Specialist knowledge | CIPD Profession Map

Overview

The Profession Map provides our profession with the strongest foundation yet for effective decision-making. To help you do this, we've outlined nine specialist disciplines across HR, L&D, OD&D and beyond:

Employee experience
Employee relations
Equality, diversity and inclusion
Learning and development
Organisation development and design
People analytics
Resourcing
Reward
Talent management.
Wellbeing

The people profession is a broad spectrum of opportunities. No matter what level you’re at, the specialist knowledge areas show you how to apply your expertise to make a positive impact in the world of work. If you work in one of these areas or want to deepen your expertise for your own development, this is where you can explore career paths and plot your progress through your chosen areas of expertise.

'The people profession is a broad and international community within which there are many specialisms. Together, this range of specialisms can help to shape successful organisations.'

Yetunde Hofmann, Leadership consultant and CIPD Board member

Explore the core specialisms

Employee experience

Creating a holistic approach around engagement and well-being which enables workers to have a voice and be their best

View the Employee experience specialism

Employee relations

Ensuring the relationship between an organisation and its people is managed through transparent practices and relevant law

View the Employee relations specialism

Equality, diversity and inclusion

Creating inclusive cultures where individuals can thrive

View the Equality, diversity and inclusion specialism

Learning and development

Ensuring workers have the knowledge, skills and experience to fulfil individual and organisational needs and ambitions

View the Learning and development specialism

Organisational development and design

Organisation development and design (OD&D) is about enabling an organisation’s performance and effectiveness.

View the Organisational development and design specialism

People analytics

Using analytics to inform organisation decision-making

View the People analytics specialism

Resourcing

Identifying, attracting and assessing to get the right people for the organisation

View the Resourcing specialism

Reward

Creating remuneration and benefits approaches aligned to current and future organisation needs and market conditions

View the Reward specialism

Talent management

Maximising potential through talent identification, engagement and planning

View the Talent management specialism

Wellbeing

Creating a holistic approach that improves workforce wellbeing

View the Wellbeing specialism

Download the full set of standards

View the full list of specialist knowledge standards inside this downloadable document (PDF, 933 KB).

Next: Employee experience

Creating a holistic approach around engagement and wellbeing which enable workers to have a voice and be their best

Continue to Employee experience

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