In response to Jerry Hayter (Personnel Today, Letters, 7 December, 2004) and the views of Neil Griffin, (Personnel Today, News, 30 November, 2004), I thought both might be interested in some of my diary entries over the last month in respect of the supposed lack of engagement by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) with senior members of the HR profession. They include:
– a day’s meeting with the board of the CIPD along with current vice-presidents who include the HR directors from ITV, Asda and Queen Elizabeth Hospitals Trust
– speaking at a number of conferences aimed at HR executives including one by Personnel Today and IRS focusing on HR strategy, and a Marcus Evans HR Executive Summit in Amsterdam
– hosting an afternoon meeting of HR directors, consultants and academics to consider the learning and development requirements of HR executives
– hosting an evening CIPD HR leaders’ network meeting on HR’s impact on organisational change
– attending three CIPD professional forum meetings, which are aimed at top level HR specialists, on subjects including performance management and reward
– helping to finalise preparations for a CIPD seminar on leadership in public and private sectors which is due to be held next February
– specifying a new research project on the HR director of the future, to follow up on our study of 1,200 heads of HR.
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With 15,000 members who have the words ‘senior’, ‘executive’ and ‘director’ in their job title, it’s not easy for CIPD staff to engage with them all personally, but we are totally committed to serving their needs, as we are for all our 120,000 members. And Hayter and Griffin might reflect that perhaps we should all be working together on this to raise the capability, standing and influence of the profession, rather than throwing rocks at each other.
Duncan Brown
Assistant director general, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
