Participation would benefit members and candidates: Survey
While involving members of HR associations in the registration and certification processes of new members would benefit both parties, most respondents to the latest Pulse Survey don’t think such participation should be mandatory.
The survey of 932 Canadian HR Reporter readers and members of the Human Resources Professionals Association found 41.9 per cent definitely think candidates would benefit from face-to-face interaction with members during the registration and certification processes. Also, 40.6 per cent think the participation would benefit members themselves.
The participation could take the form of experienced members sharing their expertise and mentoring new members and candidates for the Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designation, said Jamie Roach, an HR manager in Timmins, Ont.
“Being still relatively new to the field, I’m still proceeding through the CHRP process myself. Having someone to reach out to as a mentor would be fabulous,” he said.
Having an experienced member to help navigate through the processes would be especially beneficial for internationally educated professional candidates, said Maureen Geddes, an HR consultant in Toronto with 27 years’ experience.
“Many of our new international members just need a connection. They bring a lot of experience and expertise in HR already and they just need an understanding of what the system is here in Canada,” she said.
However, just 28 per cent of respondents think requiring members to participate in the processes would be beneficial to them while 35.5 per cent think it wouldn’t be.
“We all have enough on our plates with our day-to-day activities without an added requirement because of our membership in a particular association or a designation we hold,” said Roach.
Any kind of participation would have to be voluntary on an individual level, said Geddes. But once there are enough participants, an association could look at instituting quotas for volunteers in the different chapters to ensure a wide range of member volunteers, she said.
Granting participants recertification points for the CHRP is the best way to encourage volunteers, said Geddes.
“There’s some acknowledgement of the work that’s been done and there’s some structure too,” she said.
More than one-third of respondents (39.4 per cent) agree granting recertification points would encourage enough members to participate, while only 19.8 per cent don’t think enough members would take part just for the points.
Also, respondents were fairly ambivalent on whether such participation would lead to better registration and certification decisions, with 31.9 per cent saying it definitely would, 30.9 per cent saying “maybe” and 29.7 per cent saying “not really.”
But part of what keeps an association, and a designation, healthy is an involved membership, said Geddes.
“Having members educated and connected to that process becomes important over time so there’s an active membership that’s aware of what our certification guidelines are. I think they’re going to continue to change and we’re going to need to keep our professionals in touch,” she said.
