Its a feeding frenzy out there. 'Conferences' and 'Summits' offering wave after wave of leading 'case studies' , stories from the frontline. "Get your CPD credits ere" is the cry.
But these aren't case studies in the business school sense. They are at best 'case vignettes' - summarised anecdotes, stories, the kind of thing you would discuss around a campfire, pub, dinner party. At worst, they are misleading and misrepresentative and should carry a serious health warning if people are looking to 'transplant practice'.
Sure, they can be funny, insightful to a degree and provide us with a view of a particular organisation. After all stories are a cultural tradition. It's also why we have Santa Claus, fairies, dragons, ghosts, outlandish derring-do.
But don't think for one minute that in any way do they underpin professional knowledge or CPD. Because they can't. Many of these events charge serious money for attendance which makes HR practitioning one of the most expensive hobbies in the world........
Now before I go any further, I would like to remind you of my personal/our company/our School's mission. It is to assist all organisations in attaining good and consistent organisational and people management performance together with a well respected profession that staffs a fully acknowledged and professional HR function. PERIOD. Back to the 'story'...
True business cases have two key parts. The first part is the content. This provides sufficiently detailed or situational context (and contains a certain number of design features to pass muster or else they are unsatisfactory for learning purposes). To give an idea cases are normally about ten pages, though they can be more than 50 pages).
The second part is the critical examination or evaluation undertaken by individuals or groups to ascertain the 'reality' and draw conclusions for learning in a rigorous manner. They are facilitated in a structured manner. From a learning standpoint they are also quite fun once you've mastered some of the basic techniques (and it comes through practice). And you can return to it periodically to refresh the learning and gain even more insight. It's as good as it gets. From a case study perspective, the human capital management arena is ideal in also bringing in relevant research - its what underpins ISHCM's way of learning.
Now compare this to the many many presentations given at events. They are mainly stories with anecdote. They have no particular design structure. They very rarely present a picture or a real one at that. The context is partially provided at best. There can be a few slides, but many are useless after the event for reference. But they tell a story. The problem is what and why?
More fundamentally, there is no critical evaluation (save for the odd question from the audience). Thus learning is very minimal but they are accepted as 'conventional wisdom'. There is lots of note-taking of the wrong kind. But hey presto - I've got my CPD credits and I can now go and look to implement some of this 'learning'.
And we wonder why organisations and particularly HR functions meet so many problems when implementing? (Shared services is a classic case in point!)
For me, these events should not carry any CPD award (ok maybe a few credits - well one!). We would then see how valued these events would be? Because if they are the main form of knowledge dissemination in the profession we are in serious trouble.
The CIPD does nothing to stop this preferring itself to be involved and making a whole industry out of the CPD requirements (if you don't believe me - tell me what doesn't constitute CPD in HR terms). Harrogate has become a travesty of what it should be, in fact not far off parody status.
And I'll give you a comparison. Practitioners gaining the HCMI accreditation are mandated to an annual, intensive 3-day alumni event (bootcamp if you like) with prep beforehand and assessment to maintain professional standards. Any other CPD is ok but we aren't insistent on lots of worthless CPD administration.
If I was a CIPD member I would be angry. Angry that my Institute got its Chartered status before it's knowledge had been properly boundarised. I would be angry because it promulgates amateurism where professionalism should be which is why the 'market' still doesn't really acknowledge it (other than the HR recruitment industry). The CIPD qualification is coming dangerously close to the definition of a restrictive practice. I would also be angry because of the amount I have to pay every year.
It's time it stopped. It's time that CIPD owned up to being more like a lobbying firm than a standard setter. It's time it stopped being an events and publications money-making machine and started to ask some serious questions around its purpose. It's time it stopped marketing its research as research - because it isn't - it's just market climate research. The 'profession' itself should be asking these questions.
My final point is when many industry practitioners prefer to go to an event that carries very little learning as opposed to the more business school practitioner oriented events/summits, which are normally the cheaper option (and yes it stills provides networking opportunities), one seriously has to question the HR profession's standards..........
