisational issues. The situational decision-making standards in the foundation, associates, chartered member, and chartered fellow levels are as described in the table below.

Specialist knowledge

Specialist knowledge is broad with nine disciplines that show and guide professionals on how they should apply expertise to create positive organisational and people outcomes. People professionals focus on deepen their understanding on either of the disciplines to create their career paths. Professionals choose their career paths in either of the following disciplines or areas of expertise.

     1. Employee experience

Employee experience is everything that employees are exposed to during their employment period right from recruitment, learning and development, daily duties, working materials, their workmates, clients, the management and retention. Understanding employee experience in an organization is very crucial for all people professionals as it creates a culture of engagement with all the workers considering their wellbeing for growth and development in an organization to take place. Employee experience helps an organization and its employees are able to work in harmony ensuring that both personal and organizational goals and objectives are met. Setting both employees and organisational goals is essential in having a good employee experience. People professionals help the employees become the best they can. Nurturing talents proactively at work has an impact in performance, employees tend to perform best in organisations where they are supported and their efforts are appreciated. HR should be transformed to become more sensitive and focused in ensuring their interaction with employees is simple and active to be able to gather information on what the employees wants thinks and their expectations. The employee experiences in the different CIPD levels are as described in the table below;

   2. Employee Relations

Employee relations focuses on developing relationships between employees and the organisation. Positive relationships are established when both parties become transparent and follow the legal legislations that guide their behaviours and actions. People professionals develop organisation policies and practices that form the culture that supports the relationships between people and organisations. Specialists working to promote employee relations develop engagements that seek to bring the best outcome for people and for the organisations they work for. Disputes are prone to happen in organisations and employee relations specialists play significant roles in managing the disputes and developing solutions to problems faced by people in the workplace. The employee relations specialists are considered the voice of employees, they help them adapt to change and focus on developing a culture where they support each other towards achieving organisation success. The insights on different CIPD levels relating to employee relations are as described in the table below.

   3. Inclusion and Diversity

Inclusion and diversity in creating a culture that is diverse for everyone to be able to grow. Inclusion is the act of ensuring value in people’s differences enabling them to grow together. Everyone should feel that they belong and that they are valued and respected regardless of their background and identity. Diversity recognises the differences in different employees and acknowledges the importance of having everyone being involved in decision making at work. An organisation that values inclusion and diversity enables employees to work together in harmony and effectively achieving their goals and objectives. Diversity and inclusion promotes development and advancement of the underrepresented and creates discrimination free working environment hence promoting productivity. It creates a culture of recognition and acknowledgement of differences and provides all employees with the necessary support and good environment to offer their full potential. People professionals specialise in inclusion and diversity to identifying, attracting and retaining talent from diverse groups, promote understanding of the uniqueness of diverse cultures, promote professional development with team members and facilitate acquisition of the attitudes, skills and intelligence to operate in various cultures. All professionals in the different CIPD Profession Map need insight on inclusion and diversity as explained in the table below.

   4. Learning and Development

Learning and development is the process of creating empowerment to employees by offering essential skills that are relevant in enhancing their personal growth needs and better organisational performance. It helps in creating of a culture and a good environment in an organisation that supports learning and growth of its employees. Various learning methods include; 1) One on one learning where the learner and the tutor are together. This offers high quality interaction and  it can be tailored to meet learner’s needs which is very important in understanding what one is being taught. 2) Digital learning method where the learner and the tutor do not require being physically together. It is a very important training method for it gives the learners a chance to learn virtually from wherever they are. 3) Social collaboration method where learners share knowledge and information among themselves. It is also important as it has no limitations of being binding in a set of learning materials. In the different levels of CIPD profession Map, learn get insight on different issues as discussed in the table below.

   5. Organisation Development and Design

Organisation development and design is a specialised knowledge area where people professionals engage in approaches effective to develop systems and behaviours needed to promote organisation performance. Organisation development and design helps organisations and personnel understand the current and the desired state of work. It is an area where practitioners identify opportunities available to support people individually, teams and support the whole organisation when creating and implementing change. Positive changes in the workplace are attained by considering the hard and soft HR elements. Hard HR elements include organisation systems, structures, policies and framework. Soft HR elements include organisation values, culture, people capabilities, behaviours and established relationships. In the four CIPD levels, the professionals are expected to understand issues as presented in the table below.

  6. People Analytics

People analytics is the specialised knowledge area where people professionals gather data and use the information obtained to make comprehensive and appropriate decisions. Experts and practitioners understand the different issues affecting people and organisations, and evaluate them to make the right organisational decisions. People analytics involves developing questions for people to respond to and understanding the different techniques that support evaluation of the different issues and challenges experienced in the workplace. Practitioners learn of how to use different methodologies to explore people and business problems, which is important in designing solutions to address the challenges. The data that practitioners collect has to be analysed and interpreted to create meaning and help in making the right organisation decisions. Insights on people analytics in the different CIPD levels is enhanced to ensure that the professionals become intelligent in making decisions and developing recommendations to manage organisation issues.

  7. Resourcing

Resourcing is a specialist knowledge area that focuses on attracting and recruiting personnel to work in the right position and at the right time and cost. Resourcing focuses on planning for the organisation workforce to ensure that businesses attract the right candidates who are diverse and will bring diverse values to the workplace. People professionals who specialise on resourcing should have insight on the experiences that candidates go through as they seek for job opportunities. They should have knowledge on the best selection approaches that will enhance recruitment of the right people. The recruitment decisions should be effective to support achievement of organisation goals and objectives. The specialists also need to understand and analyse the labour market characteristics, the market position and its impact on organisation development and success, and the engagement of people to the organisation through resourcing. The learning needs for specialists in different levels of CIPD Profession map are as presented in the table below

  8. Reward

Rewarding is a strategy that works on compensating employees with regards to what they do, according to the organisational culture and context and in line with the market environment. People professionals specialising in the rewards professional area are responsible in developing reward packages that are in line with the legislation. This means that employees should be given equal pay, gender gap differences have to be minimised and equality pay has to be enhanced. Professionals and employees link rewards to improved organisational performance. This means that rewarding employees has to be a priority to support improved organisation and people performances. Reward packages and offers are the reflections of the organisation culture. People professionals should understand that rewarding employees means that they value them and support them in their work. The reward packages in an organisation may also have an impact on whether an organisation is able to attract and engage new employees. Thus is an element of competitiveness in the market where businesses operate.

 9. Talent Management

Talent management as a specialist knowledge helps people professionals to understand the kind of talent existing in an organisation, talent needed and HR role in identifying talent whose values relate to organisational values. People professionals use workforce data to identify talent in an organisation, find out people engagement levels in the workplace, and plan on how to manage and retain talent. Among the various ways identified to managing talent, include development of programmes necessary to address the needs and concerns that individual employees have, and which affect their decisions to stay or leave the organisation. Different approaches to managing talent have been developed both within and outside organisations, to ensure that businesses and people professionals partner with talent pools to support talent management. Talent management aims at maximising employee potential by identifying the talent, promoting people engagement and effective planning. As each standard progresses in the CIPD levels, talent management approaches and impacts are as described in the table below.