Canadian HR Reporter

Canadian HR RepoRteR august 11, 2014 6 NEwS You are invited to a free HR Seminar Tel 416.603.0700 | 24 Hour 416.420.0738 | Fax 416.603.6035 | www.sherrardkuzz.com DATE: Tuesday September 16, 2014; 7:30 – 9:30 a.m. (breakfast at 7:30 a.m.; program at 8:00 a.m.) VENUE: Mississauga Convention Centre, 75 Derry Road West, Mississauga, ON L5W 1G3 COST: Complimentary RSVP: By Friday September 5, 2014 at www.sherrardkuzz.com/seminars.php presented by *** Law Society of Upper Canada CPD Credits: This seminar may be applied toward general CPD credits. *** HRPAO CHRP designated members should inquire at www.hrpa.ca for certification eligibility guidelines regarding this HReview Seminar. Managing the Difficult Employee Employers often speak of spending 80% of their time managing 20% of their workforce. Common themes include employees consistently late to work, "sick"-related absences on Fridays and Mondays or simple poor performance. It is often easy to identify who the offending employees are. It can be more difficult to determine how to change their behaviour. To help your organization more effectively manage these "difficult employees", this HReview will address: Performance and Productivity • The importance of recognizing the cause of performance and productivity issues. • How to effectively implement a performance improvement system. • Tips and traps to using discipline in managing performance. Attendance Management Techniques • Creative approaches for changing behaviour and re-engaging the chronically late or "no show" employee. • How to request the right type of medical information. • Deciding when to discipline for attendance issues. When All Else Fails: Terminating the Difficult Employee • When do performance issues amount to cause for termination? • When can an employee be terminated for attendance issues? • Top tips for minimizing liability and managing the fall-out. Ranked In Leading Firm CHAMBERS GLOBAL 2014 2013 RANKED the profession, it needed to be in- cluded in certification." And Alexandria, Va.-based SHRM discussed that with HRCI for more than a year, he said, but decided it had to move forward on its own. "In an ideal world, we would have done this with HRCI and it just didn't work out that way." is is a higher level designation "and the attestation that not only have you mastered HR knowledge but you also have demonstrated proficiency and behaviours that we think are important to good HR practice… this is just an evo- lution," he said. But HRCI was not aware SHRM planned to introduce the new cer- tification and was given no noti- fication — it just terminated the operating agreement, according to Amy Dufrane, executive direc- tor of HRCI. And HRCI's certifi- cation has always been compe- tency-based, she said — it is not a regurgitation of knowledge. "Of course, all exams have a bit of that, but what we try to do is as- sess someone's capability of taking that knowledge and embedding it in a situation and really determin- ing what is the best approach for that based on individuals who are doing this." Competencies are defined as the knowledge, skills and attri- butes needed to be successful in a particular role, said Linda An- guish, HRCI's director of certifica- tion products. "Each of our exams is grounded in a body of knowledge resulting from a practice analysis that has defined and validated those com- petencies. So that is nothing new." But if you're talking about behavioural competencies, the question is how these can be measured, and some people claim professional certification is not an appropriate place for it, she said. "In other fields where they at- tempt to assess competency, such as medicine, they typically use a performance exam to assess how people actually perform in specific situations, like a patient exam. It's not a written test," said Anguish. "If you're going to test people in a certification exam, you want to see whether people know what they need to know and how to ap- ply that knowledge in a given situ- ation — that's competency-based. You also want to ensure that the assessment is valid and reliable, and multiple-choice testing is ideal for that. "But if you claim that you are as- sessing behaviour and other intan- gibles, you need a broader testing process — observation-based. It is very challenging to do." It's important to distinguish between the practice analysis or competency model and certifica- tion, according to Claude Balthaz- ard, vice-president of regulatory affairs and privacy officer at the Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA) in Toronto. "e competency model sets up certification but... you could take the competency model and develop a stellar certification pro- cess or an awful certification pro- cess," he said. "Some people think of the body of knowledge as the foundation, but it really doesn't tell you what kind of house you can build on that… You need a good practice analysis to have a good certifica- tion program, but the decisions you make, the engineering or architecture of the certification program, is a whole new set of decisions to be made based on the practice analysis." Implications for HR professionals with U.S. designations So what does all this mean for HR professionals who have one of the U.S.