A professional body for a discipline that needed one.

The practice of inviting, capturing, interpreting and acting on the voices of people at work has matured, in the last two decades, from an annual survey into a discipline. It now draws on organisational psychology, statistics, organisation development, communications and ethics. It has its own theory, its own failure modes, and its own standard of care.

What it has lacked is an editorially-independent body to define that standard. The EX Institute exists to fill that gap.

Purpose

The Institute does three things. It defines the discipline through a published Body of Knowledge. It sets standards of practice and ethics that credentialled practitioners are held to. It accredits, registers and — where necessary — disciplines those who hold its credentials.

Independence

The Institute holds editorial independence in its standards, its Body of Knowledge and its accreditation decisions. Its work is methodology-agnostic in principle. Its credentials travel with the practitioner. Its register is public.

Origin

The Institute was founded by practitioners who had spent two decades running listening programmes in organisations and watching the same failure modes repeat. The conviction behind it is simple: a discipline this consequential — to people, to organisations, to the wellbeing of work — should be held to a public standard.