OOTR 2017 Summer webinar seriesThe webinar will begin shortly

Claude Balthazard, Ph.D., C.Psych., CHRL

Vice-president Regulatory Affairs and Registrar

Human Resources Professionals Association

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Office of the Registrar2017 Summer webinar series

Thursday,June 1, 2017

HRPA’s metastrategy

Thursday,June 8, 2017

Decoding HRPA’s objects

Thursday,June 15, 2017

The big debate: Business partner v. professional role

Thursday,June 22, 2017

What members have to say about HRPA as a professional regulatory body: Results from the 2017 HRPA Member Survey

Thursday,June 29, 2017

The requirement to notify the Registrar of bankruptcies and insolvency events

Thursday,July 6, 2017

Quarterly update on the new CHRP, CHRL, and CHRE certification processes

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Housekeeping

•Webinar will be recorded and posted online

• The CPD code for this webinar will not be given in the webinar itself, rather it will be sent to each webinar attendee as part of the post-webinar survey

•Will post answers to questions that we could not answer in the webinar

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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

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The big debate:Business partner v. professional

identityJune 15, 2017

The big debate: The strategic business partner v. the professional role (23)

A conversation with an investigator (21)

New thinking about continuing professional development (17)

WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) v. MWBP (Make the World a Better Place) (15)

Renewal, resignation, suspension, revocation, reinstatement and re-achievement (12)

HRPA’s Rules of Professional Conduct explained (12)

A status report on the professionalization of HR (12)

Designation update (11)

How does discipline work? (11)

Professional regulation and professional ethics (10)

What is professional misconduct? (10)

Appeals: How do they work? (8)

Let’s talk about… the role of experience in certification (8)

What will our regulatory framework look like when it’s fully built? (7)

What is risk-based regulation? (6)

What are ‘new to regulation’ issues? and does HRPA have them? (6)

Let’s talk about… licensure (5)

Regulatory excellence: What does it look like? (5)

The professional liability insurance requirement explained (5)

Answering more member and student questions on HRPA’s regulatory role (5)

Understanding HRPA’s objects (4)

What is the difference between a certifying body and a professional regulatory body? (4)

Professional regulation: How it works (3)

The governance of professional regulatory bodies 101 (3)

The role of volunteers in our regulatory framework (3)

The registration and regulation of firms (1)

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Vote tally for proposed OOTR webinar topics

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Poll

Have you personally experienced the tension between the business partner and professional roles?

Yes

No

I don’t think I know what you are referring to

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Business Partner

• The primary identification and allegiance is to the organizations that employ them and to their management

• The essential role of HR professionals is to create value for the organizations that employ them

• Human Resources professionals serve their employers and clients especially senior management

• The essential role of HR professionals is to provide competent and ethical HR services

• Human Resources Professionals serve all stakeholders

• The primary identification and allegiance is to the profession

Professional

The two roles

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Is there a conflict?

• Some don’t see an issue or conflict here, and that there is no problem in HR professionals being both

• But that is not how the literature goes

• The tensions between the two roles or identities have been noted for decades

• The position taken today in this webinar is that the tensions between the two roles or identities are real and important to understand

• To deny that there are tensions between the two roles or identities is not a useful position

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One thing this webinar will not dois to make the conflict or tension between the two roles or identities go away.

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What is meant by professional

• For some, ‘professional’ simply means ‘non-clerical’ or being punctual and polite, or being trained, or simply being paid for doing what one does

• There is a difference between being professional (adjective) and being a professional (noun)

• In the discussion of business partner v. professional the term professional is meant in the ‘true’ professional sense

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Professionals

• What distinguishes ‘true professionals’ is that are that professionals identify with their profession

• It is much more than a skill set

• True professionals look to their profession to define what is and is not appropriate professional conduct

• True professionals are subject to the authority of a professional regulatory body

• True professionals have a ‘service to others’ orientation

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Not everyone agrees that HR should be a ‘true’ profession in the first place

• The business partner v. professional debate plays out at the intra-personal and inter-personal levels

• The intra-personal level refers to role conflict or identity incongruence

• The inter-personal level refers to the fact that some HR professionals believe that HR professionals should be business partners first and foremost, whereas other HR professionals believe that HR professionals should be professionals first and foremost

• Not everyone is on board with the idea that HR professionals should be professionals in the full meaning of that word

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“Okay, we no longer want to be the people who carry the watermelon to the company picnic; we are going to become a profession.”

