Benefits: Why is Credentialing important?

According to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM, 2010/12) over 90% of new-hires and promotions are based on an individual employ holding certification. This results from a desire in the hiring community to ensure that new-hires or promoted employees demonstrate an ability to understand best practices (theoretic) for improved performance within a given profession. To this end, a recent phenomenon has occurred whereby the traditional pathway to higher-education is changing, and learners are now investing has much time in professional roles while also involved with degree programs (Pink, 2013). As a result, there are increased demands to not only ensure academic development of individuals as working professionals, but also measure their applied performance so that they may grow professionally while pursing degreeā€™s over longer-term periods (Rand, 2013). Furthermore, according to the Seattle Jobs Initiative, 83% of Human Resource professionals indicate the performance skills (goal-setting, communication, team-work, self-awareness, proactivity) are the primary challenge faced when new hires are made within an organization (SJI, 2013).

Professions by definition, require an association of members to be recognized as a professional role; furthermore, a professional must have a standard of best practices and seek to improve the collective participation of a body of members within a given profession by creating standards. With rising groups within private, non-profit, and civil defense agencies interacting with negotiation client, vender, and internal strategies to improve culture, reduce costs, or create win-win agreements to avoid layoffs or other fiscally required alterations due to the economy, a clear need has been presented to the SLA to confer a certification for those who demonstrate the capabilities meeting the rigors of the SLA examination process.

As a result, using the SLA credentialing process and requisite subject-matter expert advisory committee, academic and applied performance standards have been created to measure best-practice (theory) and application (experience and results) to create the Certified Professional Negotiator (CPN). This certification, along with the Certified Professional Coach (CPC) , Human Resource Associate (HRA), and Certified Professional Leader (CPL) are administered by the SLA. Over 7000 people will hold credentials through the SLA through year-end 2018. Join the ranks of growing learning-based professionals to demonstrate your professional competencies.