The CORP™️ programmes, across 3 separate levels, offer a unique and genuine development pathway. Accessed exclusively through the CORP™️ Academy, practitioner certification aims to confirm not only your knowledge and understanding of organisational resilience but also your ability to apply registered models at a strategic level and in real-world environments. This allows practitioners to gain recognition for the contribution they make to an organisation's success and longevity, and a more effective means of advertising this to clients and potential employers.

The CORP™️ programme is now Institute Approved, providing professional recognition for our learning content and approach to leadership development. This allows successful candidates to enjoy the additional benefits of full membership status and access to award-winning learning resources from one of the UK's largest institute bodies - the Institute of Learning and Management.

The programme for gaining Certified Organisational Resilience Practitioner (CORP)™️ status begins either with our unique webinar-based qualification course, regulated by Ofqual and offering a Level 5 management award, or via our slightly shorter Institute Approved course, RESILIENCE ESSENTIALS. These are the only courses offering access to Modelling Future State Resilience (MFSR)™️ - a new conceptual approach to strategic resilience in the post-pandemic environment - and both courses offer access to our certified programmes.

Once qualified to Level 5 standard, or having successfully completed the RESILIENCE ESSENTIALS course, full CORP status is secured through competency assessment using real-world evidence obtained through your organisation or those organisations which you work with.

... the levels of societal interruption associated with the 2020 pandemic are truly unprecedented... the organisations which boast resilience will be those able to demonstrate strength and evidence growth, and those which reshape in order to secure a competitive position.

The CORP programme is extremely flexible and is built around a truly unique approach to the delivery of resilience-focused training and consultancy. Knowledge and understanding are assessment against clearly defined criteria, using a recognised qualification course as the foundation. The course is supplemented by The Organisational Resilience Handbook, published by Kogan Page, and by the various manuals and other documents published as part of The Complete Post-Pandemic Resilience Toolkit series.

By focusing on evidence and a commitment to viewing resilience as a strategic capability, CORP status offers meaningful professional certification to candidates from all backgrounds and from any organisational setting. Candidates are not asked to sit an exam and there are no specific preconditions which could act as a barrier to participation. There is no annual subscription or licensing fee, and there is no expiry date to CORP status once achieved.

CORP status allows individuals to display the CORP logo and to reference their certified status on personal websites and social media profiles.

Central to the CORP programme is the assessment of competence and the ability of candidates to evidence their engagement with senior management and the organisation's Board on the subject of resilience. There are three elements to this, as outlined below:

1. Resilience capability. Assessed and reported by the candidate within an organisational context by reference to named characteristics and behaviours. This can be done by using the Organisational Resilience Capability Model® (ORCM) or other approved model/framework. Candidates should be able to provide verifiable evidence of management-level assessment and/or measurement reports for which they have been responsible or made considerable contribution to within the last 3 years.
2. Crisis or change exposure. Evaluated by the candidate and endorsed by senior management by reference to how the organisation’s ability to operate was exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic or other crisis or significant change event. This can be done by reference to the Resilience as Power™️ framework or other approved model/framework. Candidates should be able to provide verifiable evidence of reports or analysis for which they have been responsible or made considerable contribution to within the last 3 years.
3. Strategic alignment. Directed, facilitated or supported by the candidate by reference to how the Board’s resilience stance has been informed by its understanding of the above elements and also by the organisation’s risk reality. This can be done by reference to Modelling Future State Resilience (MFSR)™️ or other approved model/framework. Candidates should be able to provide verifiable evidence showing how they contributed to Board-level decision making on resilience within last 3 years.

The following diagram shows the key steps necessary to achieving certified practitioner status:

Organisational Resilience continues to mean many things to many people. This programme adopts a simple, yet progressive approach to resilience thinking and supports the view that resilience represents an important strategic capability for each and every organisation, regardless of size, complexity or commercial orientation.

This new programme represents a fantastic contribution to professional development and should prove to be of great interest to practitioners across many different fields, including risk, safety, security, continuity, supply chain, IT, assurance and crisis management.

FAQs:

Why is no exam required? Routes to certified status in some other fields do indeed require candidates to sit an exam. However, these are often only multiple choice style exercises and it is difficult to identify what real value they add. The CORP programme focuses on competency and the candidates ability to evidence their experience and contribution to an organisation's resilience. Certified practitioner status is not about the power of recall or remembering each of the elements within a particular standard. CORP is about the candidate’s contribution to building strategic capability within an organisation.

What if I am already qualified to Level 5 Organisational Resilience? Herein lies the advantage of our fee structure. Candidates continue to pay for the Level 5 award course separately, and only pay for the formal Level 5 qualification if they choose to. Similarly, candidates only pay to upgrade to CORP status once they are comfortable with the requirements for assessment and once a timeline has been discussed with ourselves. Therefore no fees are duplicated and if you already have the Level 5 award, you need only pay the fees associated with upgrading to CORP status.

I have several years of resilience experience and other relevant qualifications, so do I need to take the Level 5 or the RESILIENCE ESSENTIALS course? Yes, both of our foundation courses provide an essential overview of resilience as a strategic capability and it introduces the types of models and frameworks which candidates should be using to demonstrate their competence in this area. Whilst experience is clearly very important, as are other qualifications, it is equally important that we establish a challenging benchmark for achieving certified practitioner status. With resilience practitioners still struggling to coalesce around a single definition or approach to the subject, our courses act not only to confirm knowledge and understanding, they also act to calibrate thinking and help to create a common language for us to use as part of assessing competency.

