Getting to the Bottom of Complaints: Our Step-by-Step Process
24
Aug 2023
216
Author
: Erica Blain, Director, Professional Standards, Registrar, CPHR Alberta
CPHR Alberta is the professional association for Chartered HR Professionals in Alberta. Registered members of our association are subject to the Complaints and Discipline Process as a way to ensure safety to the public. HR professionals have considerable influence over the policies, processes and practices employed by organizations across Alberta which affects how almost all Albertans are treated in the workplace. As a result of this influence, it is important that HR professionals are held accountable for their decisions and advice. The Complaints and Discipline process at CPHR Alberta exists so that members of the public have an avenue to share concerns, queries, and complaints about the Human Resources professionals in their organizations.
When a member of the public reaches out to CPHR Alberta with a complaint, the first thing that needs to be ascertained is whether or not a complaint is sound. Sound complaints are:
- Based upon facts and have good supporting documentation.
- Seem to be the result of the HR professional’s decision-making.
- Clearly indicate that the CPHR Alberta Code of Ethics or Standards of Professional Practice may have been breached.
Complaints may not be sound for a handful of reasons:
- The complainant has very little documentation or evidence to support the claim being made;
- The HR Professional was clearly not the decision maker in the issue at hand and therefore cannot be held accountable;
- The only complaint is that someone was released from a role without cause and the process followed appropriate legislation.
The most common types of complaints CPHR Alberta receives that are found to be sound and are therefore investigated, involve one or more of the following:
- Breach of confidentiality of sorts by the HR professional
- Concerns with an HR Professional’s expertise and ability in carrying out an investigation or other process
- Concerns about bias, prejudice or conflict of interest when hiring, recruiting or disciplining
- Insufficient concern by an HR Professional for employee’s mental wellbeing
- Violation of Alberta Employment Standards for pay or overtime
- Harassment
Any concern that an HR Professional has violated the Code of Ethics or Standards of Professional Practice should be reported to CPHR Alberta.
Process Overview
When a complaint is sent in by a member of the public, CPHR Alberta follows the below process.
- CPHR Alberta receives a complaint and checks for soundness and completeness.
- If the complaint is sound and complete, the HR Professional is notified of the complaint and asked to respond.
- Once CPHR Alberta has both the complaint and response, the Discipline Committee reviews and makes a decision to dismiss or move to an investigation.
- Parties are offered Alternative Dispute Resolution and if declined, an investigation takes place.
- Once an investigation is completed and the Investigation Report is compiled, the Chair of the Discipline Committee decides whether the Code of Ethics was breached or not.
- If an HR Professional is found to have breached the Code of Ethics or Standards of Professional Practice, they are referred to a Discipline Hearing where they are given a discipline order.
Dismissal of Complaints
While some complaints are founded and the HR Professional in question is disciplined as required, some complaints are also dismissed. There are a variety of reasons a complaint may be dismissed.
One is that a complaint may not be valid, meaning that the complaint being made does not have a strong basis in fact. This could include someone complaining that they were let go without cause and they didn’t think they deserved to be let go.
Another reason a complaint is dismissed is because it is apparent the complainant is making the complaint because they are upset but that there is no actual complaint. This might look like someone who is angry for losing a job and is now stating that the HR professional broke every part of the code, violated the Human Rights Act and the Alberta Employment Standards but there is no evidence that any of the accusations are based in reality.
A trivial complaint will also be dismissed. A trivial complaint is minor in nature and is lacking in evidence. The committee will not notify the respondent that this complaint was filed but will keep it on record in case similar complaints against the same individual are submitted.
Outcomes of Complaints
When a complaint is valid, sound and not vexatious and then, through an investigation by the Committee, is also founded, the HR professional will face discipline.
CPHR Alberta is not currently a self-regulated association, and so there is a limitation in the power given to the Discipline Committee regarding orders that can be determined.
