Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER October 3, 2016 10 NEWS really experienced people, or even well-educated people, especially on the technology piece." And because Canada is so large geographically, the picture is very different from province to prov- ince, said Carreau, citing as an example Alberta and B.C. "In a one-hour plane ride, you're dealing with almost exact opposite challenges," she said. "So for HR departments and organi- zations, the challenges are very different by market too." Recruitment and retention are always going to be a challenge, according to Cissy Pau, principal consultant at Clear HR Consult- ing in Vancouver. "It's always going to be an issue with the shortage of skilled work- ers, baby boomers retiring and not as many people to fill the roles that they vacate… at least for the foreseeable future," she said. "(It's about) how do you set yourself apart from other com- panies. I think the whole issue of branding, employer branding and the employee value proposition becomes really important as the way that employers will set them- selves apart." It's really about a needs-based economy in terms of specialty skills, and that's not always easy to find, said Anthony Ariganello, president and CEO of the Human Resources Management Associa- tion (HRMA) in Vancouver. "at's why we really harp on training and education to really be key, because employers, that's what they seek going forward. It's a very different economy, it's a learning-based economy going forward… and the population go- ing forward needs to start think- ing about that, adapting to the needs of future employers." Retention will continue to exasperate because of the new economy and millennials, said Ariganello. "Their expectations are very different than the old economy. In other words, these individuals want to be rewarded sooner, fast- er, they want to move (up) quickly, they want to be promoted, they want to see rewards," he said. "at means individuals are not going to be committed to an organization for 30 or 40 years, as our parents might have. So the retention piece, if employers aren't on top of that, they risk los- ing individuals and then having to, of course, hire, so that is re- ally key." Management needs to antici- pate that individuals, especially millennials, are looking to move and to be rewarded for their per- formance, he said. "Someone's not going to stay in the same job for seven, eight years, necessarily. So I think we need to be thinking about that and HR needs to lead that, and make sure functional managers are aware that they need to be thinking of that as well because, otherwise, they'll lose their workforce, they'll lose their key people." Employee retention is really a sign of the transient workforce today, said Carreau, with people having an average of 10 jobs by the time they're 30. "e reality is people don't in- tend to stay with an employer for a lifetime, so sometimes as HR specialists, we try so hard to re- tain employees instead of build- ing an HR system that helps us onboard and offboard employees more effectively to use them for the amount of time that's the right amount of time for them to work for your organization. "So you can have a great em- ployee for two, three years — it doesn't have to be 20 years if you train them properly, you on- board them quickly and you have smooth exits. So we need to fig- ure that out better, as HR practi- tioners… embrace the shorter life cycle." Professional development, compliance Rounding out the top challenges are professional development and growth, and compliance with laws and regulations, found the Cana- dian HR Reporter survey. e issue of career pathing and management talent development is an issue for many employers, ac- cording to Pau. "(It's about) succession plan- ning, career development, career pathing, management develop- ment, how to identify opportuni- ties, where are those opportuni- ties, how to train somebody to be effective, to meet whatever future opportunities there may be. at's a gap for a lot of companies right now." ere's a lot of change in the workplace, with technology play- ing a big part of that, she said. "It just changes the landscape of how you operate," she said. "You're not just in your own little silos and I think technology's played a big part of that, the speed of change, and there's so many more apps and software and software-as-a- service-type products that people don't know about it. And that's changed the landscape of how we need to train people and how we need to develop them." e work is also more complex, with things moving a lot quicker, said Pau. "Managers are probably over- worked and busy, as we all are, and how do you integrate 'Oh, by the way, we need to think about your career and you developing your employees' careers' into that mix? ere's not enough hours in the day — we hear that all the time." AT&T is an example of an or- ganization that does professional development really well, said Carreau. It has an internal system where it identifies the key skills people have and then looks at the different levels and careers, iden- tifying skills gaps and internally training to those gaps, she said. "ey're very strategic about getting the match