Canadian HR Reporter

18 www.hrreporter.com F E A T U R E S "We're so thankful that they did because they had experienced this a few years ago and they're helping to guide us," says Miller. "There is the possibility in the future that there'll be an alignment between Quebec and the rest of the CPHR Canada jurisdictions around the competency framework, and that's very exciting." Despite COVID-19 changing the plans of workers everywhere, Chartered Professionals in Human Resources (CPHR) Saskatchewan is keen to continue the celebration of its 15th anniversary into 2021. "We've taken our 15 years and we're using that to also celebrate through video; people are sharing video, organizations are sharing [and] telling stories about what they're doing as people leading businesses with HR," says Nicole Norton Scott, executive director and registrar at CPHR Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. "We're going to celebrate our anniver- sary for the whole year and we're going to celebrate into 2021; we're going to focus on understanding different markets, focusing on our marketing and membership growth and outreach. That'll always be at the forefront." The association's finances weren't adversely affected by the pandemic, she says, and they are even planning for growth by hiring a marketing and communications co-ordinator. "[It's about] how do we ensure our members are being taken care of and the heavy work that they're dealing with every day now? Because, of course, there's a lot of unknowns for the employees, which then impact the HR professionals and those doing day-to-day [work]." As in previous years, self-regulation is a big focus for the 1,200-member association, and while it hasn't yet been achieved, things are looking promising, says Norton Scott. "Let's say we're very optimistic. It's been a goal since 2014… We've had lots of positive interactions with the government of Saskatchewan. We're going into an election, so we will see." The year 2020 will be "forever etched in the history of this organization, the profession as the year everything changed," she says, adding that it has also exposed the good side of HR. "There has been the call for HR professionals, the HR profession, to truly be strategic leaders; people leading business in organizations has been paramount. You had to turn off the lights on March 14 and get everybody to work from home and then you had to work through all of that. What does that mean when people are working from home? Whether it was layoffs or furloughs or rehire subsidies, everything was going on so fast and the glue that held it all together is human resources," says Norton Scott. "It's the year everything changed, but the HR profession has been elevated and truly had to be part of the pandemic planning." Coming up in 2021 will be eight virtual events, culminating in the association's October annual convention, which hopefully will be in person, says Norton Scott. Unveiling a new, member-created, three-pronged strategic blueprint was a great accomplishment for Chartered Professional in Human Resources (CPHR) Manitoba in 2020, despite its challenges. "The first [pillar] is promoting the CPHR, the second one is support for CPHR development and the third one is foster public confidence in CPHR. That's really the crux of where we're moving forward on that," says Ron Gauthier, CEO of CPHR Manitoba in Winnipeg, in describing the main areas of focus inside the plan. "We're just very excited about our new strategic plan fostering public confidence." The association hopes the new policy document will help it focus better on moving forward, he says, and that will include a big pivot to online events. "COVID has forced us to really get into the virtual game. We have a full year of virtual events that we're offering and we've had a couple already that would have been very well received," says Gauthier. "We had psychological safety where we had about 90 members attend; we did our annual legislative review virtually [and] we had over 150 members attend that." As well, the group is offering a "professional development passport" that includes five events and it kicked off with a future-of-work conference in October, says Gauthier. In addition, the 1,600-member CPHR Manitoba initiated a "good character attestation" that it hopes will help further boost public confidence in the HR profession in that province, says Gauthier, which is similar to efforts by HR associations in Alberta and Ontario. The association also updated the method it employs to evaluate HR experience, according to Gauthier, with a foundational component followed by an applied piece. "We realized that compared to other professions — and those are the HR associations around the world — they recommend people are recognizing the foundational [part] because, for the young people, they have to do the foundational before they get to the applied [part]," he says. After the pandemic lockdown hit, the organization found that CPHR enrolments were increasing across the country, says Gauthier. "Overall, from all the provinces, there was a significant increase in registrations that we're attributing… to COVID, possibly. The thought is that during these times, [HR professionals] start reflecting on their careers and then deciding whether they want to upgrade their skills." As well, HR brand awareness, as viewed by Winnipeg chamber of commerce members, increased to as high as 72 per cent, and the "likelihood of hiring a CPHR went from 36 per cent to 46 per cent with the members," says Gauthier. "That means that they're starting to see the value in hiring a designated HR professional versus an undesignated HR professional." All things considered, things have been going great for Ontario's Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA), says Louise Taylor Green, president and CEO. "From an internal perspective, we were able to adapt essentially overnight, redeploying all of our employees to work from home, and we had the technology infrastructure and the architecture in place that we could make that happen. So, we've managed to retain all of our staff and not had to suffer any reduction in hours or anything." Instead, it's about being able to "chronically reprioritize" what's needed to deliver value to stakeholders and public protection. "Having to pivot so many of our resources to things like COVID-19 resources for HR professionals or resources on anti-Black racism or systemic discrimination and equity, diversity and inclusion, we really doubled down on those efforts throughout the past year, because we could see, of course, that our community really needed the support and access to those resources." They also created four new virtual communities of practice — for HR students, for total rewards, for COVID- 19 and for diversity and inclusion — which have been lively with resource and information sharing as a hub for member-based dialogue, discussion, resource sharing and the expertise of people that have a common interest. "It's amazing to see how willing HR professionals are to share their expertise and their experience and their resources," she says. "During COVID-19, where we haven't been able to host in-person, chapter-based events, this has provided folks some real-time resources to address issues that everyone has been facing." COVID bulletins are also provided daily and posted on the resource page, plus HRPA brought in a labour lawyer to look at the discussion threads and provide reliable answers that a lot of members were struggling with. "[We're] just trying to think, con- stantly, 'How do we bring more value and resource to a very active community of HR professionals?" says Taylor Green. SASKATCHEWAN 'OPTIMISTIC' ABOUT SELF-REGULATION NEW STRATEGIC PLAN UNVEILED IN MANITOBA VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES FLOURISH IN ONTARIO

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