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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.          

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  • 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?
  • 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?
Reply
  • 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?
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  • 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
  • in reply to Keith

    My mind interprets, analyses information and draws conclusions in another way to that of most other people. With unwritten social nuances, cues and rules, the problem is that I cannot read them as I cannot easily presume what a person may or may not be thinking as everyone reacts to or takes things in a different way. The other issue is that I am interested in HR but can't do human relations myself. These are largely things which you are either born with or not. I have tried taking classes in social thinking therapy which addresses social skills difficulties by developing understanding of other people's intentions, emotions, motivations and then responding accordingly to them, but its still an uphill struggle to articulate and express it naturally.

    Put another way, I do not automatically take to people who I don't know like ducks to water, buy into group think but have more my own unique style, approach and personality. In short, I am more an outsider who hovers on the edges and prefers to do things individually then as part of a group.

    I also struggle to notice subtle differences in speech, body language and behaviour and most other people are able to pick up automatically on.

    The Equality Act 2010 however makes certain provision for this, so if someone like Boris Johnson who makes the occasional gaffe and is more of an unconventional maverick can possibly get a PM's role, could someone still get a Senior HRD's role even if they tend to trip up from time to time over human interaction and social relationships?

    The main advantage here is that I have a very clear understanding of this deficiency. can explain / justify it very well and also apply the strategy of telling people that I did not pick up on or interpreted it in this other way as I have XYZ, yet the law says that provision must still be made for ABC.

    It therefore comes down to a twin issue of functionally and capability.

  • in reply to Andre
    Andre

    All I can really usefully say is to repeat my earlier comment. You are not listening to the feedback you are being given.

    If you reread above and try and see it from a different angle it might help.

    Good luck. I fear these constant debates aren’t actually helping you.
  • in reply to Andre

    I'm afraid that your asking the question as to whether the occasional "gaffe" or "tripping up" over human interaction is permissible, as it were as a precondition to your practice, seems to answer for itself whether you would be suitable for a Senior HRD role.

    Would the holder of the key to our nuclear deterrent ask if an occasional "gaffe" in its use is permissible? Does Johnson, regardless of what one thinks of him, believe himself that leaving the EU without a "deal" (or at all) will be a disaster? Would he ask for "reasonable adjustments" to be made so that someone else could do the tricky stuff while he just did the admin', but still got paid the salary, had the car, lived in No10 with weekends a chequers.... etc.?

    I suggest the answer to all would be "No".

    Your actions as an HRD would have effects on people's lives. You fail to overturn a bad disciplinary decision on appeal and that's someone's mortgage unpaid; their kids birthday and Christmas wishes unfulfilled, possibly their relationships breaking down. You make a bad decision on how someone's grievance should be reflected by a change in policy and that could affect whether an ET1 lands on someone's desk claiming £x tens of thousands in discrimination at a later time, potentially destroying the business and all those (including ourselves) dependent on it. (It has happened). You approve a blanket ban on FW as it seems impractical in your "systematic" approach to HRM and that means a mother cannot keep working, or a father's wish to share his child's precious early years more fully will be lost.... forever.

    Those are the sort of errors we know any one of us might make (and almost certainly will), but we must never consider them as being acceptable: "Permissible", as "reasonable adjustments".

    Simply because they are not "reasonable" errors to permit, though they might be forgivable (as a fact of HR practice in the circumstances of the case). We do not accept others suffering detriments for our predicted lack of competence or ability. No matter what its cause. It is a simple matter of good faith. We practice in good faith, or not at all.

    P