Richard E. BoyatzisAs cited in Yeung, A. K. (1996). Competencies for HR professionals: An interview with Richard E. Boyatzis. Human Resources Management, 35(1), 119-131.

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“Simply stated, the personnel activities, properly performed, must contribute to the organization’s objectives as specified by top management. It appears that here too the lure of professionalism could substantially detract from the proper performance of these duties.”

“It’s obvious that the personnel man must be prepared to perform complex and far-reaching programs for his management. And he certainly has an obligation to educate himself so that he can do this when called upon. He should not, however, mistake his collection of new-found technical skills and the quasi-professional appurtenances for true professionalism.”

Anon. (1963). Professionalism and the personnel man. Human Resources Management, 2, 31.16

Roles as strategies

• One perspective is to look at the business partner and the professional as two alternative strategies

• Both strategies aim to achieve the same objectives—greater status, influence, and power for HR professionals

• These strategies play out at the individual and collective level

• These two strategies have been pursued in parallel over the last three or four decades

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Same objective, but two alternative strategies

Business partner strategy

• By aligning ourselves with senior management and become really useful in moving forward the organization’s strategy, we will be valued by senior management and get greater status, influence, and power.

Professionalization strategy

• By becoming a true profession, we would have the respectability and clout to command respect and get greater status, influence, and power.

(Some think this essentially means licensure)

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Some have been critical of the business partner strategy

• At first, it seems difficult to imagine that someone could criticize the ‘business partner’ strategy (or role or identity)

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Kochan (2004)

“The human resource management profession faces a crisis of

trust and a loss of legitimacy in the eyes of its major

stakeholders. The two-decade effort to develop a new ‘strategic

human resource management’ role in organizations has failed to

realize its promised potential of greater status, influence, and

achievement. To meet contemporary and future workplace

challenges, HRM professionals will need to redefine their role

and professional identity to advocate and support a better

balance between employer and employee interests at work.”

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Strategic Human Resources management

• Shift from a functional, personnel administration approach to a strategic human resource management approach

• A deeper shift in the professional identity and role of HR from one that challenged and provided the support needed for their organizations to balance employee and firm interests to one that sought to ‘partner’ with line managers and senior executives in developing and delivering human resource policies that supported the firm’s competitive strategies

• The dominant effect of this shift was to more closely align HR professionals with the interests and goals of the firm, at least the goals as articulated by the top executives with whom HR professionals sought to align

• As a result, HR professionals lost any semblance of credibility as a steward of the social contract because most HR professionals had lost their ability to seriously challenge or offer an independent perspective on the policies and practices of the firm

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It didn’t work

• Kochan’s (2004) important point is that ‘strategic Human Resources management’ didn’t deliver the sought after status, influence, and power

• In fact, we are worse off because it has eroded or diminished our claim to being a true profession

• Note, some HR professionals have achieved status, influence, and power, but as individuals not as a profession. In fact these individuals will often attribute their success to their individual characteristics rather than to the profession

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Business ethics

• The same debate has existed in the business ethics literature as the distinction between the shareholder primacy and the stakeholder primacy theories

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Shareholder v. stakeholder primacy theories

Shareholder Primacy Stakeholder Primacy

Scope Business should be operated for the interest of the shareholders -managers must strive to maximize shareholder value.

Businesses exist within societies and ecologies, and have duties to not harm, and to contribute to their well-being.

Content Comply with laws and regulations set by society.

Comply with laws and regulations as well as economic, social and environmental standards of responsibility.

Norms Managers should do “responsible”things - to the extent they have net benefits for shareholders.

