Hi Tamara and welcome to "Communities".
There are many answers to this question, but two that have kept me paying my annual membership for the past 25 years are themselves questions: Can one really say one is a member of a profession without being part of its professional body? (Not just the organisation, but the collective "body" of members that organisation represents).
...And when am I going to need the support, expertise and accumulated knowledge available from that body of colleagues and organisation?
Setting aside the credibility to employers and potential employers awarded by membership: Which day will it be that you are asked the question by your employer, needing a near immediate answer, that will be critical to them not being dragged through a tribunal and coming out the other side with their reputation minced and their bank-balance tens of thousands of pounds lighter? ...And who will be carrying the can if you have no-one to support your limited knowledge from your level three? (Valuable though that qualification is).
Even an internal recruiter position can discriminate, treat unfairly, fail to carefully consider issues of equal (not just "identical") treatment, or fall into one of a dozen other potential bear-traps our practice presents. When you need to check your proposed action, where do you go? Someone internal who has no membership either, so who may in fact have less understanding of the issue than you, even though they have more (irrelevant) administrative seniority?
...Or one of the thousands of members here online who have "bin there and done that" before you?
Our membership fees might seem high but the wealth of databases, advice, and resources, including "real time" advice and support you get for that fee is priceless.
To give a current example from this very week: Five years ago a member asked a seemingly simple question here on the "Community" site that has, after five years of support and contribution from this Community and other CIPD resources, just resulted in a significant change in the law, both resolving the question and, in addition, supporting possibly millions of women over time in retaining their employment when conflicting child-care threatens it.
What was that outcome worth, to any or all of them?
Today the fee you are asked for might seem a lot, but on which day will it seem nothing when it saves your job, or your professional reputation, or secures your promotion, or avoids your redundancy, or gets you that role you always wanted with the big-bucks and corner office?
Think hard.... :-)
P
Hi Tamara and welcome to "Communities".
There are many answers to this question, but two that have kept me paying my annual membership for the past 25 years are themselves questions: Can one really say one is a member of a profession without being part of its professional body? (Not just the organisation, but the collective "body" of members that organisation represents).
...And when am I going to need the support, expertise and accumulated knowledge available from that body of colleagues and organisation?
Setting aside the credibility to employers and potential employers awarded by membership: Which day will it be that you are asked the question by your employer, needing a near immediate answer, that will be critical to them not being dragged through a tribunal and coming out the other side with their reputation minced and their bank-balance tens of thousands of pounds lighter? ...And who will be carrying the can if you have no-one to support your limited knowledge from your level three? (Valuable though that qualification is).
Even an internal recruiter position can discriminate, treat unfairly, fail to carefully consider issues of equal (not just "identical") treatment, or fall into one of a dozen other potential bear-traps our practice presents. When you need to check your proposed action, where do you go? Someone internal who has no membership either, so who may in fact have less understanding of the issue than you, even though they have more (irrelevant) administrative seniority?
...Or one of the thousands of members here online who have "bin there and done that" before you?
Our membership fees might seem high but the wealth of databases, advice, and resources, including "real time" advice and support you get for that fee is priceless.
To give a current example from this very week: Five years ago a member asked a seemingly simple question here on the "Community" site that has, after five years of support and contribution from this Community and other CIPD resources, just resulted in a significant change in the law, both resolving the question and, in addition, supporting possibly millions of women over time in retaining their employment when conflicting child-care threatens it.
What was that outcome worth, to any or all of them?
Today the fee you are asked for might seem a lot, but on which day will it seem nothing when it saves your job, or your professional reputation, or secures your promotion, or avoids your redundancy, or gets you that role you always wanted with the big-bucks and corner office?
Think hard.... :-)
P
