Investors in People UK is pushing ahead with plans to develop standards for
leadership skills and work-life balance.
The core standard will remain the same, but firms will have the option of
following what IIP calls additional "models".
"IIP is well known and it is time to exploit the brand," IIP
chairman Tim Melville-Ross told Training Magazine.
The leadership model will be the first to come on stream and should be ready
by the end of 2002. A steering group involving the Council for Education in
Management and Leadership and the Institute of Management, will meet this month
to decide on the scope of the standard.
"We will be looking at generic skills such as financial management and
managing people. And we will be looking at how organisations develop their
managers to deliver their business plan," said Ruth Spellman, chief
executive of IIP UK.
"It’s not about how many NVQs or MBAs an organisation has and we won’t
become the standard setting body for management and leadership."
The work-life balance standard will take longer to come through. Spellman
said IIP had plenty of support from major employers and government departments
which wanted IIP to tackle work life balance issues, but she admitted it was a
highly political issue.
"We want to embed some of the work-life balance ideas into UK business
culture because we feel there would be big efficiency gains if they were,"
she said. "We want to come up with something simple, focused and more of a
benchmarking tool so that people can look at where they are and what the gaps
are.
"But we will have to talk to our social partners, the CBI and the TUC.
It needs an endorsement from both of them."
Both models will be voluntary, but they will only be available to firms that
have already achieved IIP.
"This is not a gold standard because we think IIP already offers a gold
standard. But we have to give organisations that have been accredited with IIP
for several years a new challenge," she said.
By Lucie Carrington
