The Profession Map / Core knowledge / People practice

As people professionals, we need to be experts in our knowledge of people, of work and of change. An important part of this is having a core knowledge of a range of people practices, and understanding how different practices impact each other and work together in an integrated way.

People practices are the processes and approaches that we use across the employee lifecycle. Learning needs analysis, creating talent pools, developing people policies, analysing people data, managing grievances, recruiting people: all these are examples of people practices.

Some people practices sit within our specialist knowledge areas (such as resourcing, learning and development, and ER). But there are some people practices that are fundamental to all practitioners, whether you’re a generalist or a specialist.

This area of the Profession Map covers these key practices, and includes regulation and law, workforce planning, diagnosing capability needs, performance management, wellbeing, inclusion and diversity, and flexible ways of working (such as hybrid or remote working).

People practice 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'll understand:	At this level you'll understand:	At this level you'll understand:	At this level you'll understand:
Understanding people practices	The employee lifecycle, and where the work you do sits within it	The employee lifecycle and how other people practices impact your work and vice versa	A range of people practices, and how to design them in an integrated way	People practices across a range of specialisms, and how to integrate these to create a holistic people offering
Law and regulation	Policy, regulation and law relevant to your work	Policy, regulation and law relevant to your work and how to ensure people practices are compliant	Current and future regulation and law relevant to your work, how to apply it, and how to mitigate risk	Current and future regulation and law relevant to your work, and how to assess impact and risk for organisations and industry sector
Workforce planning	What workforce planning is	The stages of workforce planning including current workforce analysis, determining future needs, identifying gaps and action planning	How workforce planning informs other people practices and wider business planning	How to use strategic workforce planning to inform future people and organisation strategy
Skills and capabilities	How your organisation assesses people’s skills and capability	How to conduct skills or capability audits and gap analyses in your area of work	How to assess current and future capability needs	How to build future organisation and sector capability
Performance management	Performance management approaches in your organisation	Different approaches to performance management and their pros and cons	The impact of different performance management approaches, and how performance management data can be used to drive improvements	The impact of different performance management approaches on organisation culture and performance
Wellbeing	What wellbeing is and why it’s important	Why wellbeing is important, and the different factors that impact wellbeing	How to integrate wellbeing into people practices	How to integrate wellbeing into people strategies
Equality, diversity and inclusion	What equality, diversity and inclusion is, and why it’s important	How to build equality, diversity and inclusion into your work	How to integrate equality, diversity and inclusion into people practice to create value in your area of work	How to build equality, diversity and inclusion approaches that positively impact an organisation’s culture and performance
Flexible ways of working	Different flexible ways of working (eg workplace-based, hybrid, remote)	How to adapt people processes and practices for workplace-based, hybrid and remote	How to develop people practices for a hybrid workforce that enhances performance and engagement	How to identify strategic opportunities and adapt people strategies for a hybrid workforce
Enabling flexible ways of working	N/A	How to advise line managers and teams on workplace-based, hybrid and remote working, ensuring fairness and communication	How to coach managers and leaders to build cohesion and trust across a hybrid workforce	How to integrate flexible ways of working within the wider organisation culture balancing the needs of all stakeholders

Next: Culture and behaviour

Understanding people's behaviour and creating the right organisation culture

Continue to Culture and behaviour

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