People practice: plain text
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From: Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform
- Published on: 2 April 2025
- Last updated on: 14 May 2025
- Introduction
- Understanding people practices
- Law, regulation and policy
- Workforce planning
- Skills and capabilities
- Performance management
- Wellbeing
- Equality Diversity and inclusion
- Flexible ways of working
- Enabling flexible ways of working
- Pay and pensions
Introduction
The ‘People Practice’ standards refer to the range of people practices that need to be understood to be an effective People/HR Professional.
You may find that you identify with different levels for each theme. This is perfectly fine. It is unlikely that a person will be Level 4 for every area of the Framework.
Understanding people practices
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand
Different stages of the employee lifecycle i.e. attraction, onboarding, probation, retention, development, offboarding, and where the work you do sits within it
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
Different stages of the employee lifecycle i.e. attraction, onboarding, probation, retention, development, offboarding, and where the work you do sits within it
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
A range of people practices, and how to design them in an integrated way
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
People practices across a range of specialisms, and how to integrate these to create a holistic people offering
Law, regulation and policy
Level 1: At this level you'll understand
Policy, circulars, regulation and law relevant to your work
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
Policy, circulars, regulation and law relevant to your work and how to ensure people practices are compliant
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
Current and future regulation, policy, circulars and law relevant to your work, how to apply it, and how to mitigate risk
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
Current and future regulation, policy, circulars and law relevant to your work, and how to assess impact and risk for organisations and the civil service
Workforce planning
Level 1: At this level you'll understand
What workforce planning is
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
The stages of workforce planning including current workforce analysis, determining future needs, identifying gaps and how to apply insights for action planning
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
How workforce planning informs other people practices and wider business planning
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
How to use strategic workforce planning to inform future people and organisation strategy
Skills and capabilities
Level 1: At this level you'll understand
How your organisation assesses people's skills and capability
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
How to conduct skills or capability audits and gap analyses in your area of work
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
How to assess current and future capability needs
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
How to build future organisation and sector capability
Performance management
Level 1: At this level you'll understand
Performance management approaches in your organisation
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
Different approaches to performance management, their pros and cons and how to advise managers on them
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
The impact of different performance management approaches, and how performance management data can be used to design and drive improvements
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
The impact of different performance management approaches on organisation culture and performance
Wellbeing
Level 1: At this level you'll understand
What wellbeing is and why it's important for people and the organisation
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
Why wellbeing is important, and the different factors that impact wellbeing
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
How to integrate wellbeing into people practices
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
How to integrate wellbeing into people strategies
Equality Diversity and inclusion
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand
What equality, diversity and inclusion is, why it's important and key practices in your organisation around EDI i.e. reasonable accommodations
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
How to build equality, diversity and inclusion into your work
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
How to integrate equality, diversity and inclusion into people practice to create value in your area of work
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
How to build equality, diversity and inclusion approaches that positively impact an organisation’s culture and performance
Flexible ways of working
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand
Different flexible ways of working (e.g. workplace-based, job-share, hybrid, remote)
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
How to adapt people processes and practices for flexible, workplace-based, hybrid and remote working
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
How to develop people practices for a flexible and hybrid workforce that enhance performance and engagement
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
How to identify strategic opportunities and adapt people strategies for a flexible and hybrid workforce
Enabling flexible ways of working
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand
How your organisation supports flexible ways of working
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
How to advise line managers and teams on workplace-based, hybrid and remote working, ensuring fairness and communication
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
How to coach managers and leaders to build cohesion and trust across a hybrid workforce
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
How to integrate flexible ways of working within the wider organisation culture balancing the needs of all stakeholders
Pay and pensions
Level 1: At this level you’ll understand
The principles of pay and pension provision in your organisation
Level 2: At this level you’ll understand
The different elements of pay and pensions in your organisation and how to advise on them
Level 3: At this level you’ll understand
The elements of pay and pensions for different types of workers in your organisation and how to advise on them
Level 4: At this level you’ll understand
How to review the pay and benefit provision in your organisation and contribute to the development of the corporate pay and benefit strategy