Managers should do “responsible” things that serve multiple stakeholders – people, planet & prosperity.24

CIPD has been doing some interesting work on professionalism in the last few years

It is part of their Profession for the Future strategy

The first research report was published in October 2015

This first report was followed up by a second report published just a few weeks ago in January 2017

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Key themes of CIPD’s work on professionalism

The CIPD research on professionalism pulls together a number of important themes:

• Gap between ‘professed’ ethics and actual behaviour

• Business partner v. professional role

• Professionalism and the process of professionalization

• Professional identity formation

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CIPD’s starting point:The movement for better business

• “The movement for better business is focused on advocating ethical capitalism, where profits are important but not the only outcome at the expense of workers and society”

• “There is a critical role for the HR profession of the future to play, by developing its expertise in human and organizational behaviour and using that to help create business solutions that have lasting benefits for all stakeholders”

• “Although competence is important, it is ethics that sets us apart from non-professional occupations”

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“…advancing the concept of professionalism brings ethical behaviour to the world of business. In short, making a commitment to a profession involves taking on ethical responsibilities that require rejecting a strictly selfish commercial view.”

Duska, R., Duska, B., and Ragatz, J. (2011). Accounting as a profession: Characteristics of a profession. In Duska, R., Duska, B., and Ragatz, J. (Eds.). Accounting ethics (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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the use of

specialist, expert

knowledge

necessary to

perform a particular

type of work or role

the use of

knowledge for the

good of the society,

implying an ethical

responsibility

a renewed focus on

trust has highlighted

the importance of

situational judgement

as key to professional

behaviour

Through the

combination of their

expertise and ethical

responsibility

professionals enjoy a

degree of trust to carry

out their services and

are granted a unique

right of practice and an

authority to make

decisions in line with

their professional

judgement

What is professionalism? (2015)Re-sequenced

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CIPD Elements of professionalism (2017)Element of professionalism

Description

Body of expert knowledge and skills

Based on specialised training or education

Social legitimacy Occupational status – the expertise of the professional group acquires authority

Ethical responsibility The use of knowledge for the good of society

Self-regulation The prescription of standards of performance

Identity A common identity within the professional community and a sense of loyalty to fellow practitioners

Situational judgement Applying expertise to specific circumstances, while often resolving conflicts of interest between multiple stakeholders; drawing on both knowledge and ethical competence

Service orientation The importance of trust and quality of service in professional relationships with clients

Continuing professional development

A requirement to regularly update expert knowledge and invest in maintaining the level of professional skill

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The ‘gap’ is the issue

• Situational judgment is the term CIPD has coined to refer to the combination of competence and ethics in making decisions

• “The ability to apply situational judgment and demonstrate moral integrity are what sets them [professionals] apart as professionals, and are important characteristics in helping organizations create long-term sustainability”

• “…while HR practitioners and business leaders want to make ethical decisions, in some circumstances they either deprioritize ethics or do not feel able to apply ethical principles in practice.”

• CIPD calls this the ‘gap between ambition to uphold ethical values and actual practice’

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The fundamental paradox

• “There is a fundamental paradox that characterises HR professionalism: alignment with business strategy lies at the heart of the majority of HR roles, while one of the key attributes of a profession is the ownership of standards that not only go beyond, but actually override, those of the organisation.”

• For HR to deliver on its promise, for HR to progress along the path of professionalization, and for HR to be considered a true profession, HR is going to have to close the ‘gap between ambition to uphold ethical values and actual practice’

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So how do we resolve this role conflict?

• CIPD’s answer is that we have to strengthen identification with professional values, attitudes, and orientation

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Identification

Organizational identification

Business partner role

Professional identification

Professional role

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Professional identity

• While HR professionals like to think of themselves as professionals, in actuality their level of identification with the profession is not as strong as it should be

• “HR professionals have a slightly stronger sense of identification with the organization than with the profession. When under pressure from the business, organizational identity may take precedence over professional identity for HR practitioners, which could provide some explanation for the gap between ambition to uphold ethical values and actual practice.“

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Enhancing professional identity

• As identification strengthens, people are more likely to internalise the values of the profession, and behave in ways that are consistent with its norms

• This suggests that the more someone identifies with their profession and its values, the more likely they are to demonstrate behaviours that are aligned with those professional values

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CIPD’s Line of reasoning

This means a greater emphasis on the ethical dimensions of HR practice

To do this, we need to resolve the role conflict by giving primacy to the professional role

To do this, we need to strengthen professional identification

Professionalization means moving towards greater levels of professionalism—this defines the profession for the future

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How does this fit with HRPA?

