Innovative design

ILM has always offered qualifications that are flexible in structure, ensuring participants can select those areas most appropriate to their needs, while being rigorous in their quality, so that employers can be confident that their leaders and managers are working to the highest standards.

In 2007, this emphasis on innovation saw the redesign of the majority of our qualifications into a unit-based format. Qualifications are now made up of a number of units, each a self-contained area of learning and practice, set at one of six levels and measured in size by their credit value. This flexible, student-centered structure approach means that these qualifications all conform to the emerging credit frameworks in the UK and across Europe. Get more information about units, levels and credits. 

ILM’s qualifications consist of one or more mandatory units that cover the essential knowledge and skills required at that level, and a range of optional units from which participants can select those that most meet their needs. These qualifications are delivered in three different sizes:

• Awards are concise programmes that develop the core knowledge and skills required. They are particularly suitable for those people preparing for a new role or who have just started in one
• Certificates are particularly suitable for leaders and managers established in post who require a broader base of knowledge and skills to perform effectively in the post
• Diplomas have been developed for leaders and managers who are taking on wider responsibilities or being prepared to move onto more demanding roles

Each of the smaller qualifications is ‘nested’ in the larger, so that credit for units completed on, eg an Award can be carried forward to a Cerificate or even a Diploma. This avoids unnecessary repetition and also acts as a motivator, encouraging more successful learning.

Learning in the workplace

Training and development only has value if it can be used to help leaders and managers improve their performance. ILM does this by linking what is learnt to what happens in the learner's own workplace, and focussing on how this can be used to deliver real gains, for both the learner and their employer.

Applying what is being learnt to the workplace is all about exploring what happens there, how people perform, what systems and procedures exist, and why this is. Actual practice is compared and contrasted with theoretical ideas and with best practice elsewhere, to promote understanding and also to evaluate different models and their suitability.

Making improvements is the key focus of the assessment activities used on ILM qualifications. It is not enough to ‘know that’; effective leaders and managers need to ‘know how’ – how to improve their own performance, their team’s performance and their organisation’s performance. Assessment activities focus on just that, so that training and development represents a real investment in improvement.