Inspiring Tomorrow's Leaders

What can we do to inspire the next generation? How do we attract and retain these individuals? These are questions asked of us by our members on a regular basis and which have been a key focus of our Inspiring Tomorrow’s Leaders Project; a project to research and develop a strategy for addressing the needs and approaches to engaging and building the future pipeline of construction management talent and the CIOB. Without support for the emerging talent entering our industry and joining us as a professional body, we need to ask ourselves what does the future hold? 

It is for this exact reason that the need to invest in the future of the industry is reflected within the ‘Talented Community’ Theme of the CIOB Corporate Plan 2020 – 2023, which aims to ‘strengthen talent and diversity across the global CIOB community’. The Institute aims to position Chartered Membership as an early career achievement by ensuring young professionals have an integral place within the Institute and ensuring they continue to have a voice to help influence and shape the CIOB. We would also like to lower the average age of membership. This is why the objective to ‘integrate Novus into the main CIOB’ also sits within the CIOB Corporate Plan. Novus is a community within the CIOB, made up of Novus Groups across the globe, for rising stars to flourish, providing opportunities for young professionals to develop and grow on a personal and professional level, all the time inspiring the next generation of construction industry professionals.

To work towards these objectives there is a need for the CIOB to improve engagement with key stakeholders from across the Tomorrow’s Leaders audience; the first step towards this being delivery of an Inspiring Tomorrow’s Leaders Strategy. 

At the start of 2020 we embarked on this journey with significant contributions from stakeholders, including our existing CIOB Novus Groups, Hub Committee Members, students and academics, to name a few. Through a period of research and consultation we established a set of recommendations and key findings on which to develop our strategy, which has two parts:

• Part A outlines how we intend to engage with key audiences including schools, further education/ technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges, universities – students, academics and employers. 
• Part B then looks at the governance structure and how we intend to integrate Novus into the main CIOB. This will be through a transformation into CIOB Tomorrow’s Leaders - a wider, more inclusive global community, integrated within the CIOB, for members in the early stages of their construction career. 

With the strategy having received full CIOB Governance Board approval, we move now into a phased implementation with our initial priority being to work with and transition Novus Groups to the CIOB Tomorrow’s Leaders community. As part of this we will be arranging briefing sessions with Novus Groups, Hub Committee Chairs and Hub staff to explain the details of the transition, including inviting our Novus Group Chairs to transition into Tomorrow’s Leaders Representative roles on the Hub Committees, whilst also inviting all our existing Novus Group Representatives to transition into Founding CIOB Tomorrow’s Leaders Champion roles, enabling them to continue driving forward Tomorrow’s Leaders activity at a local Hub level.

Following this transition, we will then work with our CIOB Tomorrow’s Leaders Champions to build and grow the community. Watch this space over the coming months.  If you have any questions in relation to this project or would like to find out more about the CIOB Tomorrow’s Leaders community please contact Sophie Cox, Novus Officer by emailing [email protected]