New Enhancements to IQ Membership

11 July, 2022

First published in the June 2022 issue of Quarry Management

Experience IQ’s latest personal development tool at Hillhead 2022

After a gap of four years, the Institute of Quarrying (IQ) returns to this year’s Hillhead ready to launch its new professional development mapping tool alongside several other added-value member benefits to its Continuing Professional Development (CPD) reporting tool.

IQ’s Personal Development Wheel is the latest tool created to help mineral products professionals map their personal skills and knowledge against the IQ Skills Wheel.

IQ chief executive officer James Thorne explains: ‘Encouraging our members to actively participate in CPD activities is at the heart of what we do. Investing in professional development means that each of us is equipped with skills to remain relevant and up to date. That includes things like participating in webinars, attending exhibitions and conferences, or completing a qualification.

‘Our new Personal Development Wheel brings together the IQ Skills Wheel with our CPD recording tool. Members can carry out their own self-assessment of their knowledge and skills levels against the IQ Skills Wheel. Using the results, members can create a personalized development plan in the areas they wish to develop in order to achieve career goals. For example, if a quarry deputy wanted to progress to a quarry manager role, the Personal Development Wheel helps identify the areas that they need to develop.

‘The IQ Skills Wheel shows how to build skills across different knowledge areas. Now combined with the Personal Development Wheel, individuals and businesses have a guide to assist with personal development plans and can help build flexible and agile workplaces.’

Members of IQ benefit from support throughout every stage of their career, with access to a wide range of CPD opportunities that are tailored to the industry. Alongside this is access to internationally recognized qualifications and a network of professionals sharing accumulated knowledge and good practice.

One of the industry professionals who has experienced and had their say on the development of the IQ Personal Development Wheel is Will Hardcastle MIQ, quarry manager UK at Omya.

He says: ‘The IQ Skills Wheel has been a great starting point for a development review with our operatives, supervisors, and managers. It ensures the quality recording of CPD that we use within our annual objective setting for employees. IQ’s Skills Wheel helps us define individual training and development needs, as well as helping our employees to understand their own strengths, weaknesses, and areas of focus for self-learning.’

Ongoing improvements to the member experience

Over the past 18 months, IQ has implemented an ongoing programme of software enhancements to improve its CPD reporting tool. These improvements allow members to have better access to the information they need. Enhancements can be accessed by logging into the member portal or directly from the IQ member app, IQ Connect.

Improved features include automatic CPD recording, downloadable reports that show CPD hours and activities, as well as visual triggers to show which entries require additional information, plus a status bar to show how a member is progressing towards their current annual target. Members can also view a full list of all IQ events and register to attend using the ‘one-click’ functionality.

A simplified event booking process makes it easier for members to register to attend events. Clicking the ‘Register Now’ button on the events page is all a member needs to do to confirm their attendance. Those that register and attend IQ events will have their CPD record automatically updated with that activity. The only thing that is left for a member to do is to complete the ‘what was learned’ section and the CPD activity will be submitted.

New graphs help members clearly see where they are investing their learning in relation to the IQ Skills Wheel, as well as how they are doing with regard to achieving the mandatory minimum requirement of 30 hours of CPD per year.

Members also have the power to analyse their historical CPD. They can choose which year to view their data or view their total number of hours submitted over a number of years. This really supports members in identifying skills and knowledge areas that they may want to develop in the future.

Sarah Fry, head of marketing and membership at IQ, says: ‘The quarrying and extractives industry faces tough challenges in continuing to supply vital products in a sustainable way. The IQ is proud to play its part, working with the industry to identify the future skills and competencies needed and developing the training and qualifications to support career pathways, all of which is critical to supporting professionals already in the industry but also for attracting the next generation of talent.

‘That is why we constantly review our processes to make sure that we are providing the highest levels of support for our members, and we are grateful that members value being part of the industry’s own professional membership body.

‘We’re looking forward to revealing the Personal Development Wheel to our members, and industry professionals, at Hillhead 2022. Members can benefit from a tool that helps them create a development plan in order to reach career goals. Meanwhile, we hope it’s something that may spark an interest with non-members too. Come along to our stand and experience it for yourselves.’

For more information about the Institute of Quarrying, call in at the IQ stand at Hillhead 2022 or visit: www.quarrying.org