Today’s employers are influencing change and advancing Canada’s culture.

Every day it becomes more clear – work is not separate from society.

When society’s traditional models of leadership and shared culture become diluted, people look for cues from systems they trust.

For better or for worse, employers have an opportunity, a right and a responsibility to influence the opinions and lives of their employees and their families. It’s an influence that ripples out, creating broad impacts for communities.

As a result, leadership, at all levels in business, takes on greater importance.

Work culture provides people with a framework for broader social culture.

But that leadership and culture influence can only be sustained in a business that is successful.

So, when employers talk about strategy, the wisest of them are talking about strategies that accelerate business success and positive community impact together.

Finally, without engagement, all the strategy and good intention in the world is moot. And a key piece of engagement is meaning and reward.

Leadership, strategy, culture, engagement and reward are complex, interwoven topics that require purpose and attention to do well.

But our success as organizational leaders and as community stabilizers rely on these key competencies – and these are just five of the nine competency areas of CPHRs.

Human Resources professionals have the education, the skills, and the experience to help workplaces, and the people in them, to flourish.

A steady job and a paycheque are always a stabilizing factor.

But in these complex and rapidly changing times, employers who engage and empower human resources leaders can have a tremendous positive influence in their communities.

The bonus is that there is more evidence accumulating every day that businesses who adopt this whole-entity model achieve far greater long-term financial success than those who don’t.

This is the future of employment.

This is HR.