Human resources management is a growing field that has HR professionals covering a number of areas from employee relations to policy development.
According to a Canadian Business report, human resource managers are among Canada's top 50 jobs of 2013, based on employee growth, changes in salaries in the past six years, job openings, and the median annual salary made in 2012.
It's a very exciting profession says Antoinette Blunt, president of Ironside Consulting Inc., a company that provides human resources and labour relations services to employers in Northern Ontario. I think there's a lot of opportunity for anyone going into the profession.
Blunt is in her thirteenth year of business with her consulting company. Along with her presidency, she was also among the first Senior Human Resources Professionals (SHRP) to be named in Ontario. According to the Human Resources Professionals Association, this designation is awarded to HR executives who demonstrate the qualities of leadership, trusted advisor, strategic orientation, breadth of knowledge (not just in HR, but management generally), the ability to build business-aligning HR strategy, and of course, significant impact and influence on their organization and the profession.
I see this as an area that will continue to expand because most organizations, when they look at human resources, are realizing that in today's world, we live very much in a global society, she says. For a human resources representative, what they do need to understand and continue to learn and develop, are skills related to accessing knowledge and information about what's going on in the global economy, and how that's impacting businesses in Canada.
According to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), human resources professionals represent management and participate actively on various joint committees to maintain ongoing relations between management and employees. They have a number of areas within their company that they are specifically responsible for taking care of. One of the main areas is the management of employee and labour relations.
Blunt explains that relationship management and communication techniques within the organization are very important as they help determine the balance between employee success within the company as well as the overall success as an organization.
Part of the task of relationship management involves addressing conflict and disagreement within different teams throughout the corporation.
One of the things I have found is oftentimes people shy away from conflict because they look at conflict as being negative, says Blunt. But conflict is part of how we relate as people and you need to have healthy conflict in a team. That really means that if somebody has a different opinion or they disagree, you need to have that discussion and debate.
Brian Chambers, the senior manager of human resources at Chubb Edwards, says along with dealing with the discussions, negotiations, and settlements with employees and unions, he is also involved with the arrangement of team building and volunteer events that take place throughout the year. The HR department is primarily responsible for the planning and communication with vendors and organizations while the final execution of such events gets taken care of by the company's local social committee.
Some of these events include their annual holiday party, organizing and collecting donations for the Canadian Cancer Society on casual Fridays, and specific fundraiser events such as The Big Bike Ride.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation, every year, does a fundraising [event] where they get the corporations to recruit volunteers to raise funds for [their foundation], says Chambers. The best way to describe it is it's this big bike with 30 different seats and pedals all connected and as a company, as a team, you and 29 other people go pedaling through your corporate neighbourhood just raising awareness and promoting the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
HR representatives also look after policy creation and implementation within the company.
Working alongside three other colleagues who each take care of a different sector of Canada (Western, Eastern, Central, as well as the head office), Chambers says they all work together to create policies such as the company's benefit plan, through analysis and feedback, drafting, and then a final consultation takes place before these regulations get released from the department.
Really, it's an analysis, it's getting marketing or client feedback, it's making the changes or provisions, then releasing the other policies and educating and enforcing [them] going forward, he says.
For those looking for a career in human resources, Blunt offers a few final words of advice: I'm a big believer in lifelong learning, she says. If you want to be current and effective at what you're doing in your job, whether you're 25 or 55, you have to commit to learning new things constantly. You have to continue to learn and grow and develop.
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