CIPD HR Electives

Students studyingThe CIPD HR Electives is one of the four fields that a student must complete to obtain their CIPD Graduate membership. 

Essentially, when a student reaches the electives stage of the CIPD Professional Development Scheme, they are required to specialise in four ‘electives’, selecting those that will be of most benefit in their chosen career path within HR. There are eight HR or Training electives to choose from:

  • People Resourcing
  • Employee Relations
  • Employee Reward
  • Learning and Development
  • Employment Law
  • Managing Organisational Learning and Knowledge
  • Managing the Training and Development Function
  • Management Development
  • Learning and Development


However if you can choose to substitute any of the above for one of the other electives, then you can do so. The four standard HR Electives are:

  • People Resourcing (RES)
  • Employee Relations (REL)
  • Employee Reward (REW)
  • Learning and Development (L&D)


Any elective can be studied on its own purely for knowledge value. For example, our Employment Law elective is very popular in its own right.

Once a student has completed four electives, they will complete the elective field and gain Licentiate membership of the CIPD.

Please click here to find out more about CIPD membership and pathways.

Tailored in-house programmes

All our CIPD programmes can be tailored to your organisation's needs and run at one of our study centres or in-house, anywhere in the world. Learning materials, workshops, case studies etc can all be customised within the overall course framework to give greater relevance to the specific workplace.

We currently offer a full range of accredited and non-accredited courses in personnel, training, management and development. For further information contact Admissions.