The Profession Map is the international standard for the people profession. It helps us to make better decisions, act with confidence, drive change in our organisations and progress in our careers. It does this by setting out the purpose, values, core knowledge, behaviours and specialist knowledge that make a positive impact, whatever our career level or specialism. 
 
As part of our commitment to help people professionals adapt and succeed in the fast-changing world of work, the Profession Map is reviewed twice a year to ensure the standards are relevant and fit for purpose. Standards are updated in response to new priorities, opportunities, specialisms and roles and backed up by research and feedback from the profession. 

What has changed? 

We’ve made changes that reflect the latest research, the changing landscape and feedback from the profession to five areas of the Profession Map: 

People Analytics 

In both our research and feedback from the profession, we identified that this Specialist Knowledge area needed updating to better reflect the work that people do in this field. 

We’ve fully reviewed and made changes to every standard in this area to make it more practical, as well as changing the overall definition. Some of the key changes include: 

• A greater focus on using data to generate business insight and support decision-making across the employee lifecycle 
• More practical standards on how to use analysis tools and data visualisations 
• Greater consideration of the responsible use of data, and data integrity 
• Changes to language, such as ‘data science’ to reflect the broader approach to techniques such as data modelling 

Technology and People 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the world of work. Our new standards on AI detail the knowledge required at every stage of your career, highlighting the ethical and responsible use of AI-embedded technologies.  

We’ve also taken the opportunity to update some other standards in this area to reflect the changing ways of working. Key changes include: 

• Altered some of the language to highlight the changing role of AI 
• Introduced a new standard focusing on how people professionals should use AI in a responsible way to support their work 
• Amended one standard to reflect the impact of technology on data privacy 
• Changed some language to create a greater emphasis on the worker experience 

There have also been minor changes to the Business Acumen Core Knowledge area and the Resourcing and Talent Management Specialist Knowledge areas.