CIPD

The CIPD is the professional body for HR and people development, with over 150,000 members. Warren Howlett, Head of HR Content at the CIPD, gives us a brief summary, “We have a long history, starting out as The Welfare Workers’ Association a little over 100 years ago,” he begins, “more recently, we’ve evolved from membership administration services to focus on knowledge, content, and community. We’re advancing knowledge and understanding about people and development through our research and insight. We have changed a lot over the last ten years and one of the most important aspects has been figuring out how we can better leverage the scale, expertise, and capacity of our partners.

“Croner have important skills, expertise, and areas of specialism that we could build ourselves, but that aren’t really at the core of our business. So, with our partnership, we aim to bring the best of ourselves to work with Croner, and likewise they contribute their expertise to us.”

When the CIPD first signed up with Croner, the organisation was looking to prioritise its attention and output. Warren comments, “We wanted to improve our focus as an organisation, simplify our activities, and draw on the best expertise, support, and resources of partners.”

“What drove me to Croner, and what I found really impressive, was the innovative ideas that they brought to the table. The advice line we had previously provided to our members was expensive to maintain, cumbersome to use, and separate from the employment law resources we
provided. Croner proposed bringing the two elements—the advice line, and the employment law resources—together. When we were speaking to other organisations, none of them had suggested that.”

Croner now provide CIPD members with access to a 24/7 support line for employment law, HR, and health & safety advice as well as an employment law platform of guidance, tools, and resources. With 150,000 members to speak of, the advice lines had to be prepared for a large influx of calls.

“Our members are very broadly spread across sectors and the sizes of the organisations vary,” states Warren, “we’ve had very positive feedback from the majority of them—it’s been a great experience for us.”

“Inevitably, when you are rolling out a new service to a large number of members, there are going to be instances where individuals on the phone aren’t 100% happy. Fortunately, there have been very few of those, and when they have cropped up, I’ve been really impressed with how quickly the Croner team has responded.”

Croner provide the CIPD management team with Member Information (MI) packs, breaking down the call data via the advice line by most common queries, preferred call times, amount of calls by category type, and much more. “The MI packs we receive are very good, clearly presented, and give us a thorough breakdown of call data,” says Warren, “I think it has given us clearer insight into what kind of issues our members have, and the level of information is much better than anything we’ve previously had.”

“What I’ve been particularly impressed by is the evolution of our partnership. Croner have taken a very agile approach. We launched the advice lines and employment law platform, collected feedback, and learnt lessons. Then developed and enhanced the offering which continues to evolve, in particular, the customer journey and member experience.”

The CIPD’s latest development with Croner has seen them expand the employment law advice and platform into Ireland. Warren comments, “We’ve recently expanded into Ireland, which is very exciting, and Croner have been supporting us with that too. Overall, I’d say it’s been a very, very positive experience working with Croner.”