of the skills to the employee. I think, in general, as employers, we don't do that, we don't have very clear develop- ment plans as it relates to what skills people have to have as their career progresses, especially if it's not linear. I mean today… there's many different choices and many different ways employees can go but no one is necessarily helping them choose the right skills that are going to meet the business needs." As for challenges around com- pliance and legislation, the big- gest impact is technology, said Carreau. "(With) the exponential growth of technology, legislation can't keep up with it, and so I find a lot of HR practitioners are spending a lot of time trying to find out 'What is the legislation around this? How do I develop a policy around it?' and by the time they've figured it out, the technology has leap- frogged ahead and there's new issues before they've even solved the previous one." e other issue is around in- come equality and general dis- content of a large portion of the population, she said. "We're really seeing a pivot in human rights and where legisla- tion is going for accommodating different human rights issues. We find instead of employees working with the employer, there's a sense of distrust and going to government and all these different avenues, so whether it's lawyers, whether it's human rights tribunals or employ- ment standards, they're looking at a source other than their employer for conflict management, conflict resolution and I think, as a result of that, all those areas are getting busier, they're adding more areas of legislation." Challenges around compliance and legislation are going to grow, according to Ariganello. "ings that weren't there in the past — harassment, bullying — might have existed but there were no laws, no rules, no procedures. Today, they're front and centre and governments are getting in- volved. at'll only get worse, in my view — there'll be much more elements around that, and our members need to be equipped to handle that." But many employers don't have the time to stay on top of the changes, said Pau. "It's a time factor, they don't have the time to go researching all the things that impact them — and how do they get that in- formation? How do they become aware that privacy legislation has changed or employment stan- dards are changing?" Succession planning, administrative work, inefficient tools And when it comes to the HR de- partment itself, many of the top challenges cited in the survey are ones that can be found in other areas of an organization, such as succession planning, the amount of time spent on administrative work and inefficient tools. Succession planning is an is- sue across the spectrum, said Ariganello. "Few organizations have a proper succession plan, it's more reactive, especially if it happens at the senior level, there's no back- up," he said. "ere's got to be some thinking around it, there's got to be some proper planning around individ- uals and 'What will we do to get those individuals ready?' at's the exercise and sometimes it's left for last, it's not a key priority." It used to be so simple as people would start as a front-line worker and then go through the next five career steps, said Carreau. "It doesn't work that way any- more and there's so many differ- ent unknowns." As for what's behind the issue of administrative work, one reason could be the legal burden, with so much emphasis on compliance, she said. Plus, there are technol- ogy challenges. "A lot of people are trying to go paperless and what they've found is when you can't go completely paperless and you're stuck in that no-man's land, you're duplicating everything, you're trying to auto- mate everything and you've still got your paper copy, so essen- tially what you've done is you've doubled the workload." And many tools aren't integrat- ed, such as attendance manage- ment systems, payroll and HRIS, said Carreau. "e reality is the integrated ones are not perfect; in fact, they're not even good today and... people don't want to go to mul- tiple different platforms, so they fall back to old habits like paper." It could also be people don't understand how all those tools integrate, so it might be a training issue, along with the challenge of finding a tool that fits everything they need, said Pau. "(Some employers are) using a payroll system yet they've got a spreadsheet that's tracking time off and vacations, and they've got this pseudo online HRIS system that doesn't integrate with their payroll because someone along the way said, 'Oh, this'll work for you.'" HR should 'embrace shorter life cycle' RECRUITMENT < pg. 1 "We don't have very clear development plans as it relates to what skills people have to have as their career progresses." Order your copy today. Visit www.carswell.com or call 1.800.387.5164 for a 30-day, no risk evaluation GET INSTANT ACCESS TO YOUR LEGAL COMMUNITY 2017 British Columbia Legal Telephone Directory INCLUDES BRITISH COLUMBIA, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, NUNAVUT AND YUKON. British Columbia's vast legal community is right at your fingertips with the British Columbia Legal Telephone Directory. 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