The IPD’s victory in its six-year battle to gain chartered status has been
hailed as a massive boost for the personnel profession.
From 1 July the organisation will be able to call itself the Chartered
Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), putting HR professionals on a
par with accountants and marketeers and making the institute the third largest
chartered professional organisation in the UK.
Already senior personnel practitioners are saying the move will give HR more
clout and attract more talent to the profession.
But it could still take years before members can individually become
chartered. The institute is yet to decide the qualification criteria for
granting this status.
For now IPD-accredited professionals will be able to call themselves
members, fellows or associates of the CIPD. The institute will now focus on a
rebranding exercise in the run-up to 1 July and has promised that funds for
this have already been allocated and subscriptions will not be increased as a
result. Disciplinary procedures remain unchanged.
Leading practitioners welcomed the Privy Council’s decision but said it was
now up to the profession to deliver the high standards that chartered status
confers.
"This raises the status and raises the stakes," said Bruce Warman,
personnel director at Vauxhall Motors. "If it works we have a great future
– if we do not then we only have ourselves to blame."
Geoff Armstrong, director general of the IPD, who has crusaded for chartered
status, said, "It recognises that people management and development is a
distinctive, systematically learnable body of knowledge, understanding and
competence which adds value to organisations."
By Philip Whiteley
Other chartered institutes: number of members
Institute of Chartered Accountants 116,000
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants 110,000
Institute of Personnel and Development 95,000
Chartered Institute of Bankers 50,000
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Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators 45,000
Chartered Institute of Marketing 31,175
