CIPD - History of the CIPD

About CIPD

Originally issued December 2003; latest revision July 2006

This factsheet:

outlines the development of the CIPD from early in the 20th century to chartership in 2000.

Origins

Today's CIPD, with a membership of over 125,000, started life in 1913 as the Welfare Workers' Association (WWA) with a membership of just 34 people, a list of whom can be found in Margaret Niven's history of the Institute from 1913-1963¹. In total, 29 of the founding members were women, reflecting the predominant concern of welfare work which had emerged in just a small number of companies between 1890 and 1914 with the working conditions of female employees in factories.

Many of the companies represented amongst the welfare workers forming the WWA remain household names to the present time, including Cadbury's, Reckitt, Colman, Boots, Carrs, Jacobs and Peek Frean's biscuit companies, Robertson's jam, Wills tobacco and others. The leading company pioneering welfare work between 1890 and 1914 was Rowntree & Co and it was the company's Labour Director, Seebohm Rowntree (appointed to his post in 1890 and the first person in Britain known to have held a post at this level in employment affairs), who was an important force behind the establishment of the Welfare Worker's Association at a meeting in York in 1913. Rowntree remained a pivotal figure in the development of 'personnel management' practice in Britain, though he was not personally active in the Institute's affairs².

Development of welfare work and labour management: 1914-1918

The First World War gave a significant boost to welfare work, particularly as Rowntree was appointed as Director of Welfare at the Ministry of Munitions in 1916, the Ministry which co-ordinated wartime industrial production, and by the end of the war controlled the employment of nearly 3.5 million workers. In 1916, the appointment of welfare workers was made compulsory in Ministry controlled establishments and by the end of the war, it has been estimated that around 1000 welfare workers had been appointed, 600 of whom were in membership of the WWA1.

A parallel development was an increase in the appointment by firms of 'Labour Officers', mostly males, to assist in the management of recruitment, discipline, dismissal and industrial relations at plant level amongst unionised male workers. An important role of these newly emergent Labour Officers was to interpret the complex legal framework governing the employment of civilians in wartime production, in particular the rights of workers to challenge the circumstances of their dismissal at Munitions Tribunals. Many Labour Officers came from engineering and works management backgrounds with direct experience of shop floor life and contemporary accounts indicate that Labour or Employment functions were established on a widespread basis by larger organisations during the war with much broader remits than women's welfare alone².

Changes in title of the professional association: 1917-1924

The association went through five changes of name during this seven year period. Against a background of wartime growth in the employment of welfare officers, local welfare worker associations had emerged across the country with no connection to the WWA. Concerned at the splintering of the welfare movement, the WWA adopted a new constitution with a branch structure that incorporated the local associations and renamed itself the Central Association of Welfare Workers (CAWW) in 1917. The next change of name followed soon after when the title of Central Association of Welfare Workers (Industrial) was adopted in 1918 in order to clarify that the association's objectives were concerned with industrial welfare rather than social work. The title of Welfare Workers' Institute was adopted in 1919 following rejection of proposals from the Industrial Welfare Society (IWS), founded by the Rev Robert Hyde in 1918, that the two organisations should merge. Whilst the objectives of the two organisations were broadly similar, the IWS had an employer-based membership, whilst the CAWW believed in professional independence and had only individual members. The adoption of the title of Welfare Workers' Institute (WWI) was aimed at bolstering its image as a professional association of individual members and this was reinforced by commencing publication of a professional journal Welfare Work in January 1920, a series which has appeared continuously through various name changes to the People Management journal of today. The final change of name in this short period occurred in 1924 when the WWI was granted a licence of incorporation by the Board of Trade and became the Institute of Industrial Welfare Workers (IIWW)^1,2,3.

The Institute of Labour Management (ILM): 1931-1946

The dropping of 'welfare workers' in the title and the adoption of 'labour management' in 1931 seems to imply that welfare work had changed in nature entirely around this time. In fact, this was only partially true. Membership of the IIWW during the 1920s consisted predominantly of female welfare workers. Demand for welfare work in industry had gone into decline following the boost given to it during the First World War and by 1927 the Institute's total membership had fallen to 423, down by a third on membership levels at the end of the war.

In parallel, however, the 1920s had seen the emergence of a 'labour management' movement which had its origins in the appearance of Labour Officers during the war. The labour management movement consisted almost exclusively of males and a number held responsibilities as Labour Managers for employment policies and practices across a wide remit in their companies, including recruitment, selection, discipline, dismissal, health and safety and works consultative committees. Labour Officers and Managers had little sympathy with the exclusive focus on welfare pursued by the IIWW and very few joined it. Moreover, they often held more senior positions in their organisations, whilst most welfare workers held more junior roles.

By the late 1920s, members of the labour management movement had become a loosely connected group and aspired to form their own professional association, quite separate from the IIWW. Seeing the dangers of this for the IIWW, AS Cole, IIWW President in 1930-1931, argued the case for a change of name against considerable opposition from some leading activists in order to encourage labour managers into membership. Cole himself had been one of the few males active in the institute since its foundation but for some years had become more aligned with the ideas of the labour management movement and was successful in steering a vote in favour of the change of name to the Institute of Labour Management at an EGM in May 1931. As a sop to welfare workers, however, who made up the great majority of the membership, the new title was followed by 'Industrial Welfare, Staff Management and Employment Administration' in brackets. Two influential figures in the labour management movement, Richard Lloyd-Roberts (Chief Labour Officer at ICI) and Dr CH Northcott (Labour Manager at Rowntree and later Director of the IPM from 1949-1950) were invited into ILM membership and they, together with Cole, dominated the policy-making of the ILM up to 1939. As evidenced by the columns of Labour Management, as the journal Welfare Work was renamed in July 1931, welfare was rarely referred to (except in a derogatory way) in the ILM's pronouncements which during the 1930s were concerned with labour policy, industrial relations policy and in the later 1930s 'personnel' policy. The relationship between female welfare workers and male labour managers remained uneasy throughout the 1930s, but by 1939, 40 per cent of the ILM's membership of nearly 800 was male; and out of an estimated total of 1800 practitioners in the country as a whole, 44 per cent were in ILM membership^1,2,4.

