Course description

The primary purpose of the CIPD Foundation Certificate in People Practice qualification is to develop participants’ knowledge and skills and to build their expertise, confidence and credibility to deliver value in their organisations and to the people served by Human Resources (HR) and Learning and Development (L&D) professionals. This qualification will give participants a solid foundation for careers in the people profession, incorporating both Human Resources and Learning & Development.

This qualification, which is comparable to Level 5 on the Irish National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ), introduces the participants to a wide range of relevant knowledge and expertise in people practice. It is suited to those participants who:

Are studying, aspiring to, or embarking on, a career in people practice;
Are working in a people practice support role and wish to develop their knowledge and deliver immediate and short-term value for their organisation;
Wish to develop the specialist knowledge, skills and understanding required to be a people professional;
Line Managers with people management responsibilities.

CIPD qualifications set the international standard for people professionals. On successful completion of the Foundation Certificate in People Practice, candidates will be eligible for Foundation Membership of the CIPD and can use the designation Foundation CIPD. This starts to build their credibility in the people profession, shows that they are serious about their development and that they have a strong base of knowledge to build on.

Course Content

There are four units on the CIPD Foundation Certificate in People Practice programme covering:

Business, Culture and Change in Context;
Core Behaviours for People Professionals;
Essentials of People Practice; and,
Principles of Analytics.

Assessment

There is no written examination for the CIPD Foundation Certificate in People Practice programme. Assessment is by means of unit assignments the majority of which are written. There will be one practical assessment in relation to the conduct of a selection interview in respect of which a recording of the interview will be submitted.

On successful completion of the Foundation Certificate in People Practice, candidates will be eligible for Foundation Membership of the CIPD and can use the designation Foundation CIPD.

Course Delivery and Dates

We offer a blended learning approach to the delivery of 120 hours of guided learning over the period of September 2023 to April 2024. In addition to the 120 hours of guided learning participants can expect to devote another 120 hours to self-study and the completion of assessments between September 2023 and June 2024.

In our blended learning approach, participants will attend a series of 11 days of Online Live Workshops. Participants will be required to have good internet access and are advised to be able connect to the online live workshops using a laptop/PC with video and audio enabled.

The Online Live Workshops will be delivered by a team of HR professionals with extensive experience of designing and delivering learning and development interventions for HR and L&D Practitioners and Line Managers.

Participants will also have online access to workbooks for each unit, interactive e-learning courses, videos, podcasts, toolkits and other learning resources through the IPA’s Learning Management System Moodle.

An important part of the blended learning design is that participants will attend online Learning Set/ Study Group meetings throughout the programme (see below).

Each unit of the programme will be led by a dedicated IPA Specialist Unit Lead Tutor/Tutors who will be available to give ongoing advice and support to participants.

We have two programmes commencing in September 2023. One will be online (see below) and the second will be in person with workshops taking place in Wexford. A third programme (online delivery) will be offered, starting in November 2023.

The following is the schedule for the online programme commencing in September 2023. Please go to the IPA website for details of the in person programme.

Induction / Orientation: 27 September 2023 (P.M. Only)

Unit 1 – Business, Culture and Change in Context: 28 September & 12 October 2023

First Facilitated Learning Set Meetings*: One Meeting on either 16 or 17 October 2023

Unit 4 – Principles of Analytics: 2 & 16 November 2023

Unit 3 – Core Behaviours for People Professionals: 7 December 2023 & 9 January 2024

Unit 4 – Essentials of People Practice:

Employee Lifecycle & Recruitment & Selection: 1 and 13 February 2024
Legislation & Organisation Practices: 7 March 2024
Performance & Reward: 28 March 2024
Supporting Skills & Knowledge Development: 23 April 2024

*The allocation of participants to learning sets / study groups will be confirmed after the Unit 1 Workshops.

Bookings

Bookings must be made on the IPA CIPD Foundation Certificate in People Practice Application Form. Please contact [email protected] or go to the IPA website www.ipa.ie for details.

Early booking is recommended to secure a place on this programme as places are limited.