HR Professional - August/September 2008 - (Page 11)

LEADERSHIP M AT T E R S GLOBALIZATION OF HR here’s no denying that our profession is going global. Trends, including a stagnating population and retiring baby boomers, are forcing us to look further afield to recruit employees. Already, some two-thirds of Canadian HR professionals have increased their efforts to recruit and retain landed immigrants, according to Dipping into a Worldwide Labor Pool, a jointly published study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Canadian Council of Human Resources Associations (CCHRA). It also found one-third of HR professionals said their organizations will fill vacancies with foreign workers during the next 12 months. When you consider that an estimated 51 per cent of senior executives report their ﬁrms are now doing more international business than they were ﬁve years ago, according to a Robert BY DEBBIE BENNETT T ‘‘ HR shouldn’t just focus on employer needs; it must also consider the profession’s role in resolving skill shortages. Half International survey, you have a whole new frontier for HR. This global push will increase HR emphasis in a number of areas, including international recruiting, retention and diversity training. Even if your job does not include recruiting, per se, globalization means staff need to be better prepared to understand other cultures, languages and ethical standards to best serve customers in a global market. To facilitate this, diversity training becomes essential. HR shouldn’t just focus on employer needs; it must also consider the profession’s role in resolving skills shortages. Many organizations expect to address skills shortages with immigration; but as a group, HR has done little to w w w. HRT houghtLeader. c om eliminate the systemic problems with the immigration process. According to the SHRM/CCHRA study, HR professionals ﬁnd hiring foreign workers takes more time and paperwork than it did just two years ago. While NAFTA agreements make things a little easier, most of Canada’s immigrants come from outside the United States and Mexico. There’s also a problem of misplaced expectations and poor—or non-existent— skills-transfer programs. Often, skilled immigrants come to Canada with expectations of a new life, only to be faced with accreditation problems—whether it is the expense, language barrier or difﬁculty in assessing prior learning— that prevent them from obtaining the very jobs in which skills shortages are being faced. Attracting highly skilled immigrants to Canada and then forcing them into dead-end jobs is not a viable longterm solution. HR professionals need to work with accrediting bodies to ensure there is a viable process for determining competency in a given ﬁeld, whether the prospective employees are domestic- or foreign-trained. As HR professionals, we are in a unique position to serve as a model for other accrediting bodies that can facilitate the integration of immigrants into the jobs they came to Canada to obtain. This is something we can and should be doing in the future. With the increasing globalization of our workforce, it will become a necessity. ’’ Debbie Bennett, CHRP, is chair of HRPA’s board of directors. A u g u s t / S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 8 11 http://www.HRThoughtLeader.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of HR Professional - August/September 2008

HR Professional - August/September 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Contributors Leadership Matters Upfront Legal Compensation Human Capital The New Frontier On Message Strategy HR 101 Interview with Annette Veschuren Talent Management Training Work/Life Balance Off the Shelf The Last Word

HR Professional - August/September 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.