CPHR Alberta cannot:
- Force an organization to re-hire someone who was fired, laid off or let go without cause
- Reward damages to the complainant
- Financially punish the respondent
CPHR Alberta can:
- Recommend or enforce further education for the professional to prevent future violations of a similar nature.
- Require that specific courses be completed in order to better understand ethics, legal issues and other rules that HR professionals must follow.
- Suspend or revoke the CPHR designation of the HR professional who violated the Code of Ethics
- Revoke membership with CPHR Alberta
The CPHR Alberta Discipline Committee exists to investigate complaints from the public to ensure that our Chartered Members are following the Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Practice to which they have agreed.
If you wish to file a complaint against an HR Professional in Alberta, please visit our website here
for more details.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog post belong solely to the original author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of CPHR Alberta.
Author: Kanwaljit Chaudhry We often begin developing leaders after we have given them something to lead. Someone is promoted into their first supervisory role. They join a leadership development program, receive coaching, attend workshops, or are paired with a mentor. All of these can be valuable. But by then, leadership development has already been happening. Long before the title arrives, people are learning how to exercise judgment, influence others, navigate disagreement, take responsibility and make decisions when the answer is not obvious. The question for HR is: Do we have to wait for the title to help those capabilities grow? Create opportunities, not just programs Some of the most valuable leadership development happens through work itself. A stretch assignment. Leading a small project. Presenting an idea to senior colleagues. Coordinating people who do not report to you. Navigating competing priorities. Being trusted to make a decision rather than simply carrying one out. None requires a management title. HR can help organizations look at development as not only as courses people attend, but as experiences people need. That may mean encouraging managers to distribute meaningful opportunities rather than repeatedly turning to the person who is already proven. It may mean designing project work so different employees have opportunities to lead. It may mean making mentoring, coaching or job-shadowing available before someone enters a formal leadership pipeline. The objective is not to make everyone a manager. It is to give more people opportunities to build capabilities that will serve them whether or not formal leadership is their eventual destination. Make room to learn from experience Experience alone does not necessarily create development. Two people can go through similar experiences and take very different things from them. What often makes the difference is the opportunity to reflect: What worked? What didn't? What did I notice about myself? What would I do differently next time? HR can help make those conversations part of development rather than leaving them to chance. A manager checking in after a difficult project can ask more than, “Did we deliver?” A mentor can help someone examine why a conversation went differently than expected. A performance discussion can explore not only what someone accomplished, but how they influenced others, exercised judgment or responded when things became uncertain. These are relatively small interventions. But they help turn experience into learning. Notice leadership before it becomes obvious There is another role for HR: helping organizations broaden what they notice. Potential does not always announce itself loudly. The person who volunteers to coordinate a complicated piece of work may be demonstrating leadership capacity. So might the employee who brings people together when a team is stuck, asks the question no one else is asking, helps a colleague succeed without needing credit, or remains thoughtful when everyone else is rushing toward an answer. If we look for leadership potential only among those who already resemble our current leaders, we may keep finding the same kinds of people. Creating broader opportunities allows capability to become visible before we decide who has it. Pay attention to what the organization teaches Organizations are also developing future leaders when they are not deliberately trying to. Employees notice who gets promoted. They notice what behaviour gets rewarded, whose ideas receive attention and what happens when someone makes a mistake. They notice whether managers share information or protect it, whether difficult conversations are avoided or handled respectfully, and whether asking for help is treated as good judgment or weakness. These observations become lessons about what leadership looks like here. HR influences many of the systems through which those lessons are reinforced e.g., performance management, recognition, development, succession planning and promotion among them. That makes an important question worth asking: What are our people learning about leadership from the way our organization actually works? The answer may tell us as much about our leadership pipeline as any competency framework. Before the title Leadership development does not have to begin with a leadership program. It can begin when someone is trusted with something slightly beyond what they have done before and supported while they figure it out. It can happen when a manager shares the reasoning behind a difficult decision rather than only communicating the outcome. It can happen when someone gets to lead a project before they have people reporting to them. And it can happen when an employee has someone who helps them make sense of an experience rather than simply move on to the next task. HR cannot manufacture leaders. But HR can help create workplaces where people have opportunities to practise judgment, responsibility, influence and reflection long before a title makes those things part of their job description. Perhaps the question is not only “Who are our future leaders?” It is also: “What are we doing today that gives future leadership capacity a chance to emerge?”
