Context
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is the professional body for Human Resource personnel and others involved in the management and development of people. cScape has been involved in developing an engagement strategy to connect members and non-members into a regular relationship with CIPD through digital channels.
Challenge
In 2003 cScape and CIPD embarked on a project to build a benchmark professional online community. The overall aim was for the community boards to complement the other resources on the extensive site and to strengthen membership engagement by offering a forum for discussing workplace-related issues. As the interest in the communities continued to grow, new challenges arose. These included: the decision to change the communities from an open access to a members-only resource; considering how to keep the intervention of moderators to a minimum while ensuring all contributions are appropriate; continually reviewing the functionality to ensure it complements and enriches CIPD's brand values; extending the software with networking functionality; customising the technology to create enhanced persuasive design solutions.
Solution
Richard Sedley, cScape’s Customer Engagement Director, presented a position paper to CIPD in 2003 on content and moderation of the communities and the opportunities it offers for membership engagement. Since then, user-generated content has advanced at a rapid pace and at each review stage of the CIPD communities, new tools have been added to the site, including networking functionality. The CIPD communities site is an early example of cScape’s development of the concept of persuasive solutions where the overall engagement objectives have been achieved by the aid of new technologies and persuasive design. In 2007, the communities site will be taken to the next level. It will become more interactive, provide better networking facilities and enable individuals to have more comprehensive profiles.
Outcome
The CIPD communities is a thriving online discussion and networking site, and well-established as the leading online discussion board for HR professionals. In the beginning of 2007, there had been 30,000 posts from over 8,000 people. The communities discussions are linked to both in the weekly CIPD e-newsletter and in the People Management Magazine, which are open to non-members too. The communities themselves are used to highlight other areas of CIPD’s work, for instance in the Forthcoming Events slot. CIPD's community manager Steve Bridger said: “I have been struck by the richness of discussion and the additional value that members so clearly gain from the communities.”