• As it turns out, by going for statutory self-regulation, HRPA and its members did make a commitment to put professionalism first (which was the intention of the Legislature)

• Let’s see how this works

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Statutory regulation

• As part of the ‘self-regulation deal’ professional regulatory bodies accept that their core mandate is to govern and regulate their members in the public interest

• HR professionals under regulation are not required to promote and protect the public interest, but their professional regulatory body is and regulated professionals are required to abide by the rules and guidance set out by their professional regulatory body

• It follows that regulated Human Resources professionals are required to practice their profession in a manner that is consistent with the public interest

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Statutory regulation

• Indeed, much of the speeches from the floor of the Legislature in relation to the passage of the Registered Human Resources Professionals Act, 2013, were very much about

• Independence of HR professionals

• Balancing the interests of employers and employees

• The commitment to the greater good

• From the point-of-view of the Ontario Legislature, the reasons for granting self-regulation to HR professionals was to strengthen the ability of HR professionals to be independent and support the greater good, to push back against employers who would pursue their self-interests at the expense of employees

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“More broadly, the responsibility of SROs [self-regulating organizations] goes beyond their responsibility to diligently discharge discreet regulatory functions. Their responsibility is to proactively do what they can (subject to the limits of their legal authority) to ensure their profession is serving the public interest.”

Source: Lahey, W. (Undated). Self-Regulation and Unification Discussions in Canada’s Accounting Profession. CPA Canada.

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Social contract and legislation

• We have seen that the professional regulation legislation gives effect to the social contract

• HR professionals are not required to promote and protect the public interest, but their professional regulatory body is!

• Regulated professionals are required to abide by the rules and guidance provided by their professional regulatory body, and the professional regulatory body is required to govern and regulate its members in the public interest

• It follows that regulated Human Resources professionals need to practice their profession in a manner that is consistent with the public interest

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Question for all of us

• If there is such a clash between the business partner role and the professional role or identity, why isn’t there more discussion of it in HR circles?

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Why is the issue not discussed

• Role conflict is uncomfortable—let’s just not talk about it

• Perhaps we can ‘have our cake and eat it too’ if we don’t make it an issue

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Let’s just not talk about it

• Role conflict is uncomfortable

• As professionals we feel guilty is we ‘cave in’ and don’t do the right thing or let bad things happen

• Even worse, our professional regulatory body might even hold us accountable when things aren’t done right

• Standing up to management requires courage

• Standing up to management may be costly

• Might as well not bring up the issue, because if we do we might just have to do something about it

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Perhaps we can have our cake and eat it too

• Perhaps we can have both—maybe we can claim to be professionals while at the same time do whatever management wants us to do

• But is it working?

• Does the public think of HR professionals who are independent and who will stand up for what is right or does the public think of HR professionals a ‘just part of management’ or ‘willing to do whatever senior management wants them to do?’

• The lack of perceived independence may be the biggest hindrance to HR being perceived as a true profession

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What next?

• We already have an Act that clearly expects Human Resources professionals to practice their profession in a manner that is consistent with the public interest, and that clearly expects HRPA to ensure that registered Human Resources professionals practice their profession in a manner that is consistent with the public interest

• We need to balance competence and ethics

• We’ve done a lot of work on competence, now we need to do some work on ethics

• It has already begun• CHRP Job Ready program• CHRL Professional Program

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A few challenges

• No one likes to be told that they may not be as professional as they think they are

• It is difficult for individuals to see themselves accurately—just like conflicts of interest, individuals just don’t see where their behaviour may be falling short

• The ‘Dunning-Kruger effect’

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Questions

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Suggestions for webinar topics?Feedback?

registrar@hrpa.ca

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Office of the Registrar2017 Summer webinar series

Thursday,June 1, 2016

HRPA’s metastrategy

Thursday,June 8, 2016

Decoding HRPA’s objects

Thursday,June 15, 2016

The big debate: Business partner v. professional role

Thursday,June 22, 2016

What members have to say about HRPA as a professional regulatory body: Results from the 2017 HRPA Member Survey

Thursday,June 29, 2016

The requirement to notify the Registrar of bankruptcies and insolvency events

Thursday,July 6, 2016

Quarterly update on the new CHRP, CHRL, and CHRE certification processes

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