HR Curriculum: Today and tomorrow August 8, 2016
HR Curriculum: Today and tomorrowAugust 8, 2016
Housekeeping
•Webinar will be recorded and posted online •CPD code will be given at end of webinar •Will post answers to questions that we could not answer in the webinar
OOTR webinars Monday, July 18, 2016 Introducing the Employment Law exams for the CHRP and the CHRL Monday, July 25, 2016 Designation update
Monday, August 8, 2016 The HR curriculum: Today and tomorrow
Monday, August 15, 2016 Professional regulation at HRPA
Monday August 22, 2016 Introduction to regulatory decision‐making and adjudication
Questions involving specific individual circumstances •This webinar is not the appropriate place and time to address specific individual circumstances •Sometimes the correct answer depends on some details that are not provided with the question •Please contact the Office of the Registrar with questions involving specific individual circumstances
An academic model “Our [certification] program is based on an academic model, whichrequires an individual to complete a comprehensive mandatoryacademic program plus demonstrated experience for a set period oftime at the professional/managerial level in human resources.” “HRPAO’s Board of Directors is adamant that an academic‐based model is essential to maintaining the high standards for which theCHRP designation is known in Ontario. Adding a mandatoryacademic program (with courses and exams) into the nationalstandard ensures a basic standard of and minimum academic achievement and follows accepted norms in other professions suchas accountants, engineers, lawyers and physicians” Jeanne Echlin, President, HRPAO, November 5, 1999.
PAO’s 1978 Accreditation model
The Montreal Framework (2001)
Re-thinking the HR curriculum
Continuum of rigorousness for certification processes
No required
coursework, passing an exam and possibly some experience
required. Experience may substitute for
coursework. Exam tests for basic knowledge.
A few courses
required, but courses are offered by the
organization offering the credential and not by accredited post‐secondary academic
institutions. Experience
requirements are simply a matter of
time.
Technician or technologist or semiprofessional level. Two or three
year diploma required. Coursework offered by
accredited post‐secondary academic
institutions. Typically experience cannot be used as a
substitute for academic preparation.
Degree‐based
curriculum required. Coursework offered by
accredited post‐secondary academic institutions. There are
often supervised experience
requirements.
Post‐graduate degree required. Coursework offered by accredited
post‐secondary academic institutions.
There are often extensive practicum
requirements (internships, residencies,
supervised practice etc.)
Where was the (then) CHRP?
• The CHRP had features of levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 • It required a degree • But the coursework could be done at any level •It was also possible to substitute experience for coursework •There were gaps between what the CHRP aspired to be and the certification process
Levels and designations
CHRP A Level 3 designation
CHRL A Level 4 designation
What is Level 4?
•Designations can be positioned along a continuum of ‘credibility, value, and recognition’ • ‘Level 4’ refers to professions such as accountants, teachers, engineers, architects, registered nurses, etc. •Although all different in detail, the certification processes for Level 4 professions all have a high degree of rigourousness • In fact, the ‘credibility, value, and recognition’ accorded to a profession is highly correlated with the rigourousness of its certification process
Level 4 designations
We compared the then CHRP to Level 4 designations on the following aspects which are characteristic of Level 4 designations: • Educational requirements • Exams and assessments • Post-education professional integration programs • Experience requirements • Post-certification continuing competence requirement
Certification process design principles
•Certification is part of a bigger process which could be called ‘developing professionals’ •The more complex the skill, the more the development process needs to be engineered (rather than haphazard) • Sequencing is important • There are checkpoints at different stages of the process
The problem with flexibility
•Having many paths to earn a designation sounds good but it really doesn’t make sense from a development perspective •There is a certain sequence in which complex competencies (such as being an HR professional) are developed •Different components (education, exams, experience, supervision) all have a role to pley, but they are not interchangable
Miller’s pyramid (1990)
Miller’s pyramid as a developmental sequence
Professions and semiprofessions
• Way back in 1976, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) published a list of the differences between semiprofessions and professions• Comparatively professions had: Longer training periods Markedly more emphasis on theoretical and conceptual bases for practice
•It is the theory and concepts that distinguish professions from semiprofessions
