Happy Holidays from CPHR Manitoba!

The HR profession remains at the forefront and is still being relied upon to lead organizations through another year of change and growth. We would like to acknowledge the hard work of HR professionals who continue to work through challenges, who continue to guide businesses and embrace change to lead HR forward.

We were happy to have held all our signature events in person this year along with many virtual webinars and workshops. We enjoyed connecting with members at our HR Excellence Awards, Psychological Health & Safety in the Workplace Conference, HR Legislative Review, Annual General Meeting, HR Conference, Diversity Forum and Holiday Luncheons. After years of virtual events, these were great opportunities to connect, in one room, with our membership.

CPHR Manitoba’s biggest milestone was when Bill 233, The Chartered Professionals and Human Resources Act, was passed, self-regulating the Human Resources profession in Manitoba. This Act has achieved royal assent and will come into force on a day to be fixed by proclamation. This Act strengthens our ability to protect employers, employees and our economy.

The association had a good year making progress under each pillar of our strategic plan – promote the CPHR brand, support CPHR development and foster public confidence in CPHRs:

Promote the CPHR Brand

This year, we continued to invest time and resources into reaching potential CPHRs through LinkedIn Recruiter and ongoing student relations efforts at our partner post-secondary programs. Growing our membership of designated HR professionals remains a priority and we have expanded our Members Services team to help us focus on this important area.

We created a new 30-second commercial with our long-time video partner, Coelement, which aired on Bell Media earlier this year and continued to work with numerous strategic partners like the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce, and other local Chambers throughout the province, and other groups, connecting with business leaders to reinforce the value of hiring a CPHR. To enhance our marketing initiatives, we began creating member spotlight videos to highlight members and showcase the value of becoming a CPHR. Our first video launched at this year’s conference (add link).

Support CPHR Development

It was also a great pleasure to see so many of our members in-person at the conference this past October. The conference was a success with over 400 delegates from across Manitoba. 

We celebrated our HR Excellence Awards 2023 on April 20. This year marked the 20th anniversary of the Awards and was a great way to see our members and celebrate their achievements. Once again, we wish to congratulate all the nominees and award recipients!

Many additional learning opportunities were offered through topic focused conferences/forums, workshops, executive breakfasts, learning partners and our Pre-Approved for CPD program.

We continued our programs focused on career development: Walk & Talk, Community Building Groups, Campus Ambassador Program, and Mentorship program. These programs continue to be a success with even more members signing up each year. We also continued to partner with CPHR BC & Yukon to offer webinars, many of them for free.

At the beginning of 2023, we launched an updated Validation of Experience which better reflected the profession and feedback from applicants and the committee has been positive.

Foster Public Confidence in CPHRs

We are happy to report that on Wednesday, May 10, Bill 233, the HR self-regulation act, received its first reading in Manitoba Legislature, and on Tuesday, May 30, the bill received royal assent. We celebrated this milestone on Wednesday, May 31 with various members, staff, board, business partners and MLAs. The Bill is now awaiting Proclamation from the Government of Manitoba. We look forward to sharing more updates about this in the coming year!

Looking Forward to 2024

We see a bright future ahead for the HR profession. Businesses will continue to evolve and adapt to new ways of working, and CPHRs are best equipped, through their education, experience, and expertise, to help shape the future of work. CPHR Manitoba’s presence and impact in the HR industry is supported by you – help us share our message, extend our brand and carry on the important conversation around self-regulation by supporting your peers and educating your colleagues about the value of HR.

Becoming self-regulated was a priority last year. This year, our focus will be on interpreting the bill and implementing the changes that come with it. That includes changes with bylaws, member agreements, reviewing the complaints and disciplinary appeals process, and requirements with communicating to the public. 

We are working with a wide variety of strategic partners to connect with business leaders to increase awareness of CPHR and ensure they understand the value of hiring CPHRs. We will continue to create member spotlight videos to highlight members and showcase the value of becoming a CPHR.

We will continue to provide learning opportunities for members via our annual conference, smaller topic-focused conferences/forums and workshops, webinars, and other member programs, with special attention to trending topics ensuring we are meeting members evolving educational needs.

At a national level, our involvement with CPHR Canada remains very active. We continue to manage the NKE with an external vendor, participate actively in various working groups and are facilitating a national marketing group which is focused on knowledge sharing across the provinces.

We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming in-person events in 2024, like the HR Excellence Awards on April 11, the 2024 Psychological Health & Safety in the Workplace Conference on March 13, the 2024 HR Legislative Review on May 2 and other conferences and events.

Thank you to the board of directors, the volunteer committees, our partners, sponsors, and advertisers. We would also like to thank our members for continuing to be great stewards of the profession. We wish you all a safe and happy holiday season and look forward to welcoming 2024 together!