I contacted HR Inform in 2017 on behalf of a client, 7 years later I still get calls telling me how great they are even though none of my work did or would benefit from their services. It is not easy to be removed from their mailing list!

Maybe their products are really good but a 5 year subscription is just silly and suggests a lack of confidence.

In reply to Steven :

Thanks Steven!

Just to add my thoughts here, we had a subscription in my previous role and I would say its really helpful for template letters and policies however you get access to the helpline included in your membership anyway so it depends what you need it for. One tool I have found very useful lately is ChatGPT for policies and letters. Obviously you have to properly check what it produces but it's great for getting the bulk of the content worded and then making sure the finer details are correct.

We have it for both UK and Ireland. I'd go with "it's ok". As someone else mentioned, I don't love the 5 year subscription, I think it's a bit overkill and it's a nightmare to get out of early if it's no longer meeting your needs. I much prefer XpertHR personally, I think their templates are better and a much bigger range and their legal advice can be requested via an email instead of the phone, so much better for referencing back to if you need to. Rather than trying to take notes whilst talking on the phone and I do personally find that sometimes the HR Inform "help-line" is not all that helpful, I feel they sit on the fence a little too much and don't really answer the question. I tend to just refer directly to our solicitor if it's not something I can answer easily on my own, at least then i get an actual answer.

I would have happily not gone ahead with our renewal last year but it was already in the pipe line when I joined the business so I couldn't get us out of it. I'm working on proposing XpertHR as an all in one solution and it covers most of our global locations too.

In reply to Gemma:

Thanks Gemma, I am only just seeing your message after we have subscribed for it.
I wish I saw your reply earlier as I probably would have explored XpertHR instead. I do agree with you, the phone call is quite basic and they seem to tell you what you already know. I also struggle with capturing what they are saying through note taking while on the call. My biggest challenge so far, is not being able to provide full context of the situation in the phone call as they don't accept email, where it would have been useful for sending document etc. My plan for next time I need to call them, will be to have a structured summary of the situation prepared before the call and to prepare beforehand the questions that addresses the specific areas that I need recommendations on. Hopefully that helps, but I'll appreciate any suggestions you might have regarding maximising the phone call?
Thanks

Hi Oredola, First of all, I am so sorry this is a late reply, it is hard to see this on the CIPD forum! I work for CIPD HR-inform,Croner i. My name is Rebecca Cole, I am an Associate Director here. I would love the opportunity to go through how you can maximise the advice call and sorry to hear your feedback on what has been handled so far. We take immense pride in the quality of the advice and seeing that to provide context on certain scenarios is your biggest challenge when taking our advice, I feel it is really important for us to resolve that for you. Your feedback will be really valuable in doing this. Please do let me know when myself or one of the CIPDHRInform team can speak with you about this and getting the most out of your subscription and the advice we provide. My email is rebecca.cole@croneri.co.uk - please do reach out!

In reply to Steven :

I agree - it sounds like a nice to have - but locking someone in for 5 years .... nah!

In reply to Rebecca:

Hi Rebecca,

Thank you so much for your reply!

I will definitely take you up on that - I have emailed you.

Dola

I've been using HR inform for years and am on a yearly contract. Have received great service and their templates are great too. I work as a self employed HR consultant as well as a part-time HR Manager for a Charity. I'm paying for my HR inform subscription and I get a discount as a CIPD member. I'd definitely recommend them :)