Investors in People (IiP) has come a long way since its inception 13 years ago. More than 36,000 organisations have now been recognised with the Investors in People Standard, and thousands more are currently working towards accreditation.
It’s clear that working with the standard has delivered significant, tangible results for these organisations. Recent research has shown that employers accredited with the standard make any organisational changes twice as profitably as non-recognised employers.
That difference, in terms of increased performance, is massive – it converts to an average profit increase of some £505 per employee per year. If these findings were projected to cover all IiP-recognised organisations in the UK, it would show an increased performance equivalent to around £756m.
This success means that the standard remains much prized as a tool for business improvement. But businesses don’t stand still, so neither can IiP. It is for this reason that, every three years, IiP undertakes a thorough review of the standard to ensure it continues to offer relevant and useful support to employers across the UK.
The latest of these reviews will be concluded on 17 November, when the secretary of state for education and skills, Charles Clarke, officially unveils an updated version of the IiP standard.
This revised standard will include a number of changes to respond to changing business needs, as identified during an extensive consultation process that began more than a year ago.
IiP spoke to hundreds of employers, stakeholders, business advisers and IiP assessors to seek their feedback on the standard and how it could be developed in future.
Although much is different, there has been no question of change for change’s sake, and in fact the standard has been simplified, with the principles reduced from ‘Commitment, Planning, Action, Evaluation’ to ‘Plan, Do, Review’. Theire will also now be a stronger emphasis on the importance of establishing a genuine culture of employee involvement in an accredited organisation and evidence of good practice with regards to the role of managers in the development of employees will be sought.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
In addition, alongside the review of the standard, IiP has also been reassessing Profile, its complementary tool containing further levels of good practice from which employers can draw to stimulate continuous improvement.
