Our professional standards are designed so anybody can use these as a development tool within the housing sector. If you're an individual we have our self-assessment tool on our website where you can record your own development, but if you're an organisation we have also created guidance and a template for using these standards in-house too.
Individuals
Checklist for practitioners
- Every practitioner should undertake their CIH professional standards self assessment and CIH members should use the enhanced self assessment.
- Use the feedback from the self assessment to identify the professional standards that should be your priority.
- Match the relevant CIH characteristics to the deliverables in your work plan.
- At each check determine how you are meeting your objectives/ deliverables.
- Every six to twelve months, revisit the self-assessment tool to identify/ map progress made. (Please note this is for members only. Non-members can only use any email address once to take the self assessment.)
Every practitioner should undertake their CIH professional standards self assessment. CIH members should use the enhanced self assessment.
Our self-assessment tool is to be used alongside our professional standards. The professional standards set out the right behaviours and competences which underpin the work of housing practitioners. The assessment takes a few minutes to complete and instantly provides users with a detailed progress report, identifying strengths and areas for development, alongside tailored resources specific to their learning requirements.
Use the feedback from the self assessment to identify the professional standards that should be your priority.
You should map whether each professional standard is either an area of development, area to monitor, or an area of strength. The areas where development has been identified should be included in your personal development plan once agreed with your line manager with SMART targets. Your manager will discuss the feedback from your self assessment with you and consider what characteristics will be prioritised as part of your workplan/ professional development.
Match the relevant CIH characteristics to the deliverables in your work plan.
Ensure that you are taking the opportunity to address your areas of professional development while contributing to your organisational objectives. For example, where leadership has been identified as an area of development, you may wish to volunteer to lead on internal projects or you could take advantage of training and learning opportunities as identified by the self-assessment tool, as well as giving consideration to utilising the resources suggested by CIH to improve your performance as a housing practitioner (although you may want to also consider a broader pool of resources). This area of development and corresponding action should be clearly marked as being linked to the CIH professional standards. Remember to develop your own professional development plan and record your progress.
At each check determine how you are meeting your objectives/ deliverables.
You must meet at least every three months with your line manager to discuss how you are meeting your objectives. You will consider how you are addressing the areas of development identified by the CIH self-assessment tool and what further support, if any, will be required.
Every six to twelve months, revisit the self-assessment tool to identify/ map progress made.
Note, non-members can only take our online self-assessment once. After discussions with your manager, consider repeating the use of the CIH self-assessment tool. This will provide an objective assessment of how you are addressing your areas of development. It may highlight new resources to support you, identify clear improvements and/or note other characteristics that require prioritisation. When a new area has been identified a new action to support this should be noted in your personal objectives.
Top tip: Following the self-assessment, members can record their annual CPD goal(s):
Organisations
Checklist for housing organisations
- Incentivise use of the CIH professional standards by staff.
- Help your team see the links between organisational objectives and the CIH professional standards.
- Run a staff workshop to review the applicability of the CIH professional standards.
Incentivise use of the CIH professional standards by staff.
Not all housing practitioners are CIH members, but landlords can still play a key role in encouraging their staff to embed the professional standards in their own workplan and address the areas of development identified by the self-assessment tool. Housing organisations may wish to link learning and development resources to supporting staff with CIH membership, qualifications and training where staff have demonstrably embedded a commitment to using professional standards in the personal workplan. This will incentivise greater use of the professional standards amongst all practitioners.
Help your team see the links between organisational objectives and the CIH professional standards.
Our professional standards are designed to be applicable to all housing professionals no matter their role or seniority. Support your teams to identify the alignment between the standards and their own work plan and use business objectives to support personal learning objectives. If however there is no alignment, do consider how the characteristics can be supported as a stand-alone area of professional development for the practitioner. This may be through CPD recommended by CIH or other approaches.
Run a staff workshop to review the applicability of the CIH professional standards.
Some teams may benefit from collective discussion and direction on why the standards matter and how to use the self-assessment framework. You can use our resources to support internal workshops to build organisational interest and utilisation of the professional standards.
Key resources
- CIH professional standards: Highlighting how organisations have embedded our professional standards
- Self-assessment tool
- Record your CPD
- Professional standards personal development plan template.
