CIPD's HRD

I briefly went to CIPD's flagship event for the learning and development profession called HRD Conference and Exhibition. Personally I was not impressed. It all seemed a bit stale and it looked smaller. Maybe that's because I have not been to it in the past three years. Although I am a member of the CIPD I do have a lot of personal issues with them. To start with I don't think they promote  L&D adequately. It seems to sit in the background of other aspects of Human Resources. But my biggest beef with them is the cost of their qualifications. They are way too expensive. I would imagine that they should allow different routes of study. CIPD currently has only two routes. You either study with them or through one of their certified providers or you study at a college/University.

In a world with great and affordable learning technology I find that very backward. Here are some options I would like to see CIPD provide to study their qualifications.

• Distance study: They can sell their resources for those who believe they can study it independtly on their own. All they need to do is to assign a tutor to people studying this way. Kind of like studying with the Open University.
• E-Learning: Why not make use of virtual technology which can provide content for study and also use the community of practice model to get students to interact.

Recently I have taken a lot of interest in EdTech (Educational Technology) and the pace of innovation is breathtaking. We need this type of innovation to disrupt the current models of providing professional certification. To become a graduate student of CIPD do I really need to pay over £9500? I think it is absurd and ridiculous.

If you are reading this, what do you think?

I must admit though, they  have a great library and the people who work there are really nice and helpful.

Creating a Team Learning Strategy

One of our services called CDW Brent is launching a new service called Travel Support. The purpose of the service is to provide support for people with Mental Health illness to move about using public transport. The people employed in this service will be called Travel Buddies and they will be people with lived experience of Mental Health illness. To provide training for the Travel Buddies they have been set up to do our mandatory e-learning courses and booked on mandatory courses that are not currently run through e-learning.

But I am also interested in seeing whether they need any development which will support them to do their jobs up to the required standard. To tackle this I have sent an email to the service's project manager. Here is what I sent to her:

I’m trying to put together a development plan for the Travel Buddies. I have read the Job Description. I need some more information from you. Please can you send me information on the skills and knowledge the Travel Buddies need to be able to do the job up to the required standard.

I am  expecting her reply.