At the CPHR Alberta Conference, we asked HR leaders one question: What leadership capability matters most for the future of your organization? Leaders picked up a star and placed it beside their answer. By the end of the conference, HR leaders cast 131 votes across 16 capabilities. Three stood out, with two tied for first place. Here is what they told us. What the Data Showed The capabilities on the board came from Bright Wire's PLUS Leadership Framework, a proprietary model built to define what effective leadership looks like across every level of an organization and is organized across four dimensions: Courageous Coach-Like Disciplined for Results and Relational The results below reflect the capabilities HR professionals believe matter most.
Author: Robin Daultani Mental health support. Fitness benefits. Stress management resources. Workplace wellness programs have evolved significantly over the past decade. Yet one foundational pillar of employee health and performance remains conspicuously absent from most wellness strategies: sleep. The cost of this gap is staggering. A landmark RAND Corporation study¹ found that insufficient sleep costs the Canadian economy up to $21.4 billion annually, through a combination of absenteeism and reduced productivity. A Gallup study² reinforced this finding, showing that poor sleepers report more than double the rate of unplanned absences compared to other workers. And a 2026 Wellhub study³ found that 83% of employees identify poor sleep as a contributing factor to burnout, a figure that demands attention when nearly nine in ten employees report burnout symptoms annually. Consider what this looks like in practice. A team member who slept poorly scrolls through emails at 7am already feeling behind. By mid-morning, a decision that should take minutes stretches into a 45-minute deliberation. After lunch, focus drops sharply, not because of the workload, but because the brain is running on insufficient rest. By 3pm, a second coffee masks the fatigue but does nothing for the impaired judgment underneath. Research shows that after 17 hours of continuous wakefulness, the equivalent of a normal waking day ending at 11pm, cognitive impairment matches that of someone who is legally intoxicated⁴. This is not an unusual day. For many employees, this is every day. Sleep rarely appears on the wellness agenda, leaving a significant and measurable performance gap unaddressed. The reason is partly cultural. Sleep is still widely perceived as a personal responsibility. But the research suggests otherwise: sleep is not a personal indulgence. It is a performance lever that affects every metric HR professionals are already tracking: productivity, absenteeism, burnout, and retention. The same RAND study¹ that quantified the cost of insufficient sleep also found the flipside: if Canadians who sleep under six hours started sleeping just one hour more per night, it could add $12 billion to the national economy. The returns are not theoretical. They are measurable, achievable, and waiting to be captured. The good news is that addressing sleep does not require a major overhaul of existing wellness programs. Organizations can start by simply putting sleep on the wellness agenda. Most workplace wellness surveys ask about stress, mental health, and physical activity. Adding questions about sleep quality or duration to existing wellness assessments can provide baseline data to identify and measure the scope of the issue within their workforce. Leaders and managers who openly prioritize rest and recovery give permission for the rest of the organization to do the same. Small cultural shifts like discouraging late-night emails or respecting boundaries around after-hours communication can quietly improve sleep conditions across an entire team. None of these require a budget. They require intentional inclusion. Now consider what becomes possible. A team member, after two weeks of consistent, quality sleep, arrives at work already focused. The mid-morning decision is made in minutes. The afternoon dip is manageable, not debilitating. The second coffee becomes optional, not essential. Nothing else about their workload or responsibilities has changed. They show up more empathetic and more present for their customers, peers, and family. The only difference is how well they slept. The performance gap between these two versions of the same employee is not marginal. It is the difference between surviving and thriving. The question for HR professionals is no longer whether sleep affects organizational performance. The research has answered that definitively. The question is whether sleep has earned a place in their wellness strategy. And if not, what that gap is quietly costing their organization.
