While HR departments say they currently spend about 30 per cent of their time on HR strategy, they expect that number to increase to 40 per cent in the next three years. But, where will HR find the right employees to support the change from transactional to strategic.
In recent years, HR certification has been highly touted as a means to prove the competence of HR practitioners. When asked, 37 per cent of respondents in the HR’s Quest for Status survey said it is “very important.”
John Cardella, vice-president of HR for Compaq Canada, said it’s significant, but not the overall predictor of success.
“I think certification is important from the standpoint that an organization is looking to hire an HR professional. They have all the foundational principles covered, but you’ve got to have the personal attributes to get out there and make things happen.”
Certification may be good for selecting entry-level HR staff, but it’s not useful for selecting top managers with strategic-thinking ability, said Andre Poulin from the Montreal office of Watson Wyatt.
“It’s impossible to certify strategic competency or strategic thinking. You’re either an HR strategist or you’re not...it’s a way of thinking, a way of approaching situations, problems and issues.”
And to be strategic, you need to gain experience. Almost 60 per cent of the people surveyed said HR experience in other organizations is very important in selecting HR managers.
“From a strategic standpoint, it’s important for people to have had that exposure to HR business planning in the past. I would look for someone who had experience in that area. I would ask them how in fact they established their business plan and take me through the details of how that was done,” said Cardella. “Part of it can be picked up in theory, but by and large you have to be able to live it.”
Maria Mazzuca, HR manager for Canadelle, a Montreal-based lingerie company, said successful HR strategy goes far beyond HR education and certification. Mazzuca herself comes to the profession with a degree in marketing.
“Many HR departments are too far removed and that’s when their opinion means very little. They’re probably good opinions, well-founded but if they can’t tie that to the business, they’re out of touch and they become the department that organizes the Christmas parties.”
HR experts say it’s essential for HR professionals to understand the business outside of their own department, but only 43 per cent of respondents rated business acumen for an HR leader as a very important competency.
Being more strategic as an HR department will take up time, said Cardella, and it has to start from the top down.
“First and foremost you’ve got to have a leader that has that strategic mindset, that he or she wants to have alignment with the business.”
Once the HR plan is connected with the overall business plan, it must be communicated back to the organization, he said.
“That is what keeps HR tightly connected with the business, it’s what gives HR its added value.”
When it comes to finding the people to staff these evolving departments, HR still appears to be most dependent on ads placed in newspapers though the Internet was a close second favourite. Interestingly, in terms of how effective these resources are, the Internet received slightly more favourable ratings than newspaper ads.
Though few employers use schools to find management-level employees, this approach was more common when looking for entry-level HR staff, but only about 20 per cent rated colleges and universities as excellent sources for entry-level staff.
“It’s so frustrating hiring young students that come out of school and have no clue of what a balance sheet looks like, let alone a debit and a credit,” said Mazzuca. She said strategic HR has more to do with the person rather than what school they graduated from because there’s no guarantee of finding a successful candidate based on HR college programs and certification, she said.
Just 7.6 per cent said they often look internally for entry-level HR staff though another 23.9 per cent said they will sometimes look inside. David Stanley, HR manager for the Ramada Inn in Alberta, said the first place they look is in-house, and then they send out notices to the 37 other hotels in the chain. If they don’t find a successful candidate through those methods, they recruit through external channels such as the Internet.
“We use hcareers.com, a hospitality-based Web site that posts all jobs specific to the industry and then, after going through that process if we still haven’t found anyone, we go to schools,” he said.
Patricia Brand, director of HR for BC Pavilion, said she makes the right choices in recruitment by having a very disciplined interviewing process and judges candidates on experience, however she does have some faith in college programs.
“More and more colleges are offering HR strategy now as the next level course. But, I think it’s more the experienced people in the workforce that’s the better source...the ones who have seen that not being strategic doesn’t work. I would draw from that as opposed to expecting colleges to deliver it.”
In recent years, HR certification has been highly touted as a means to prove the competence of HR practitioners. When asked, 37 per cent of respondents in the HR’s Quest for Status survey said it is “very important.”
John Cardella, vice-president of HR for Compaq Canada, said it’s significant, but not the overall predictor of success.
“I think certification is important from the standpoint that an organization is looking to hire an HR professional. They have all the foundational principles covered, but you’ve got to have the personal attributes to get out there and make things happen.”
Certification may be good for selecting entry-level HR staff, but it’s not useful for selecting top managers with strategic-thinking ability, said Andre Poulin from the Montreal office of Watson Wyatt.
“It’s impossible to certify strategic competency or strategic thinking. You’re either an HR strategist or you’re not...it’s a way of thinking, a way of approaching situations, problems and issues.”
And to be strategic, you need to gain experience. Almost 60 per cent of the people surveyed said HR experience in other organizations is very important in selecting HR managers.
“From a strategic standpoint, it’s important for people to have had that exposure to HR business planning in the past. I would look for someone who had experience in that area. I would ask them how in fact they established their business plan and take me through the details of how that was done,” said Cardella. “Part of it can be picked up in theory, but by and large you have to be able to live it.”
Maria Mazzuca, HR manager for Canadelle, a Montreal-based lingerie company, said successful HR strategy goes far beyond HR education and certification. Mazzuca herself comes to the profession with a degree in marketing.
“Many HR departments are too far removed and that’s when their opinion means very little. They’re probably good opinions, well-founded but if they can’t tie that to the business, they’re out of touch and they become the department that organizes the Christmas parties.”
HR experts say it’s essential for HR professionals to understand the business outside of their own department, but only 43 per cent of respondents rated business acumen for an HR leader as a very important competency.
Being more strategic as an HR department will take up time, said Cardella, and it has to start from the top down.
“First and foremost you’ve got to have a leader that has that strategic mindset, that he or she wants to have alignment with the business.”
Once the HR plan is connected with the overall business plan, it must be communicated back to the organization, he said.
“That is what keeps HR tightly connected with the business, it’s what gives HR its added value.”
When it comes to finding the people to staff these evolving departments, HR still appears to be most dependent on ads placed in newspapers though the Internet was a close second favourite. Interestingly, in terms of how effective these resources are, the Internet received slightly more favourable ratings than newspaper ads.
Though few employers use schools to find management-level employees, this approach was more common when looking for entry-level HR staff, but only about 20 per cent rated colleges and universities as excellent sources for entry-level staff.
“It’s so frustrating hiring young students that come out of school and have no clue of what a balance sheet looks like, let alone a debit and a credit,” said Mazzuca. She said strategic HR has more to do with the person rather than what school they graduated from because there’s no guarantee of finding a successful candidate based on HR college programs and certification, she said.
Just 7.6 per cent said they often look internally for entry-level HR staff though another 23.9 per cent said they will sometimes look inside. David Stanley, HR manager for the Ramada Inn in Alberta, said the first place they look is in-house, and then they send out notices to the 37 other hotels in the chain. If they don’t find a successful candidate through those methods, they recruit through external channels such as the Internet.
“We use hcareers.com, a hospitality-based Web site that posts all jobs specific to the industry and then, after going through that process if we still haven’t found anyone, we go to schools,” he said.
Patricia Brand, director of HR for BC Pavilion, said she makes the right choices in recruitment by having a very disciplined interviewing process and judges candidates on experience, however she does have some faith in college programs.
“More and more colleges are offering HR strategy now as the next level course. But, I think it’s more the experienced people in the workforce that’s the better source...the ones who have seen that not being strategic doesn’t work. I would draw from that as opposed to expecting colleges to deliver it.”
