Canadian HR Reporter

BREAKING DOWN BORDERS Labour mobility is increasingly critical in a global economy – and international standards are the only way to keep up By Liz Bernier When it comes to knowledge workers in a brave new global marketplace, many are still surprisingly reluctant to venture far from home. Despite the ever-increasing prevalence of international opportunities, work rotations and the importance of international experience to gaining a coveted seat in the c-suite, at least one in two Canadians (54 per cent) report that they will not move for work under any circumstances, according to a 2014 survey of 2,000 Canadians by the Canadian Employee Relocation Council (CERC). Talent that's rooted in one place is perhaps one signifi cant factor behind the skills gap, according to the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. Over one-third of companies experiencing talent shortages believe the cause to be that Canadians simply won't move for work, according to a 2014 survey. "If you're looking at the big picture, there's a global shortage of skills. Here in Canada, it's expected that there will be a shortage of about two million skilled workers by 2026 … The reality is that we just don't have the people that can fi ll those positions," said Stephen Cryne, president and CEO at the Canadian Employee Relocation Council (CERC). "We're competing with other jurisdictions for the same skills. From every corner of the earth, people are complaining that projects aren't going forward, business is being lost as a consequence of not having skills." That's why integration and mobility are really an important part of the solution. "I'm not saying it's the full solution -- it's a lot of other things (as well). But when you look at mobility and migration, I think that as policy makers and as businesses and associations or regulatory bodies, I think we've got to do a far better job going forward," said Cryne. Cross-border reciprocation and credential recognition are crucial pieces of the puzzle, but there is still plenty of ground to gain on that front, said Cryne. Credentialing is critically important, as is recognition of credentialing, especially when there is labour mobility and globalized labour mobility, said Elizabeth Kwan, senior researcher at the Canadian Labour Congress. "On the higher-scale national and international level, we have seen the issues with credential recognition with immigrants (experiencing) diffi culty in having the credentials recognized," she said. What's HR to do? This entire quandary is diffi cult enough as it is, but it becomes increasingly complex if professions do not have a solid foundation of competencies and credentials to work from. In HR in particular, much work has been done over the past two decades toward establishing, reevaluating and building on a strong competency framework for designated professionals. Currently, there are only a handful of countries that have comprehensive and detailed core competency frameworks in HR; these include Australia, the U.S., the UK and the Human Resources Professionals Association's in Canada. HRPA's competency framework is the newest in the world. Last fall, HRPA made a key move toward establishing an internationally-recognized competency framework for the human resources profession. HRPA presented its comprehensive core competency framework to a technical committee (TC260) of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) with a recommendation that ISO should mandate a multinational working group to develop global standards in HR integrating competency frameworks from various countries into a single global framework. The committee approved HRPA's proposal unanimously, and created a new working group to develop that harmonized framework. HRPA CEO Bill Greenhalgh was named Chair. Having a global competency framework would help enhance the human resources profession worldwide; create a common basis for education, training and talent selection; and facilitate the mutual recognition of designations between countries, said Greenhalgh. "Once it becomes a standard, any country that wants to be considered to have a professional HR function will at least have to factor this new standard into their thinking," he said. "Ultimately, competency frameworks support designations and those are very important because they are an objective validation of someone's capability. They tell an employer that if you have that designation, you have the ability, the skill, the background and the experience to be able to function well in a specifi c job." The goal of the working group is to establish a single framework that all countries could accept in order to accelerate HR as a true global profession. "It's a very useful tool to have agreements or memorandums of understanding with other countries in terms of a particular profession… we're talking about human resources professionals, but it would apply to a lot of other occupations as well," said Kwan. "When you have a common way of understanding what those skill sets are, it's very helpful."

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