Surrey & North Hampshire Branch

Welcome to our branch area

I'm pleased and proud to welcome you to the Surrey and North Hampshire branch. We provide a varied programme of events for our 3,300 members, providing excellent opportunities for CPD and networking with experts on the world of work.

As part in the professional body for HR and people development we are stronger than ever, working together, so please take advantage of our programme of events.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

Joanne Cambra, Chartered FCIPD
Branch Chair

Learn about our branch

Surrey and North Hampshire branch covers an area from Dorking in the east, around the M25 and encompassing Guildford, Farnborough, Camberley, Woking, Walton and Weybridge.

In addition to the branch events, we also support members who work as consultants or are self-employed, with a Consultants Interest group and to assist you in developing your career we offer both a dedicated Careers group (MyHRCareer) and a successful mentoring programme.

We try to accommodate all our members and hold events on a variety of evenings, Saturday mornings and through our Morning Club, during the day, so we hope one will suit you.

Get involved

The branch is run by volunteer CIPD members and more of your support is welcome. This could be everything from providing help with event planning and running through to joining our branch committee. Please email us if you would like to find out more.

Email us

Regional groups

We run several subgroups which arrange events and learning sessions who run these locally when face-to-face meeting is possible. The groups are in:

Dorking
Farnborough and Camberley
Guildford
Walton and Weybridge
Woking

Mentoring scheme

Our mentoring scheme re-launched in January 2016 and has been phenomenally successful with an incredible demand for these services provided free of charge by volunteers who are local role models. Having a mentor supports your career development, adds another person’s knowledge base and experience to your own and helps you gain confidence both in day to day activities but also, importantly, when taking critical decisions.

Being a mentor enables you to directly support a fellow professional’s career development and is a great experience for members at every stage of their career. We currently have mentees looking for support with their first HR role, their CIPD qualification, through all stages of their career through to their first HR Director role.

In the words of David Clutterbuck, everybody needs a mentor. No matter who you are or what you do, mentoring is a fantastic chance to help you grow and perform even better as a HR professional through the experience and support of those who have been faced with and triumphed over similar obstacles.

To ensure you get the most from our mentoring scheme, we partner you with the right mentor who has the right skills and experience for you, we want to get to know you a little better. All you need to do is answer a few quick questions by clicking on Register as a mentee below, then leave the rest to us.

Register as a mentee

We always have more members looking for mentors than mentors available, so please do consider registering as a mentor as well or if you are not sure you have the experience or skills to do that, contacting me to discuss how we can support you.

If you would like to be considered as a mentor, please click on the following link to register.

Register as a mentor

For more details please join our LinkedIn group.

Richard Wells
Mentoring Lead

Special interest groups

Morning club

Our morning club was launched to allow those who may find it difficult to attend our traditional evening events, a regular and informal opportunity to participate in workshops and networking.

The group appeals to a wide range of members, from those with a breadth of experience to share, to student members who are early career professionals.

We particularly aim to support:

returners and those on career breaks who want to keep in touch with the profession and update their skills;
those who work part- time or who have caring commitments and struggle to attend evening or early morning sessions; and
those who simply want to network and update their skills in a friendly and informal environment.

Our recent workshops have covered a wide range of technical and skills topics, including:

managing harassment and bullying in the #MeToo era
smart working and new ways to work
using LinkedIn
resilience

Sessions are practical, relaxed and interactive. We welcome new members and future topic suggestions.

We look forward to seeing you at one of our sessions, which usually take place on a bi-monthly basis, from 10.00-12.00 either online or in Guildford town centre.

For more details please join our LinkedIn group.

MyHRCareer

MyHRCareer provides an opportunity for members from across the branch to better manage their careers and achieve the personal growth they seek and provide an understanding of how to achieve better work and a better working life.

We run several MyHRCareer Saturday morning study sessions during the year supported by visiting experts. Each session offers a selection of career related learning activities that are informative, interactive, and enable members to take-away tools and techniques to continue working with beyond the sessions.

The MyHRCareer sessions are designed to support members in using the CIPD‘s development plan and the CPD cycle to:

Identify skills, strengths, and career motivations.
Plan goals with clear outcomes and milestones.
Act upon the plan, helped and supported by the visiting experts, tools and techniques offered, and other delegates.
Reflect on progress through day to day experiences & contributing to LinkedIn discussions.

The MyHRCareer sessions planned include such topics as:

career self-awareness
CV writing practice
LinkedIn profile writing and networking
interview practice
changing roles in your HR career

We want these sessions to provide what you want so please let us know so we can include it.

For more details of future events check and to participate in the discussion, please join our LinkedIn group.

Consultants

The special interest group for consultants (SIG-C) is a forum for members who run a professional services business either as an independent consultant or as a small business. The group will also be of interest to members who may be contemplating a route into consultancy and may wish to investigate the challenges and opportunities that people can create for themselves through self-employment. The aim has remained to provide insights in how to develop your consultancy skills, improve your business and facilitate mutual support.

The group runs from September to June each year with a seasonal theme providing connected meetings. The interactive meetings enable members to participate in exploring their knowledge and in fresh thinking, building approaches to professional practice and developing solutions to clients. They also discuss how to best secure new business opportunities. Previous seasonal themes have included:

consultancy in practice
the profitable consultancy
building alliances
the marketing edge
the effectiveness question - what works and how
the psychological structure of consultancy
growing your business

When face-to-facing meeting is possible, we hold them at the Guildford Institute, Ward Street, Guildford, GU1 4LH, assembling at 19.00 for a 19.15 start, and lasting about an hour. Otherwise we meet virtually.