Peter Cheese, Chief Executive, CIPD:
Recent weeks have again shown that we can take little for granted in the economy and, for the public sector, budget cuts remain the order of the day. It’s not surprising that cost-cutting is topping the agendas of many organisations, but it’s also good to see from our recent HR Outlook survey of business and HR leaders that innovation is, for the first time, a key priority for both groups. This is an opportunity for our profession not only to innovate ourselves, but to play a role in fostering cultures of innovation across the organisations in which we work.
We’ve already seen a lot more innovative HR and L&D practice in recent years, and the People Management Awards (open for entry this month) are a great showcase for this. But we’re starting to see shifts in the very construct of work and employment relationships, so ensuring that we support the needs of the modern workforce calls for a new order of innovation.
We need to be confident enough to challenge ourselves, and our organisations, in this changing context, to ask questions, look at different options and ideas and focus on the purpose or outcome of what we are trying to do – not just do things because that’s the way they’ve always been done, or from a notion of best practice. It’s about working smarter, not just harder. We also know that innovation and creativity come from diversity of perspectives and experience, and this is one of the areas in which HR can make a big difference.
Nine out of 10 HR professionals agree that they have an important role to play in improving social mobility – in other words, removing some of the barriers preventing organisations from recruiting and developing more diverse workforces. At the very least, we can ensure recruitment and selection processes are accessible and fair to all, and it’s encouraging to see the greater focus and innovation in practices now happening. However, there’s still much to do in helping raise awareness of different career paths and opportunities across different sectors, and opening up opportunities for people with different social and educational backgrounds. We must challenge perceptions and practices within our organisations to help create the working cultures that support more diversity and progression for all.
The CIPD will continue to work hard to promote careers in HR and L&D to a wide range of audiences; for example, through wider engagement with students, careers fairs, promotion of HR through online platforms like Plotr, and the careers pages of our own website. And we’ve created new routes into the profession, such as the Higher Apprenticeship in HRM.
It’s also important that our profession reflects the greater diversity we want to support in organisations. Many sectors and jobs still have a strong gender stereotype, such as the male-dominated industries of engineering and IT, but we also need to recognise the predominantly female demographic of HR that has built up over the years. It may be the case that some careers will always be more attractive to particular groups, or to people from certain backgrounds, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to break down stereotypes or barriers to social mobility.
Last month’s New year, New you parody front cover of People Management sparked an unintentional debate on just this topic (and many of you will be relieved to see that it didn’t mark a change in direction for the magazine). Diversity will be a key driver for our continued ability to innovate and grow as a profession, and we look forward to engaging with many of you in the future to advance this debate further.
