Presidents Message October 2012

Dear Members,

 
As the new Council year commences, your Council and I have been making plans to raise the bar of the IPM by making it a more effective organization to the Corporate Members, Affiliates, HR Professionals, HR Students and indeed to the entire country in general. I believe it's my duty to outline the priorities we have proposed for this year.
The main focus would be to ensure that you as Corporate Members of the IPM together with other primary stakeholders will be marching in one direction, i.e. servicing the entire gamut of the HR Profession as per the mandate given to us by the Parliament of Sri Lanka in particular and by extension, by the People of the Country in general.
 This year we have made arrangements to restructure the Standing Committees. Accordingly we have introduced new Standing Committees to strengthen the IPM even stronger as an organization. There are factors [enumerated below] that are top-most in our list of priorities. It is my belief that these are areas that we have to put right as being fundamental in our quest to take IPM to the ‘next level’.
 1. What is beyond PQHRM
Our analysis show that the students of PQHRM, the premier product of IPM caters for HR Assistants at large and Job Seekers. The HR Managers and Directors are mostly completely left out.
 Consequently the top-tier of corporate establishments perceive IPM as an institute that only produces HR Assistants. We have been debating this issue: "Why there is no representation at the board room" for many years. We have yet to provide that extra, critical support to the HR Managers that would pave their path aimed at enhancing their credentials towards taking up a seat in the Board Room.
We are therefore in the process of making appropriate plans and even factoring Internships, improving soft-skills and other dynamic interventions whilst continuing with the present program.


 2. Quality over Quantity
We have been concentrating on the number of students that we enroll to IPM Business School, virtually turning a blind eye towards the standards of the students we enroll. This policy has resulted in many serious doubts being expressed on the quality of outputs from the Business School.
 In the meanwhile we continue to obtain assessment of Lecturers/Resource Persons from the students. Such assessments made by students enable to categorize Resource Persons in a spectrum varying from Excellent to Poor. As the measurement criteria is only too well known we need to ensure that we strive to be assessed as Excellent at each Lecture. Those who continue to be evaluated as below average need to turn the searchlight on themselves and analyze their thought-process and performance; perhaps they need to upgrade their skills & knowledge in backdrop of the vast strides being made globally in the entire canvass of new thinking and delivery of training & development.  
 I am strongly of the opinion that we should focus on the Quality over Quantity. Thus this year it will be the pursuit of quality of students and the quality of deliverables - focused on making the final product brimming with quality; more significantly, honed towards the needs of the corporate world.
 3. Walking the talk
We have been teaching the best HR practices to thousands of students in the Country. We have contributed tens of thousands of HR Professionals to the Society. Yet, ironically HR Practices need to be visibly noticed and indeed practiced by the staff of IPM and I dare say, even by lecturers.
In short, all relevant must practice the fundamentals of ‘Customer Care’; we need to have a paradigm shift in this critical area. Let us all practice what we preach!
 We shall install best practices of what we teach in Business School, within the Business School, that business school is capable of delivering high quality service and products to the Customers.
 Dear Members, while we wish to spotlight aforementioned three factors as priorities that should receive the undivided attention of all, the Governing Council and all the Standing Committees are actively working towards making IPM a better institute to all the Stakeholders.
We may face many obstacles; there can be discouraging situations; even distorted information spilling out, which may be far from the truth!
Yet we expect your continued support towards the relentless “pursuit of success" as we are committed to do so.
 I am grateful to the membership for giving me an effective and professional Governing Council for this year.
The stand-out quality of the Council you appointed is their "Visionary" thinking!
So let’s get together and make our vision a reality soon
I take this opportunity of wishing each and every one of you all success!


AIR VICE MARSHALL K R A RANASINGHE [retd]
 PRESIDENT IPM