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In the future in the HR profession, could people get Chartered or Fellow membership based on longevity & not level of experience?

Andre

We all know both the current state of the HR jobs market and how different and difficult it is today compared to this time 20-40 years ago. Very few roles to go around, intense competition for each and every one, and a structural and systemic imbalance in terms that it's quite common nowadays to need the CIPD 7 and a Masters / PhD and the Associate Membership just to get your foothold into the profession and land an entry level role such as an HR Administrator, which 20-40 years ago was more commonly reserved for school or college leavers with just GCSEs and / or A Levels. Over qualification inflation and course devaluation due to excess supply and low demand in a crowded jobs market. If everyone holds a BA degree, it's commonality and lack of scarcity becomes the new GCSE. Technology, automation, robotisation, downsizing, offshoring and management delayering as part of global business process re-engineering trends also play a part here.        

As an analogy, it's very similar in the legal profession that due to the near impossibility of getting a Solicitor training contract or a Barrister pupillage due to the numbers of opportunities and candidates nationwide, many people with the LPC, BVC and MA have to settle to become a Paralegal, Legal Administrator / Assistant, Legal Executive,  Legal Recruitment Consultant or a Legal Secretary, and maybe hope to get it after 10 years+ 

Put another way, your job role title level and formal educational qualification level no longer automatically correspond, match and correlate together. 'Some people' in HR however also manage to do it the other way and get ahead without paper qualifications as they can somehow by hook or crook 'get the experience.'      

However, a more disturbing trend and pattern that I have recently noticed (depending on how you view it or not) is that what technically happens if the presumed 'temporary solution' actually starts to become permanent in nature, and then gradually turns into your actual long term career role and level in terms of yes, you did manage to break into HR and have worked in HR based on having the CIPD 7 et al, but then (for a variety of reasons and circumstances outside of your direct control) if never actually goes any further or deeper than that?   

In short, you start out as an HR Administrator and then subsequently cannot get beyond, above or off that level despite having and holding all the relevant papers? After a decade you are still one.  

Would such a scenario be somehow viewed by the profession as a type of  'partial success'  that yes, you did manage to get into HR, work in HR, hold an HR role and gain HR experience along with the CIPD 7, but you also could not move beyond that point, grade, band and pay scale either?      

If this structural and systemic problem also goes long term, could you see any possible provision built in for people to get the higher levels of CIPD membership based on their long term service in and to the profession, despite of being unable to obtain the higher level job roles in it at the same time?    

Or otherwise, consider them as a type of 'Associate HR professional'? You are not an HR Manager, HR Advisor or an HRBP, but are a long standing, highly experienced, well respected, liked, knowledgeable and expert HR Administrator / HR Assistant.    

In addition, every profession is like a pyramid that most of the jobs are concentrated on the lower levels and the higher you move up, it tends to thin out accordingly with fewer good roles on the top. Police force hierarchies are a clear indicator of this. They mainly need rank and file Police Officers on the ground fighting crime on a daily basis, but do not require hundreds of Inspectors, Commanders or Assistant Chief Constables. 

I would value all your respective comments on this, as I gradually see this as the direction both the overall UK jobs market and HR profession as a whole is gradually moving in. A glut at the bottom in terms of entry level and trainee roles, with only a smaller number of select and hand picked candidates able to move any further up and into it. 

In summary, it may become that an HR Administrator becomes a postgraduate career role, level, pathway and lifelong career in its own right, with even apprentices trained to be one.          

  • Just to add, Barrister's Clerk is a new career pathway for many with the BVC.

  • I sincerely hope not. Chartered and Fellow grades are designed to certifty that by the application of a high level of knowledge the person has demonstrated through their operational experience those comptencies that are associated with the membership grade. I emphasize certification of applied knowledge through pertinent and increasing experience.

    The fact that 47 years ago I qualified as a lifeguard (to be able to get a summer job in a swimming pool) shouldn't automatically qualify me to become a Fellow of the Royal Lifesaving Society - particularly since I haven't applied that knowledge in the last 40 years.....
  • Hi Andre

    You have made a number of assertions in your opening paragraph of things “we all know” but if you reread the responses to the many other threads in which you have made these assertions, you will find a number of people disagreeing with you with some force and conviction. It is patently untrue that HR is closed to virtually all but those with the highest qualifications. As I recall, you have been adding to your own qualifications but become frustrated because you are not getting job offers.

    You then mention some people who are able to get a foothold in HR “by hook or by crook” as if they are engaging in some kind of manoeuvring to wheedle or trick their way into work but many people get their first job in HR without qualifications - there has been at least one thread on here on the subject of how people got into HR.

