More experienced, higher ranking professionals support a practicum
This Pulse Survey is, in part, a followup to the Pulse Survey on experience requirements (see Canadian HR Reporter, May 4, 2009, or go to www.hrreporter.com, click on “Advanced Search” and enter article #6868).
For some professions, experience must be supervised by someone who is certified. Supervisors are required to submit a log of their contacts with the supervisee. In most cases, a supervisor must sign off on the readiness of a supervisee for professional practice. There are different approaches here, such as articling and internships. These supervised experience requirements demand a commitment from the profession as a whole in order to work.
Overall, there was only limited support for the idea of a mandatory, supervised experience requirement for the Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designation — only 33.4 per cent of respondents felt such a requirement would make the CHRP better and 52.5 per cent felt it would not.
Interestingly, the comments were quite similar on both sides. Most respondents agreed there was merit to the idea but said there would be real, practical challenges in implementing a supervised experience requirement. Those respondents who gave more weight to the potential benefits tended to be in favour of the idea, while those who gave more weight to the practical challenges tended to not be in favour of the idea.
The most often noted benefits of having a supervised experience requirement were:
• providing the right balance between academic preparation and hands-on experience
• supporting entrants into the profession
• providing more effective socialization into the professional HR community
• building better and stronger professional networks.
The most common practical challenges of implementing a mandatory supervision requirement identified were:
• finding supervisors in small companies and remote areas
• finding supervisors who are willing or capable of investing the required amount of time
• finding qualified supervisors (many felt having a CHRP was not enough).
The more experience one had in HR, and the more senior one’s position in HR, the more likely a respondent was to be in favour of a supervised experience requirement. Of the respondents who hadn’t yet joined the workforce, 29.8 per cent were in favour of a supervised experience requirement. Of those with zero to four years’ experience, 21.8 per cent were in favour. That figure climbed steadily as tenure increased. For those with five to nine years’ experience, 27.2 per cent were in favour. For those with 10 to 14 years’ experience, it was 31.2 per cent. For those with 15 to 19 years’ experience, it was 43.3 per cent. For 20 to 25 years’ experience, it was 47.1 per cent and for those with more than 25 years’ experience, it was 48.6 per cent.
There was a similar pattern with rank — of those respondents with entry-level positions, 19.9 per cent were in favour of it. That figure rose to 36.5 per cent for those in middle management and 48.6 per cent for executives.
Those who were most likely to be supervisors were much more likely to be in favour of a supervised experience requirement than those who were likely to be supervisees. This may reflect a pattern seen before in previous surveys — respondents’ opinions about a possible change to the certification process depend on whether the possible change makes it more difficult for them to get the designation. It is also probably the case those respondents with more experience and seniority see more value in experience and, consequently, see more value in passing on that experience to new entrants to the profession.
There were also a number of respondents who agreed with the value of mentoring but felt such an arrangement shouldn’t be mandatory.
All in all, the consensus seems to be a mandatory supervised experience requirement is an idea with some merit but with significant implementation challenges.
Claude Balthazard is director of HR excellence and registrar for the Human Resources Professional Association in Toronto. He can be reached at [email protected] or visit www.hrpa.ca. for more information.
