As people professionals, we need to adopt a disciplined approach to understanding and diagnosing problems, and then use a range of evidence to develop people insights and solutions.

This behaviour draws on the key steps of evidence-based practice, including:

  • Asking questions
  • Acquiring evidence
  • Critically assessing evidence
  • Aggregating evidence to understand the whole issue and its wider implications.

Following these steps enables us to gain insight into the nature and scale of challenges, how best to approach them, and, therefore, how to make more effective decisions overall.

Insights focused standards

Each standard progresses through four levels of impact. Which level do you most embody in your day-to-day work?

Foundation level Associate level Chartered Member level Chartered Fellow level
At this level you will: At this level you will: At this level you will: At this level you will:
Understanding issues Ask questions to understand problems or issues Ask questions to explore issues and understand underlying causes Take a disciplined and open-minded approach to understand and define organisation issues and their root causes Take a systemic approach in understanding and framing emerging organisation and sector issues
Gaining evidence Accurately retrieve and collate data to inform decisions Identify sources of evidence (eg internal data, professional opinion and external practice) Acquire and source multiple sources of evidence (eg internal and external professional expertise, research and stakeholder concerns and values) Oversee the acquisition and sourcing of internal and external evidence to inform people strategy
Evaluating evidence Accurately analyse and evaluate evidence Objectively evaluate evidence taking into account its quality Objectively analyse and evaluate multiple sources of evidence to create insight, identifying sources of bias Develop organisation capability to create evidence-based insight that will shape people and organisation strategy
Innovation Contribute ideas using a reasoned approach Assess the quality of your own ideas and ask questions about others’ ideas and proposals Collectively develop and improve the quality of ideas and proposals Build capability to develop new ideas and move organisational thinking forward
Identifying connections Summarise data and evidence effectively Summarise evidence findings and identify key ideas, insights and connections Assimilate evidence and ideas to identify themes and connections and gain insight on the whole issue and its wider implications Apply a systemic approach when bringing together people and business insight to create people and organisation value

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Next: Situational decision making

Making effective and pragmatic decisions or choices based on the specific situation or context

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