I am part of a resilience team - how can I best evidence what I have achieved? The evidencing and assessment of competence and expertise is based on your individual contribution, which can be as an independent consultant or practitioner or as part of a wider team within an organisation. We can discuss with you the type of evidence which should be most appropriate in any given situation, but being a member of a wider team is certainly NOT a barrier to achieving certified practitioner status.

Is the CORP programme aimed at employees of an organisation or at consultants? Quite simply, the programme is aimed at both and is aimed at recognising the contribution of both. The context within which each organisation operates is unique and this includes the detail of how organisations might seek to assess and improve their resilience capability and their performance. What is important in respect of seeking certified status is the relevance and completeness of the evidence practitioners are able to provide, not the terms under which it was created.

Which other models or frameworks can be used to evidence competence? The models and frameworks referenced above (ORCM, Resilience as Power, MFSR) are approved for the purposes of CORP assessment. Candidates are free to nominate other models or frameworks they have used but we suggest this is done prior to the payment of any CORP upgrade fees in order that we can advise as to their appropriateness.

At what point can I see the Candidate Workbook? Transparency and consistency are hugely important with any assessment programme. As such, a summary version of the workbook will be shared with prospective candidates once the programme is fully live. This will provide more detail about the assessment process, the nature of the evidence being sought and what is expected of candidates. Once upgrade fees are received a full version of the workbook will be shared and discussions can take place with the candidate regarding assessment evidence and timescales, etc.

How much are the CORP fees? The latest fees are available on our website. We are committed to keeping CORP assessment fees at a competitive level, and candidates should remember there is NO annual registration or re-assessment involved. For our Level 5 course, there is no uplift to examination fees as we simply pass on the charges from the awarding body, etc. Importantly, the CORP fee structure means that candidates can take the Level 5 or RESILIENCE ESSENTIALS course without committing to the CORP upgrade and assessments until they are ready.

Can I resubmit evidence if it does not pass the assessment? Yes, absolutely. Candidates will receive unlimited support from us as they work to achieve CORP status. The reality for most candidates will be that evidence is submitted and assessed in blocks and over a period of time. There are no arbitrary timescale set for completing the process. Candidates can request guidance on the detail of the assessment criteria and on the models and frameworks detailed on the foundation courses and further guidance on how to structure and present evidence is also contained within the Candidate Workbook.

Who will be undertaking the assessments? Over time it is likely that we will need a network of trusted assessors to help deliver on this very important element of the programme. At launch, I plan to undertake all assessments personally in order to ensure that we set the correct levels of achievement and that we do so consistently. The initially quality of these assessments is particularly important as we are expecting practitioners to come forward from a variety of sectors and with very different experiences.

How long will achieving certified status take? The programme of assessment is highly flexible, as it should be, with timescales dictated by the candidate and the pace of their work. As each organisation’s resilience stance is different, so too will be the experiences of each CORP candidate, and the programme must be capable of reflecting this. As a result, some candidates may expect to obtain certified status within 6-8 weeks of completing the Level 5 qualification course assessments or the RESILIENCE ESSENTIALS course. For others this may take 18 months or more. What is important is that candidates feel able to properly evidence their contribution to the organisation’s resilience and not to feel rushed or influenced by arbitrary dates.

What if I don’t have easy access to the organisation’s policies, etc? It is worth remembering that the programme does not constitute an audit of the organisation and your ability to evidence a level of expertise and a positive contribution to resilience is likely to be based around those things which you have created or produced or been party to, rather than to policies and procedures.

What if I don’t have easy access to the Board? With regards to Board access, it is important that we accept resilience as representing a strategic capability, and as such, the expectation of practitioners is that they are influencing Board-level decision making and understanding. Now, the important elements here are ‘influence’ and ‘contribution’, rather than ‘access’. I know a senior manager in a very hierarchical organisation who often feels remote from Board-level meetings, for example, but he is still recognised as a thought-leader on the subject within that organisation and is able to show how he is helping to shape strategy and direction.

The assessment process is intended to be a very human experience as well as one which remains flexible and reflective of different conditions. We will always work with candidates to ensure that the requirements for evidencing competence and contribution are interpreted fairly and in a meaningful way.

Notes:

Certified Organisational Resilience Practitioner (CORP)™️, CORP™️ Academy, CORP lite™️, CORP Plus™️ and the CORP™️ logos are trademarks of AJC Bell Consulting Limited and their use is granted only in respect of the criteria listed above. The trademarks must not be used in a way which could infer ownership and certified practitioners must not claim to be able to grant their use to others or to operate their own certification process on such a basis. CORP status applies only to named individuals and the trademarks must not be used in a way which infers status or achievement at an organisational level. Permissions relevant to the CORP trademarks may be withdrawn at any time at the discretion of the trademark owner. This and any other change in use will be notified to certified practitioners in writing.

The Organisation Resilience Capability Model® (ORCM) is a registered trademark of AJC Bell Consulting Limited. Modelling Future State Resilience (MFSR)™️ and Resilience as Power™️ and Resilience 6™️ are trademarks used exclusively by AJC Bell Consulting Limited as brand identifiers. The ORCM and MFSR are also registered designs.

© 2020 CORP™️ Academy | AJC Bell Consulting Limited