    It strikes me that in spite of the strength, number and consistency of the arguments made against your assertions in the many threads you have started, you have rejected all other perspectives and clung to your own beliefs, as witness your opening comments in this thread. Could this provide us with a clue as to why you are finding it so hard to progress? Is it because you are demonstrating through the recruitment process that your mind is closed to any ideas apart from your own?
  • Member CIPD and Fellow CIPD are not long service awards like a gold watch or a letter from the Chairman. But are recognition of professional status and the level of your contribution.

    If we ever move to awarding them based on longevity the CIPD will be finished as a professional organisation.
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    I recognise that it can work for and does happen for other people, but as I am more of a special type of person with an element of 'neurodiversity' added into the mix, it does not work for and / or happen to me or in my case. That has been clearly proven overtime with large volumes of applications and interviews. I belong to a different group of people in society that differ slightly from the mainstream norm who do not have neurodiversity in that respect. Therefore, I have come to accept it overtime, but essentially wish to know that with the cards that I do have dealt with here and to deal with, how far can I make it work or stretch it to work in my specific case?

    People have advised to come to terms with certain circumstances which I have, but what I essentially wish to know and have answered is this:

    The current pattern and evidence to date clearly indicates as a given that I am not going to go or be able to go any further or deeper into this profession from the perspective of job role level. Therefore, what can you do over an extended period of time with advanced level qualifications coupled with working as an HR Administrator? Can one compensate for or bring the other one up in terms that ability has clearly been demonstrated in getting the education even if I could not get the jobs?

    This scenario is just not unique to HR but in other professions and fields over the past as well. I can get the education but cannot get the jobs and after having taken professional advice on the matter, neurodiversity has both emerged and been attributed as a clear indicator and common denominator here in terms of consistent reason(s) of why always others but never myself.

    'They are people who are more normal in that respect, or less unique than I am.'

    Essentially, I don't pick up automatically on the subtleties of social interaction, social communication, social cues and the more unwritten social norms and rules of society, which can be more problematic in any employment based situation or working in more advanced level roles. Certain thing don't come or flow entirely naturally to me and I can't readily do people skills in that respect, which can also be an issue or a red flag in a people management oriented profession.

    In short, I don't automatically get or understand the rules governing human interaction in society, which can easily place question marks and sow doubts in the minds of interviewers if other candidates can or can do more easily.
  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    Here is the scenario which as suggested by professionals can have an effect either on employment or first being selected for employment in the first place, and which I have:

    Difficulties with Social Communication

     Difficulty imagining what others may be thinking or feeling

     Difficulty adapting a communication style to take into account who you are talking to and the social expectations of the situation

     Difficulty ‘reading’ other people and working out their motivations and intentions

     Difficulty of understanding humour and sarcasm

     Difficulty using language to talk about feelings

     Taking things literally

     Tendency to dominate the conversation with personal interests

     Logical and truthful to an extent that may inadvertently be hurtful/irritating to others

    Difficulties with Social Interaction

     Managing social boundaries e.g. identifying ‘safe’ topics of conversation for differing levels of friendship

     Acutely aware of ‘difference’ from others and a feeling of ‘being on the periphery’

     Difficulty developing relationships from acquaintance to friend and speaking to strangers

     A logical and unemotional approach to social interaction and social relationships
  • in reply to Andre
    Andre

    Not a direct answer to your question but the CIPD does recognise one other route to professional status. Via Academic members, fellows etc.

    See

    www.cipd.co.uk/.../academic

    It might be an option for you to convert your passion for HR into an academic career rather than trying to deal with the challenges you clearly face in securing advancement as a practitioner?

    Clearly you face a number of challenges with your neuro-diverse background. As a practitioner you know that all employers have to make reasonable adjustments - the question for you is in reality given some of the issues and advice you have highlighted do you think its actually possible for an employer to make REASONABLE adjustments to allow you to succeed as a practitioner in HR or are they of a level that actually the root of the problem is that the adjustments necessary go beyond the reasonable and into territory that employers can not go.

    Meaning that if you want to continue to develop a HR career you need to either find a way for an employer to make these reasonable adjustments or to find another path. You have impressive academic qualifications - could you find a way to build on these as a researcher or something similar that allows your neuro-diverse characteristics to benefit you in some way rather than appearing to hold you back?
  • in reply to Keith
    Hi Keith,

    My main weakness is people and soft skills. I can do it but it's more an uphill struggle and never really flows. What is your view on letting everyone know that in advance that is the case and asking for them to make exceptions for it during a meeting if I say something a bit different or out of context?

    My overall style is more direct and to the point, telling people how it is. I have a good understanding here of my strengths and weaknesses, but it's more the small talk and office banter that I don't fit so easily to or are more an outsider to in that respect.

