Tuesday 28 February 2012

What are the Benefits of Certification?

Certification programs support many changes occurring in today’s workplace. For example, in a context of rapid technological innovation, individuals face exponential increases in knowledge requirements. Certification provides a means to demonstrate that employees meet these shifting demands. Consider the increased professionalization of the workplace in which academic degrees have a shorter life. While a degree might be a prerequisite to a given profession, certification helps advance careers. Moreover, there is increasing public demand for certification in order to ensure safety. Certification, in turn, is a means to avoid the heightened regulation that often befalls unmonitored activities.

For Employers
An employer that embraces, supports, and facilitates certification reaps considerable rewards. Certification helps define and differentiate organizations, resulting in a recognizable and reputable, best-in-class organization. Employees participating in certification programs form a higher skilled workforce and, in turn, operational quality is improved. Implementing certification programs elevates the given profession and establishes standards of professional practice, which heighten real and perceived credibility.

For Individuals and Internationally Trained Workers
Certification recognizes individuals’ existing skills and fosters a sense of pride and achievement in their work. Individuals are empowered to better understand advancement requirements and the learning pathways to achieve them. Certification benefits individuals by providing them with a competitive advantage in the labour market, heightened employability and a resource for inter-jurisdictional labour mobility. This can be particularly effective tool to enable foreign trained workers to demonstrate their capacity to work in a particular job, where validating past experience and credentials can be a challenge.

This post is based on content from 'ABC's of Certification' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd.

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