What's good about this Community and how can we improve it?

Understand what you say Anna, however there is more than one moderator> My experience is different to yours, if you look at this posting and the comments of Mr. Mark Law below you will see that he says I wasn't dealt with adequately, I agree.

Good afternoon all,

Well, there has been a lot to take in from others' previous comments, so I shall keep mine short...

On the plus side, I have really enjoyed and valued reading others contributions.  I find it refreshing to be able to read others' views, particularly if it engenders a healthy debate.  As a stand-alone HR professional, it is very useful to be able to "sense check" against other colleagues' views.

However, on the negative side, I sometimes find that the comments from some of our more seasoned colleagues to be on the side of curtness, which I think could be off-putting for those who do feel wary or nervous about asking for help in a public forum.

As someone who generally answers rather than posting questions, I think I enjoy the feeling of helping another colleague, especially if the area is something I have pondered over myself in the past.  For me, the queries I have are often very specific so I find the search function invaluable, though a little clumsy to use.  In fact, the one time I tried to post a query, it was so specific I don't think it received any replies!

I think the CIPD communities could do more in terms of creating groups for networking, for example, as has been suggested before, the creation of sub-boards for different sectors.

That's it for now!

Gemma

PS Happy for my comments to be used, if they are of use.

Thanks, Gemma. 

Mark... have a good weekend (no, thought better of it)

Steve,

Would it be possible to add a line under Start a New Thread saying 'Before asking a question, you may wish to consider doing a search in case this has been asked and answered before.  You do this by .....'  please?  Because the quantity of previously asked questions being re-asked is driving me mad.  Especially redundancy ones.  There are loads on that (I've also asked about that, but I did a search first!!)

Just a thought.

Cheers

Rachael

I agree with Rachel on this.

 I think this is my point about CIPD using these message boards proactively to understand the HR agenda both in a strategic sense in terms of what education is needed, playing a proactive role in considering implementation of new legislation and impact for HR teams and using the boards as a consultative forum for important HR issues.  Ie now, in this gloomy economic climate, we have an ideal opportunity to understand if HR/OD has progressed as a profession over the last ten/15 years - if it has progressed then organisations with recognise the that importance of having people strategies aligned closely with delivery is absolutely vital  and  T&D/Coaching/investing staff/employee engagement activities won't tail off or be seen as a nice to have.  I hope we have entered a more enlightened age.........

In a more practical sense, there is a lot of opportunity to respond to questions/discussions generated on these forums as per Rachel's suggestion and eg before people even enter the message boards, you could provide fact sheets/faq's on the top five topics, ie some common guidelines/references regarding redundancy, study, absence management, diversity issues etc etc.

Also, Anna, your last point (being relatively new to the CIPD, although v enthusiastic) seems to be spot on.  

There are some great FAQs (for members) and factsheets that already exist.  Megan, do you mean on top of these ones?  Perhaps pointers to them on the community section would help encourage people to read them as well.  My usual tactics is factsheet > FAQs > Internet research eg ACAS etc > Search forums > Ask question.

Rachael

Hi all,

I'm new to this community so perhaps can't speak for what has gone before but, for my two penneth I like the communities.  I moderate for a different, non-HR board so I'm very used to the type of system although I do have a couple of technical quarms.  I would really like to see a 'edit' function, so that you can edit or delete your own posts - particularly on the spelling front, or even if you find a helpful link and would like to post in into the existing post.

I do agree that it can be immensely frustrating having the same question posed 16 different ways, when one or two threads would suffice.  However, I suppose people think their situation differs from the thread in some way, hence the new thread.

But, overall, I like being able to read different ways of handling situations - I think it arms you with a good arsenal of potential solutions that you may not have thought of on your own.

Steph

Having just posted a fairly lengthy reply on the employment law board, and used the preview your contribution button only to find, yet again, I can only preview the first two paragraphs (!) I'd like to add my vote for an edit function. Either that or a sensible preview function please!

Anna

Re: Crediting professional photographers images, Steve I appreciate what you say however I do make it clear that I am referring to professionally taken images  from although the applicable law refers to all images

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 made moral rights explicit in UK law. The exact
rights are:

• the right to be identified as the author of the work

Whilst I appreciate the CIPD may have looked into the matter, under the CIPD Professional code of conduct [4.2.2] I and the CIPD

"must act within the law and must not encourage, assist or act in collusion with employers, employees or others who may be engaged in unlawful conduct."

 Hence the reason I and the CIPD cannot let the matter drop.