By Alvin Aloysius Goh

By 2030, I hope that Singapore will have twice as many certified HR professionals.

But I have been wondering about the harder question: will workers and businesses feel the difference after this shift? Because that will ultimately tell us whether we are on the right path. From 1 July 2028, organisations with more than 200 employees will need at least one HR professional certified at IHRP-CP level or higher, or a recognised equivalent. The aim is to grow the certified pool from about 9,000 today to around 18,000 by 2030, roughly 40% of the HR workforce.

I welcome the baseline.

In the interest of transparency, I used to hold the IHRP-SP myself. Like some other HR leaders, I allowed it to lapse because I simply did not make the time to submit the required CPD hours.

Since the announcement, I have followed the conversations on social media. Through SHRI's network, we have also received questions and views from many in the HR community.

Some have questioned whether the numbers add up. Others have asked whether a mandate is the right instrument. These are fair questions. But perhaps the more useful question now is: how do we make this floor carry weight?

The credential opens the door. It does not walk you through it.

Singapore's own data is encouraging, and we should not understate it. An MTI study found that IHRP certification raised wages by 1.9% in the year of certification and by 4.5% to 6.5% over the following three years, while also improving the likelihood of employment.

Some in the community have questioned whether part of that wage growth could be attributed to inflationary adjustments. That discussion will continue. What the published data gives us is a useful starting point. It suggests that certification can create value for the individual.

However, we also need to ask if these same organisations are making better people decisions.

Are retrenchments handled more fairly? Are restructures better thought through? Is AI in HR better governed? Are people decisions delivering better outcomes for both workers and businesses?

That is the gap we should now work together to close.

Being book smart is not enough. Experience must not be omitted.

We can pass every exam and still get the hard calls wrong.

Judgement is shaped by experience: the difficult conversation about performance, the restructure that did not go according to plan, the union negotiation that went late into the night, what gave, what was given, how jobs were saved, and how the organisation ultimately transformed.

But experience is not simply about years.

What matters is how that experience has grown in complexity, breadth, accountability and impact. Twenty years of growth is not the same as one year repeated twenty times.

A credible professional standard should be able to tell the difference.

What mature professions around the world do

The strongest professional bodies do more than test what you know. They also examine what you have done and how you think, something we already see reflected in aspects of IHRP's assessment methods.

In UK engineering, Chartered Engineer status requires a Professional Review Interview for every applicant. It examines competence and commitment across the national standard, including ethics.

CIPD's Experience Assessment requires candidates to provide examples of their work, followed by a professional discussion with an assessor. It looks for evidence of both knowledge and workplace impact.

SHRM requires aspiring certified HR professionals to take an examination covering its Body of Applied Skills and Knowledge, including scenario-based questions.

Different professions and professional bodies take different approaches. But the principle is similar: professional credibility must eventually translate knowledge into judgement and practice.

Why ethics must sit at the core

At the World HR Congress in Singapore in 2024, SHRI announced that we would develop a Regional HR Body of Competency.

As we prepare to share more about this work, one principle has remained important to us: ethics and values sit at the centre.

They are the foundation on which the rest stands.

Knowledge can be examined. Experience can be demonstrated. But character often reveals itself in moments no examination can fully anticipate.

Recently, I heard a senior HR leader describe a simple way to win over the management table: show up with a good bottle, knock on the door, and you will be welcomed.

It stayed with me.

There is nothing wrong with hospitality or building relationships. But what was left unsaid was that HR cannot earn its seat at the table through goodwill and favours alone.

Getting through the door is one thing. Earning the trust to influence difficult business and people decisions is another.

For that, HR needs to bring its A-game: sound judgement, commercial understanding, credible data, and the courage to say what needs to be said, even when it is uncomfortable.

Sometimes that means saying:

"This retrenchment process isn't fair."

"This AI tool is screening out older candidates."

"These numbers don't support the restructure."

Ethics and values give us the moral courage to speak up when it counts.

Our A-game gives that courage credibility. We need to arrive with data, commercial understanding and options that create value for the organisation.

Courage without competence is noise. Competence without courage risks producing order-takers.

HR earns its seat at the table with a business case, not a bottle.

What quality could look like from here

If certification is the floor, the opportunity now is to make that floor increasingly meaningful.

Here are five principles I believe can help us get there:

1. Put ethics at the core. Assess ethical judgement through real dilemmas, and support codes of conduct with accountability. A credential should signal that its holder can say the difficult thing and do it well.

2. Assess judgement in context. Pair knowledge assessments with cases and professional discussions, so certification reflects how people make decisions, alongside what they know.

3. Value the progression of experience. Look beyond years of service to growth in scope, complexity, accountability and impact.

4. Give certified professionals meaningful accountability. Connect professional standards with responsibilities such as fair employment practices under the coming Workplace Fairness Act, retrenchment processes and the governance of AI in HR decisions. A credential carries greater meaning when it is accompanied by responsibility.

5. Measure movement, not just motion. We should track the number of certified professionals, but we should also look at outcomes: fairness, redeployment, progression, retention and business contribution.

Over time, we should be able to ask: do organisations with certified HR professionals achieve measurably better people and business outcomes?

The number will be reported. The quality will depend on what we collectively build around it.

Reaching 18,000 certified HR professionals is one milestone. But the bigger ambition is making those 18,000 matter.

That means HR professionals bringing both their A-game and their moral courage to the worker facing redeployment, to the manager navigating a difficult decision, and to the leadership table that needs to hear the truth.

This is work for all of us: IHRP, the tripartite partners, professional bodies like SHRI, employers and every HR leader.

As I have always said, HR professionals must go:

Higher in Value Creation. Wider in Perspective. Deeper in Acumen.

Certification can establish the floor.

What we build above it will define the profession.

If you lead HR in an organisation with more than 200 employees, what should your certified HR professional be accountable for by July 2028?