    Andre.
  • in reply to Andre
    I think maybe that you are misunderstanding the feedback

    The soft skills are essential to many / most practitioner HR jobs. Our role is to both build the architecture for the business to develop its people and also to offer insight and professional judgement to key people decisions. These rely on many things that you would class as "soft skills". Its judgement, understanding nuances, reading people etc all things you might well struggle with.

    Yes by all means try and position your interventions by explaining your own style and impact and how this is affected by your neuro-diversity. But if you can not read an MD or a candidate, or understand the interactions being played out between a FD and an MD in a meeting then jobs (like a HRD where you need to do this each and every day) arent going to be an option for you no matter how much you explain.

    To go back to my earlier answer - whilst explaining your neuro-diversity would indeed be a reasonable adjustment - would this actually solve the issues - I tend not to think so.

    My guess from all your posts is that you struggle to understand far more than small talk or office banter. Sorry to be blunt - but you need to face up realistically to what interventions an employer could make on your behalf and if they will work

  • Andre

    I'm afraid I have to add my voice to the criticism of your comments, especially with regard to the implication that HR is some sort of "closed shop" where only the right connections, a funny handshake, or at least fifty grey-hairs to the inch "buy" your way in.

    Unlike law, medicine, accountancy or gas-fitting, we are not a profession requiring "registration" before practicing: Anyone can call themselves an "HR Professional", be they someone fresh out of University dripping with degrees and PGCs, or the lowest pay clerk in the pecking order who is told his/her role is now: "...sorting out the bl**dy workers and their moans and groans", and also including someone fed up with getting £75 a week who thinks they might apply for an HR role at the local sweat-shop, who want someone to "hire and fire". 

    (...and all of whom might be similarly unready to practice HR professionally at any senior level)

    So employers get the HR Practice they want to pay for or seek to manipulate; not that which we as a profession would like to offer them.

    That said, the value of "real" HR Practice has gained in value and credibility over the 30 years or so I have been practicing it (in one form or another) thanks largely to the gaining of our Charter and the efforts of CIPD to make it, at the very least, a structured profession with clear and relevant levels of competence, culminating in Chartered Membership and Fellowship; which are neither time-based nor indeed academic-learning based, but can better be thought of as awarded when the mix of what we know and what we understand, both academically and about people (as people and not just as "employees") give us sufficient insight to earn those accolades.

    That is not to say that there are no legitimate criticisms possible of how CIPD functions, or how it awards qualifications, or indeed why it has not pushed harder (if at all) to require registration (given the damage that incompetent or over-confident HR practice can do to both companies and people), but what is absolutely certain is that the apparent scarcity of higher-level HR jobs is not down to the operation of some clandestine "old boys'/girls' network", but the demand for competence by (responsible) employers of people (and HR professionals) in an increasingly hazardous and litigious employment and business environment.

    Without that "current fluency" of practice built up in more junior or supported roles we are a potential menace!

    To take my own case: After some years of (nominal) retirement, and in spite of keeping up to date with (most) leading progressions in HR (or trying to) I for one would not consider myself anywhere near competent to take on a leading HR role for a company at this time without "stepping down" and coming back up to speed first, in spite of my 14 years as a Chartered Fellow and 24 years membership of (C)IPD, with a whole lot of "HR by any other name" before that! (...and irrespective of the mentoring I still do privately, some of it at very senior level with people in very large businesses, and/or my various submissions and exchanges here in the Community.

    Without rancour: You repeatedly offer your opinions of why you seem to be unsuccessful in obtaining a role at a level you believe you deserve, and why this is due to the Profession: Its "failures" or "secret societies", or systems; seemingly without regard for the realities of the profession we practice, the years that we (all members) have struggled to establish its value and strategic relevance, and the fact that within today's business environment, and in such a complex professional field, "one size" of skill-set does not fit all. So all the academic learning in the world, alone, is not going to fit any HR practitioner for stepping straight into a multi-functional generalist HR role at senior level.

    It is not the profession, or how it functions, or who crosses whose palm with silver, that prevents "simply anyone" from being appointed to senior roles; it is maturity (but not age); running toward the flame instead of away from it; providing workable answers and not just mechanistic systems of control, and remembering to use the words: "thank you" when extra effort is made on your (or the company's) behalf. Whether that be by a member of the Board, or the guy sweeping the car park. (...Or indeed the members trying to provide relevant answers "pro-bono" here). All those things  (and a whole lot more) make up the "fit" for senior roles and eventually Chartered Memberships and Fellowships.

    ...and personally, as probably one of the older contributors on these pages, I find any suggestion that my competence assessed award of Fellowship in 2004 might have been due to my age rather than the damned hard work I put in to turning my experience into my portfolio, frankly insulting.

    ....Which reminds me: H.U.B.S. has still got it! They asked to retain it as an example for others to emulate... Thank you for reminding me.....

    P