The Institute of Personnel Management (IPM): 1946-1994

Usage of the term 'personnel management' (adopted in the United States some 20 years earlier) had become sufficiently widespread by the later 1930s that the Council of the ILM had agreed in principle to adopt the title of IPM in July 1939, but deferred a decision because of the outbreak of war. The change of name to IPM was implemented in June 1946, by which time usage of the term 'personnel management' had become widely accepted. As in the First World War, the Second World War provided a further stimulus to the growth in number of personnel practitioners and by 1945 institute membership stood at 2881, nearly a four-fold increase on its 1939 numbers and close to 50 per cent of the estimated total number of 6000 practitioners in the country as a whole.

Though involvement in industrial relations and industrial training had begun to emerge in the pre-war period, in the post-war conditions of full employment, both these areas of personnel work expanded considerably. Since remuneration lay at the heart of industrial relations, payment systems also fell increasingly into the remit of the personnel practitioner in a way that it had not done in the pre-war period (though even by 1961 only 10 per cent of personnel practitioners said in response to a survey that they were involved in wage and salary matters).

Significant developments for the IPM during the 1950s lay in the areas of short training courses, publications and membership examinations. In response to membership demand, the running of short courses for both newly appointed personnel officers and courses for more experienced practitioners in specialist skills and techniques emerged as an important activity from the late 1940s and were expanded considerably in the 1950s; at this time also the focus of the national conference became more training-oriented.

In 1955, the Institute moved towards restricting entry into full membership via examination and introduced an education scheme which could be run externally by colleges in preparation for the national exam. This initiative did much to pave the way for an expansion in the number of colleges offering courses in personnel management in the years ahead.

Up to the 1950s, the Institute (with a few exceptions) did little to publish books of guidance on personnel management, but from the 1950s onwards expanded this operation considerably. Based on a simple, A5 'wire-stitch' format, the Institute attracted as authors such leading and influential figures of the time as Allan Flanders, Tom Lupton, Alan Fox and others. This format was retained until around 1980, but gradually during the 1970s the Institute had moved to a more conventional paperback format.

The 1960s onwards were characterised by an increasing desire for the Institute to become more influential on government policy and to contribute more to national debates in the broader field of issues that affected the practice of personnel management. The timing was propitious because the traditionally voluntarist role of the state in Britain towards these matters was beginning to change. The main vehicles for developing an Institute stance to government were the national committees. In 1966, a Committee on Industrial Relations was formed to give evidence to the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations (the Donovan Commission) and in the same year, an Education and Training Committee was formed to contribute to the national debate on training and skills. These were followed in 1971 by the establishment of two further policy committees, the National Committee on Organisation and Manpower Planning and the National Committee on Pay and Employment Conditions. These committees remained in place until 1992 when they were replaced by a centralised policy committee.

The most important development to emerge in the 1970s was the commencement in 1977 of the debate about a merger between what was originally the Institute of Training Officers (later the Institute of Training and Development (ITD)) and the IPM. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the debate was what the new institute should be called - either retaining the umbrella title of IPM or becoming the Institute of Personnel and Training Management (IPTM). In the event, the latter was chosen and in a ballot of members the proposed merger under the new title was supported by a tiny majority of IPM members in 1978. However, so small was the majority in favour that Council decided against proceeding with the merger.

The issue of a merger remained off the agenda until 1993 and when it went out to a ballot in 1994, both memberships voted in favour of establishing the Institute of Personnel and Development which came into being in May of that year. Over the 48 years of the IPM's existence, its membership had grown (pre-ITD merger) from under 3000 to nearly 55, 000 members, an eighteen-fold increase. Membership more than doubled from under 5000 in 1960 to over 12,000 in 1970; it almost doubled again in the 1970s and again in the 1980s such that by 1990, membership stood at over 40,000^1,4,5.

Institute of Personnel and Development (1994-2000) and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (from 2000)

In the year following the establishment of IPD, membership of the new institute stood at over 75,000 in 1995 and the organisation had become the largest body of personnel and development specialists in the world. During the period of its eight-year existence, membership of the IPD had increased 40 per cent from just over 75,000 to 105,000.

Having finally achieved unity amongst the personnel and training and development traditions within a single institute, one further important task lay on the newly formed IPD agenda: the achievement of chartered status, an aspiration which had for long been a matter of discussion within the former IPM. Chartered status was finally achieved in 2000 and the CIPD came into existence from 1 July of that year⁶.

References

1. NIVEN, M.M. (1967) Personnel management: 1913-1963. London: Institute of Personnel Management.

2. EVANS, A. Labour management vs welfare work: an investigation into the origins and development of personnel management ideas and practices in Britain from 1890 to 1939. Unpublished: presented as the author's thesis (Ph.D) - Thames Valley University, London.

3. FITZGERALD, R. (1968) British labour management and industrial welfare. London: Croom Helm.

4. MCGIVERING, I. The development of personnel management. In: TILLETT, A. et al (eds). (1970) Management thinkers. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

5. Annual report. (1956-1993) London: Institute of Personnel Management.

6. Annual report. (1994-1999) London: Institute of Personnel and Development [and] Annual report. (2000-2004/5) London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

This factsheet was written by Alastair Evans.