Opportunity
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is the professional body for HR and working lives and has been setting the benchmark for excellence in people and organisation development for more than 100 years. It has a community of more than 145,000 members across the world, provides thought leadership through independent research on the world of work, and offers professional training and accreditation for those working in HR and Learning & Development (L&D).
With the use of social media and collaborative tools in the business world increasing over the last few years, the CIPD saw an opportunity to bring members together across the world, giving them an online forum to learn, debate and connect with other HR and L&D professionals. “We wanted an online forum to bring a greater sense of unity and camaraderie to both existing and new members,” explains Steve Bridger, Community Manager at the CIPD. “Back in 2003, that was a pioneering step and represented the cutting-edge of communications and engagement”. The community has grown year on year and now has over 30,000 visitors every month.
Solution
The CIPD deployed Verint’s Telligent Community, an online community platform designed to help elevate member and employee experiences. It quickly became popular, and since it’s unveiling 14 years ago, has grown to support tens of thousands and become part of the organisation’s activities. The CIPD Community is now a highly valued community environment, hosted on the CIPD website, which brings together a variety of groups, including open groups, member-only and invite-only groups in forums as well as CIPD blogs.
One third of discussions fall under the broad area of “employment law, policies, and procedures” while a further 20 percent take place in the “Careers Clinic”, where students and those entering the profession can receive career development advice.
Closed and private groups reflect the highly sensitive and confidential nature of many HR discussions on the Community, including topics such as redundancy and staff disciplinary hearings. Invite-only groups are aimed at specific teams involved in private programs, such as assessing the CIPD Code of Conduct or managing regional branches.
The popular CIPD blogs sit alongside the Community and are managed by the social media team. The blogs cover hundreds of topics, ranging from gender pay gap reporting and mental health awareness, to potential skills shortages post- Brexit and the impact of Uber and other organisations on employment.
The CIPD Community relaunched two years ago, with the upgrade to a modern release of the Verint’s Telligent Community technology. “We looked at other community platforms, and concluded that Telligent Community continues to offer a robust and reliable platform to accommodate a very large community of users, and a very good mix of functionality and ease of use – including a mobile-friendly experience,” says Bridger. “The system offers a space for members to discover each other and develop a deep sense of engagement.”
Benefits
At a qualitative level, Verint’s Telligent Community solution plays a key role in building member engagement, increasing the opportunity for collaboration and networking among team members. The Cranfield Institute of Management has referred to the CIPD Community as a ‘golden benchmark’ of online communities.
These are just some of the many examples of anecdotal feedback captured by Bridger and his team:
The success of the CIPD Community can also be quantified, as follows: