Tests for CHRP standardized, holders will have to re-certify every three years
By next spring, Canada will have a national professional HR designation.
Last month, representatives from the provincial and specialist HR associations that comprise the Canadian Council of Human Resources Associations (CCHRA) voted to accept a framework for national Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) standards that has been more than six years in the making.
Currently, the provincial HR associations each have their own criteria for granting the designation, but since its creation in 1995, the CCHRA has worked to create a national CHRP. By next March, those criteria will be the same across the country.
Monica Belcourt, president-elect of the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario (HRPAO), said the national standards represents a historic moment for the profession in its struggle to gain an equal footing with the rest of the business community.
Effective HR requires a body of knowledge and the CHRP now tells business people across the country that people with the designation have that body of knowledge.
“What we’ve done is we’ve created a new profession,” she said.
The agreement represents a significant achievement for the CCHRA and good news for HR practitioners, said Anne Charette, chair of the CCHRA’s National Standards Steering Committee.
“I think it raises the bar for the profession,” she said. “As we raise the bar for the profession, we are going to make the designation more popular.”
Joan Harrison, director of professional development for the B.C. Human Resources Management Association (BCHRMA) and vice-president of HR with Navigata Communications Inc., said BCHRMA has already seen an increase in calls to its offices by people looking for information about the CHRP.
“The value and the credibility of the designation just skyrocketed,” she said.
In part the spike in interest may be due to people anxious to get the designation under the old rules, but there is also just more interest now, she said.
“Acceptance is now starting to roll. Well over a quarter of members have a CHRP, I would predict that it will be at least half the membership.”
The framework for a national CHRP represents a synthesis of the sometimes very different approaches of the provincial associations.
For example, Ontario put a heavy emphasis on academics and written examinations while other associations emphasized the demonstration of HR expertise in the workplace over written testing. The new designation combines the two approaches.
The new requirements will combine knowledge testing with the demonstration of HR capability in a real-world setting. All CHRP hopefuls will have to score 70 per cent or better on a knowledge exam based on major HR functional areas such as recruitment, organizational behaviour, finance and accounting and labour relations. Then, within five years, candidates must complete an “outcomes” exam designed to test candidates on the application of HR capabilities in real-world settings.
The CCHRA will oversee the assessment process while the provinces will continue to manage the application process.
Early on, the proposed evaluation process put a heavy emphasis on outcomes-based evaluation and by late 1999 the project was close to complete breakdown when HRPAO said there was too much emphasis on outcomes-based testing and called for more rigorous knowledge testing. The process was reworked to put a greater emphasis on knowledge testing while retaining the outcomes test.
“This has been a nine-year odyssey toward something that required as much as Meech Lake,” said Harrison.
Harrison said the CHRP is like no others in the world. “The huge difference is that this is a capability-based assessment. It is not what you know it is what you are able to produce with what you know and there is a huge difference in that.”
The new tests will not affect those already holding a CHRP (or CRHA, Conseiller en ressources humaines agréé, in Quebec) however all CHRP holders will now be required to go through a re-certification every three years. The details of the re-certification still need to be finalized, but the associations intend for the requirements to be very flexible and could include attendance at conferences and seminars.
More than 11,000 people across the country have their CHRP, most of whom received them from either the HRPAO or Quebec’s Ordre des conseillers en ressources humaines et en relations industrielles agréés du Québec (OCRHRIQ). Currently, neither of those bodies requires members to re-certify: once obtained a CHRP has the designation for life.
Re-certification is totally new for the province of Quebec, said Florent Francoeur, president of the Quebec association. “But we think it will be important to have re-certification if we want to raise the bar, if we want to have better HR people.” Members will have until 2006 to complete their first re-certification.
Conversely, some of the other associations, like BCHRMA, have required members to re-certify but members did not have to write a test to receive their certification. BCHRMA required a combination of education and experience. The more education the applicant had the less experience was necessary and vice versa.
Re-certification will be new to many CHRP holders, but both Harrison and Charette said it will ensure members remain current on contemporary HR theory and practice.
“Would you really want to be going to a doctor for major surgery if he hadn’t done anything since his original training in surgery,” said Harrison.
However, both also stressed that the requirements will not be onerous and for many people it will simply be a matter of documenting the professional development they are doing already.
The re-certification requirements will likely resemble those already set out by BCHRMA, though the administration component will be kept as simple as possible.
“B.C. has a very, very good re-certification process, the only thing is it is a fairly onerous form so we are looking at making that a whole lot easier. We’re hoping for a one pager,” said Charette.
A point system will likely be created and CCHRA is considering an audit process to ensure member compliance.
And while re-certification will be new for Ontario members, the knowledge test will be new to BCHRMA members. Harrison said some established HR professionals who originally passed on the designation when they qualified for it under grandfathering rules and are now interested in getting the CHRP may not like the knowledge test. “We’ve got some selling to do there.”
Prospective CHRPs will also notice a considerable increase in the cost to obtain the designation. This too will improve the image of the CHRP, said Harrison. Any time you increase the cost of something the value also goes up, she added.
In B.C., there is a $50-dollar application fee and annual association membership fees but that is it. Now there will be a charge of $250 to write the knowledge test and another $350 to write the outcomes test.
The CCHRA also agreed to create a permanent office for the first time. It will be small and share space with HRPAO in Toronto, but a permanent location has become a necessity for the association as its role expands with the creation of the national standard, said Charette.
Last month, representatives from the provincial and specialist HR associations that comprise the Canadian Council of Human Resources Associations (CCHRA) voted to accept a framework for national Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) standards that has been more than six years in the making.
Currently, the provincial HR associations each have their own criteria for granting the designation, but since its creation in 1995, the CCHRA has worked to create a national CHRP. By next March, those criteria will be the same across the country.
Monica Belcourt, president-elect of the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario (HRPAO), said the national standards represents a historic moment for the profession in its struggle to gain an equal footing with the rest of the business community.
Effective HR requires a body of knowledge and the CHRP now tells business people across the country that people with the designation have that body of knowledge.
“What we’ve done is we’ve created a new profession,” she said.
The agreement represents a significant achievement for the CCHRA and good news for HR practitioners, said Anne Charette, chair of the CCHRA’s National Standards Steering Committee.
“I think it raises the bar for the profession,” she said. “As we raise the bar for the profession, we are going to make the designation more popular.”
Joan Harrison, director of professional development for the B.C. Human Resources Management Association (BCHRMA) and vice-president of HR with Navigata Communications Inc., said BCHRMA has already seen an increase in calls to its offices by people looking for information about the CHRP.
“The value and the credibility of the designation just skyrocketed,” she said.
In part the spike in interest may be due to people anxious to get the designation under the old rules, but there is also just more interest now, she said.
“Acceptance is now starting to roll. Well over a quarter of members have a CHRP, I would predict that it will be at least half the membership.”
The framework for a national CHRP represents a synthesis of the sometimes very different approaches of the provincial associations.
For example, Ontario put a heavy emphasis on academics and written examinations while other associations emphasized the demonstration of HR expertise in the workplace over written testing. The new designation combines the two approaches.
The new requirements will combine knowledge testing with the demonstration of HR capability in a real-world setting. All CHRP hopefuls will have to score 70 per cent or better on a knowledge exam based on major HR functional areas such as recruitment, organizational behaviour, finance and accounting and labour relations. Then, within five years, candidates must complete an “outcomes” exam designed to test candidates on the application of HR capabilities in real-world settings.
The CCHRA will oversee the assessment process while the provinces will continue to manage the application process.
Early on, the proposed evaluation process put a heavy emphasis on outcomes-based evaluation and by late 1999 the project was close to complete breakdown when HRPAO said there was too much emphasis on outcomes-based testing and called for more rigorous knowledge testing. The process was reworked to put a greater emphasis on knowledge testing while retaining the outcomes test.
“This has been a nine-year odyssey toward something that required as much as Meech Lake,” said Harrison.
Harrison said the CHRP is like no others in the world. “The huge difference is that this is a capability-based assessment. It is not what you know it is what you are able to produce with what you know and there is a huge difference in that.”
The new tests will not affect those already holding a CHRP (or CRHA, Conseiller en ressources humaines agréé, in Quebec) however all CHRP holders will now be required to go through a re-certification every three years. The details of the re-certification still need to be finalized, but the associations intend for the requirements to be very flexible and could include attendance at conferences and seminars.
More than 11,000 people across the country have their CHRP, most of whom received them from either the HRPAO or Quebec’s Ordre des conseillers en ressources humaines et en relations industrielles agréés du Québec (OCRHRIQ). Currently, neither of those bodies requires members to re-certify: once obtained a CHRP has the designation for life.
Re-certification is totally new for the province of Quebec, said Florent Francoeur, president of the Quebec association. “But we think it will be important to have re-certification if we want to raise the bar, if we want to have better HR people.” Members will have until 2006 to complete their first re-certification.
Conversely, some of the other associations, like BCHRMA, have required members to re-certify but members did not have to write a test to receive their certification. BCHRMA required a combination of education and experience. The more education the applicant had the less experience was necessary and vice versa.
Re-certification will be new to many CHRP holders, but both Harrison and Charette said it will ensure members remain current on contemporary HR theory and practice.
“Would you really want to be going to a doctor for major surgery if he hadn’t done anything since his original training in surgery,” said Harrison.
However, both also stressed that the requirements will not be onerous and for many people it will simply be a matter of documenting the professional development they are doing already.
The re-certification requirements will likely resemble those already set out by BCHRMA, though the administration component will be kept as simple as possible.
“B.C. has a very, very good re-certification process, the only thing is it is a fairly onerous form so we are looking at making that a whole lot easier. We’re hoping for a one pager,” said Charette.
A point system will likely be created and CCHRA is considering an audit process to ensure member compliance.
And while re-certification will be new for Ontario members, the knowledge test will be new to BCHRMA members. Harrison said some established HR professionals who originally passed on the designation when they qualified for it under grandfathering rules and are now interested in getting the CHRP may not like the knowledge test. “We’ve got some selling to do there.”
Prospective CHRPs will also notice a considerable increase in the cost to obtain the designation. This too will improve the image of the CHRP, said Harrison. Any time you increase the cost of something the value also goes up, she added.
In B.C., there is a $50-dollar application fee and annual association membership fees but that is it. Now there will be a charge of $250 to write the knowledge test and another $350 to write the outcomes test.
The CCHRA also agreed to create a permanent office for the first time. It will be small and share space with HRPAO in Toronto, but a permanent location has become a necessity for the association as its role expands with the creation of the national standard, said Charette.
