CIPD under pressure as HR professionals question its relevance

Pressure has mounted on the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) after a branch secretary’s attack attracted a groundswell of support from within the profession.

In the biggest response to a weekly Personneltoday.com poll this year, 61% of 281 respondents said the institute was not relevant to modern HR leaders.

Barry Hoffman, central London branch secretary, told Personnel Today last month that radical changes were needed at the CIPD.

In the run-up to the institute’s flagship annual conference, which takes place in Harrogate from 16 September, Hoffman called for chief executive Jackie Orme to make radical changes for the sake of the HR profession.

“The structure, constitution and operation of the institute should be reviewed,” he said. “There can be no sacred cows.”

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Hoffman, HR director at IT outsourcing provider Computacenter, was chairman at the CIPD central London branch until May. He said the institute’s events were too often aimed at students rather than HR directors, and that its ways of presenting information had not caught up with technology.

The CIPD insisted at the time that Orme was driving its work to ensure a bright future for the institute as the leading voice for a confident profession.