About experience
•Education and experience are both important, but they play different roles in the development of professionals and they are not interchangeable •If one can learn everything that one needs to practice on the job, then we don’t have a profession • It is important that HR become evidence-based •Early professional experience bridges the academic knowledge with professional competence
Credit for experience
•REAL professional certification processes do not allow experience to substitute for a solid academic foundation • Doing so is actually very ‘unprofessional’ •Early experience is the time when fledgling professionals learn to apply basic knowledge—it doesn’t make sense to give credit for any experience that occurred before the academic training
The role of education
•To provide a solid academic foundation for a career as an HR professional •The theory and concepts which underlie professional practice •Develop the cognitive skills that go with theory and concepts •Socialization into the field
The generic competencies
The six generic competencies identified in the Ontario Qualifications Framework published by the Ministry of Training,Colleges and Universities (MTCU) are: • Depth and breadth of knowledge • Conceptual and methodological awareness/research • Communication skills • Application of knowledge • Professional capacity/autonomy • Awareness of limits of knowledge
Today Tomorrow
The HR curriculum
The HR curriculum
today
The CHRL curriculum • Degree‐based • Not less practical but more emphasis on
concepts and theories
The CHRP curriculum • Diploma‐based • Less emphasis on concepts and theories
Timeframe for academic requirement
•Most degree-granting programs with an HR stream or HR specialization already meet this standard (it is the case of HRPA catching up with existing programs rather than the other way around) • A consultation process has begun with academic institutions to work out implementation details• Consultation process to be completed this fall • Implementation dates to follow • Likely implementation date will be 2020
Until then
•Until this date, the coursework requirements for the CHRL will remain the same as the pre-2014 CHRP coursework requirement •The degree requirement is also as it was
What is the HR curriculum today?
• The nine required courses • Challenge exams can substitute •Ten years of professional experience in HR can substitute for academic foundation •Coursework is approved based on content but not on level Certificate-level, diploma-level courses, degree-level courses are all considered the same
• Coursework can be completed in any order
At its core
•At its core, the coursework requirement of today is still the Certificate in Personnel Management (CPM) of 1979 • It is based on a ‘certificate platform’
The nine-course coursework requirement
Human Resources Management (HRM) Organizational Behaviour Finance and Accounting Human Resources Planning Occupational Health and Safety Training and Development Labour Relations Recruitment and Selection Compensation
What is the HR curriculum today?
• No business foundation is required • No quantitative skills are required • No ‘integrative’ coursework is required • No professionalism or ethics
The CHRP coursework requirement
• Same as today, including alternative routes • Harmonize with Ministry standards
The CHRL educational requirement
• Most degree programs in HR already meet this new curriculum standard • It is based on a degree platform
Curriculum design
• Basic business • Basic quantitative skills
• Core HR curriculum
• More advanced HR courses • More integrative courses, metrics
• Capstone projects • Ethics and professionalism
Business and managementfundamentals (15 credits)
• Introduction to management • Introduction to economics • Finance and accounting • Business statistics or quantitative methods in business • Business information systems
Core topics in Human Resources(30 credits) • Human Resources Management • Organizational Behaviour • Organization design • Human Resources Planning • Recruitment and Selection • Labour Relations • Employment and workplace law • Compensation and benefits • Training and development • Occupational health and safety
Human Resources integration(12 credits) • HR strategy • HR metrics • HR Capstone projects • Professionalism and ethics for HR professionals
HR, business, and management electives(9 credits) • Labour economics • Program evaluation • Sociology of work • Leadership and leadership development • Project management • Negotiation • Marketing • Etc.
Timeframe for academic requirement
•Most degree-granting programs with an HR stream or HR specialization already meet this standard (it is the case of HRPA catching up with existing programs rather than the other way around) • A consultation process has begun with academic institutions to work out implementation details• Consultation process to be completed this fall • Implementation dates to follow • Likely implementation date will be 2020
Until then
•Until this date, the coursework requirements for the CHRL will remain the same as the pre-2014 CHRP coursework requirement •The degree requirement is also as it was
Questions