Hello, and best wishes for the New Year.

As the CIPD marches towards its centenary in June, we’re in a celebratory mood, looking back with pride, and a dash of nostalgia, but also firmly focused on the future.

I’ve been in post here at the CIPD for six months. It’s been fascinating getting to know the organisation, and meeting and hearing views from a wide range of people, from HR Directors, members and branch volunteers to Government ministers and civil servants, agencies and institutes, academics and thought leaders.

Now, with the beginning of the New Year, I thought it would be a good time to share with you my thinking about our strategy and future direction.

Faster responses to a changing world

It has been striking to me the level of goodwill and trust that exists towards the CIPD. There’s a widespread pride and sense of collective ownership of our professional body. At the same time, it is clear there are things we need to work on to continue to earn that trust and goodwill, and we have to respond faster to the changing world around us.

I hear positive recognition of the progress of recent years – for example in our standards, driven by the HR Profession Map, new routes to membership, and in the way our research has been driving thinking about the future of the profession.

But I also get a strong sense of ambition for us to do more to respond to the many changes in the world of work and the opportunity for our profession. To engage with business and other leaders to ensure HR and learning and development are playing their part in shaping and building the businesses and organisations of the future. And of course to help define, develop and sustain the professional capabilities needed, with clearer routes to progression to encourage people into the profession and to build their careers.

There are also things we need to change in how we work. We need to become more open, more responsive, and to better recognise and engage with the many different groups and communities we serve – for example learning and training professionals, the consulting community, and being better connected and more relevant to small to medium-sized businesses.

We must also provide more clarity on the strategic themes and challenges which are facing us all and the organisations we serve, and help turn insight into action.  This, in turn, will position us better with the leaders of our profession, as well as with business leaders and policy makers.

Defining our purpose

The first step in reviewing any strategy is clarity of purpose. We've re-evaluated the purpose that drives the CIPD, and redefined it as:

"To champion better work and working lives, through improving people management and development practices to build greater value for individuals and orgnaisations, benefiting economies and society."

This reflects much of what we do already - but sets out a broader ambition that recognises the importance of the roles we all play, and the wider impact we can have.

Our focus and commitments for the future

We’ve reviewed our business and activities, listening closely to the many members, branches, and external stakeholders we’ve spoken to along the way. We’ve focused on improving our core business and support to our membership today, but also looked at how we maintain and grow our relevance, reach and impact in the future. A number of key strategic imperatives have become clear:

• Extending impact and voice – being clear in our research and policy agendas, and open and collaborative to ensure we’re maximising our influence and impact on behalf of the profession, and making better use of the learnings and insights gained
• More flexible standards and means of recognition – including clearer direction for different specialisms, roles and career paths
• New ways of thinking about membership – segmenting our membership offer to recognise the different interests, skills and experience, seniority, and roles that current and potential members have, and better definition of the different professional levels
• Extending our reach and relevance – such as connecting to and supporting small to medium-sized enterprises, building better relationships with consultants who support and influence our profession, and extending our capacity and capability to support organisations as well as individuals
• Strengthening branch networks and outreach – building a regional structure in the UK that can help share best practices, support branches, and bring together broader groups to better interact with local and regional communities and partners
• Clarifying and extending our international presence – responding with a clear strategy and framework to the increasing demand for support internationally, the growing of best practices, and HR and learning skills development and recognition.

This is a broad overview of the main areas we’re working on. I’ll share more of the details over the weeks and months to come. We can’t change everything overnight, but I hope this gives a sense of the breadth of our ambition, and our commitment to deliver real change.

We’re already moving at pace on some critical projects – such as the development of a regional structure in the UK, defining our international strategy, and investing in new systems and infrastructure to improve our processes and responsiveness.

I’ll also have more to say soon on some exciting collaborations – with high profile individuals and organisations – which we’re developing to add extra weight, depth and relevance to a revised framework of research and policy priorities for the CIPD.

As I have said before, I believe there has never been a more interesting or important time for all of us in and around our profession, and I am determined that the CIPD will respond and play its part in shaping the future.

If you have thoughts to add or questions to ask, please comment below or email me at chiefexecutive@cipd.co.uk