-based designations? As of 2015, they will have to de- cide whether they want to pursue SHRM's or HRCI's offerings. People with a valid certification such as the PHR or SPHR will be able to obtain the new CP or SCP, said Carr — they just have to agree to a code of ethics and complete an online tutorial on competencies. "e goal here is to make sure that you understand and you know of the nine competencies and you have some… understand- ing and appreciation of those competencies." e exam window opens for both of SHRM's certifications starting in May 2015, he said. HRCI, on the other hand, will continue to develop and market its "gold standard" certification, said Dufrane. "People want the letters that the Human Resource Certifica- tion Institute has so diligently and meticulously put together over our 40 years of existence, almost." A senior HR professional with HRCI certification, Tim Sackett is unsure how he'll proceed when his certification runs out. "I'm 20 years into my career, this is kind of a joke — (the HR associations) have kind of made this a mockery so I'm just going to back away from it. I'm hearing more and more people say, 'I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to play the game, and I'll walk away,'" said the president of HRU Techni- cal Resources in Lansing, Mich. For years, SHRM emphasized its separation from HRCI when it came to the certification process and now it's kind of funny when you look at SHRM's stance, he said. "You go, 'Hey, haven't you for like 20 years told us that you had to be separate, like that was super important?' And all of a sudden now it's like, 'Yeah, it's not very important.'" SHRM has established a SHRM Certification Commission that will serve as an independent technical advisory committee and have delegated authority from the SHRM board of directors. e commission will manage the cer- tification program, it said, includ- ing development of the exams, eli- gibility criteria and recertification requirements. But, at the end of the day, HR professionals don't really care, said Sackett. "If they thought this is a bar exam or a CPA exam (they'd say) 'Gosh, we'd better have some third party administer this and let peo- ple know.' But I think HR people are kind of like, 'Hey, this isn't that, it's probably a step down below,' even though for years, HRCI and SHRM tried to make it like this is HR's bar exam. It really isn't, it's a little bit less. "And I think, at that point, then the SHRM membership doesn't care — they don't care if it's com- ing from SHRM or HRCI: 'Just give me the letters to put behind my name.'" And while Sackett said he feels badly for HRCI, the business side of him understands SHRM's move. "On communication, all that other stuff, yeah, they could prob- ably do that better. But, business- wise, it's hard to argue," he said. "(SHRM) can make a ton of mon- ey by bringing it in-house." Testing competencies tricky CERTIFICATION < pg. 1 THe HoMeFroNT Competencies under review in Canada The Canadian Council of Human Resources Association (CCHRA) and provincial HR associations have also been busy undergoing a major review of the Professional Practice Analysis (PPA) for the Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designation. "The research involved HR professional representation from every province in Canada and the results… confirm continual advancement of HR professionals in today's business world," said Cheryl Newcombe, CCHRA's chair. As of July, the provincial member associations were working on a communications plan for the PPA and planning a co-ordinated release of those results in mid- August, she said. "We're not going to see a lot of change — what we're seeing is a continual advancement of the HR profession." The original HR body of knowledge was done in the late 1990s, according to Claude Balthazard, vice-president of regulatory affairs and privacy officer at the Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA) in Toronto, but it was decided a fundamental review was needed. "This would be sort of going back and building it from the ground up," he said. The Required Professional Capabilities (RPCs) are "a faithful snapshot of the profession," he said, and will involve, for example, more strategy and metrics. After a validation survey was conducted in 2013, it was felt there was still work to be done to produce an updated competency framework, said Balthazard. HRPA is continuing to flesh out that framework in collaboration with the other provinces, to various degrees, with focus groups planned for August. "In the end, other provinces may choose to adopt HRPA's more detailed version," he said, adding that while HRPA gave up its membership with the CCHRA, that does not mean the end of interprovincial collaboration. SoUTH oF THe Border SHrM's 9 competencies The Society for Human Resources Management's competency model comprises nine competencies: •communication •relationship management •ethical practice •HR expertise •business acumen •critical evaluation •leadership and navigation •consultation •global and cultural effectiveness

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