Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER JANUARY 2020 FEATURES 19 New partnerships biggest agenda item for CPHR New Brunswick T eaming up with post-secondary institutions, chambers of com- merce and various business groups promises to keep the Chartered Professionals in Human Resources (CPHR) New Brunswick busy in 2020. e association signed a new accreditation agreement with the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton campus, and in terms of professional de- velopment (PD), it now has a partnership with the Chartered Professional Accountants," says Luc Page, CEO of CPHR NB. "We're still working toward other accreditation programs and also we're working with a lot of [new] partners." Even though membership numbers are off from last year, the student population went up, which is largely due to CPHR NB's post-secondary partnerships, says Page. "We did go down a little bit, because we had a lot of people transferring [out], but we're gaining other members because of the new accreditation program agreements." After a survey sent out to the group's 835 members in 2019, other topics of interest for PD sessions included sensitivity in the workplace and artificial intelligence. And the ongoing story of self-regulation continues to occupy the association's time, says Page, but complicating matters is the new provincial government's status. "e government is receptive, but it's not a strategic time right now to present to the government because it's a minority government. We will probably have a re-election within the next year to come so right now the govern- ment is really looking at balancing the budget. e self-regulation aspect of the HR profession in New Brunswick I wouldn't say is the top priority for the government in place right now. "ey're still receptive, but there's still a long way to go," he says. However, the exercise will continue, says Page. "It always has been our biggest project because it's a long process and I know that B.C., Alberta, Manitoba — they have been working on theirs for the past two years, three years." Focus on professional development at CPHR Newfoundland and Labrador A s one of the smaller bodies in Canada, the organization for HR professionals in Newfoundland and Labrador has struggled to educate members, according to Leroy Murphy, president of Chartered Professionals in Human Resources (CPHR) Newfoundland and Labrador. "We didn't have enough of our own professional development events. While we did have a symposium, which made up for a lot, we didn't have as many luncheons or even mingling and networking sessions as I would have liked," he says. "We need to improve upon that." e move to educate the group's 250 members began in earnest in 2019, he says, as they held a "full HR symposium, not quite a confer- ence, but it's as close as we could possibly get right now in Newfoundland." "at was quite a good success for us and so we're going to do that again this coming spring in conjunction with our AGM [annual general meeting]. at was a very successful event," says Murphy. Topics covered included employee engagement, training effectiveness, digital transformation, alcohol and drug testing and a keynote speech from Newfoundland and Labrador's own Neil Coombs, president of CPHR Canada, he says. To further the education of future HR professionals, CPHR NL is working on partnerships with Memorial University and the College of the North Atlantic to offer CPHR-accredited programs, according to Murphy. "at will be a big one. It's up to those organizations right now and I do know that they're working on it." But adding more members continues to occupy much of the organization's attention, says Gauthier. "We've reached a nice steady state, the last couple of years financially, and we've got to make greater efforts to grow our membership; we should be big- ger than what we are comparative to other provinces," he says. "Other provinces might have larger numbers, but, proportionally, we don't have the same number of HR practitioners or professionals in our organization. To me, that is where we need to make a push." 'Listening tour' highlight of first year for CEO at CPHR Nova Scotia D uring his first year atop the helm of CPHR (Chartered Professionals in Human Resources) Nova Scotia, CEO Nick Beynon decided that finding out what members and HR professionals were thinking about topped the agenda. "I launched what I called 'Nick's listening tour,'" says Beynon. "I was calling members, I was sending out surveys [and] shooting the breeze with as many members as I could." After a whirlwind tour of the issues, the 734-member association came up with a new three-year strategic plan with a focus on establishing connections, he says. "Nationally, all the associations have worked very strongly at having one brand, one designation and stronger connections, and then they're sharing it as a best practice with their peer associations, as are we," says Beynon. "We're trying to champion the profession. We're trying to help people learn and grow. We're trying to accelerate workplace excellence. And we're trying to do that all through connecting HR profes- sionals in Nova Scotia." One of those new ideas was establishing a revamped jobs board, complete with a "clever algorithm that pulls in other HR positions as opposed to just posting our own," he says. "It's a unique opportunity to get some non-dues revenue for us… but also for employers who are posting HR positions to have it highly targeted toward the exact demographics they want." CPHR Nova Scotia also set up a new partnership with Nova Scotia Commun- ity College and Saint Mary's University, both of which offered new programs for HR professionals that benefit the association, schools and HR professionals, says Beynon. "We've been able to accredit their programs, which has been a fantastic add-on for the students. When the students graduate, they can essentially be exempt from the first step toward our nationally recognized designation." Because the association has looked at what they've been assessed on, there's no point duplicating it or being tested on it twice, he says. "ere's a huge value to them and it is our fastest-growing member category and they're very engaged. ey're very quick to volunteer and contribute more to not just the association but the HR community." Focus on competencies, certification, compliance at Quebec's HR association I n 2019, Quebec HR organization l'Ordre des conseillers en réssources humaines (CRHA) invested a lot of time, effort and expertise in trying to support both the organi- zation and the government, says CEO Manon Poirier. "In Quebec, there's a scarcity of talent… so some organiza- tions are refusing contracts because they don't have the man- power to actually deliver on that. So… we were very active in trying to advise government in terms of some of the measures that can be taken to support organizations and also obviously support our members to this challenge." And while the Quebec government has faced its fair share of controversy with Bill 21, which bans religious symbolism in the public sector, the CRHA is trying to get employers to be more open to diversity, says Poirier. "e context of the scarcity of talent helps in a way because I think organizations that were not open to it are now, by neces- sity… We see more and more organizations that are open to hiring immigrants and different groups that are not as much represented in organizations." Last year, the association also brought in a new competency framework, and that's had an overwhelmingly positive reac- tion, she says. "We've been working recently with the other provinces with CPHR Canada and they're looking right now at our compe- tency framework." e CRHA has also developed a self-assessment tool in- spired by the competency framework, she says. "e goal is that it helps them in their development… so that'll be a fun, efficient tool." Also last year, the CRHA introduced a certification pro- gram around harassment investigations. And the first cohort will graduate soon, says Poirier. ere are four steps to the program, with the first two available to managers and non- HR people, while the third and fourth steps are exclusively for CRHA members. "When there's a complaint, sometimes, organizations give the investigation to someone that doesn't have the competen- cies or the skills or the independence to actually do it, and it causes more harm if the investigation is not done right or not by the right person, so it was important for us to make sure that organizations are aware that our members are competent and they have this independence," she says. e CRHA will also continue its auditing processes to make sure that members are competent, says Poirier. "It's a fantastic opportunity because our inspectors actually go and visit our members… in their workplace, they spend hours with them, looking at their practice, what they do and they make recommendations [and point out] if there's any non- conformity or things that they're not doing right," she says. "It's seen as a professional development opportunity as well… We survey our members after the inspection and 90 per cent of them tell us that it was a value-add for them, and they learned a lot."

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