Dave MacKay, COO of Ceridian. (Darren Brown, OBJ)

When Gabriel Bouchard launched Monster.ca to the Canadian market in 1996, the idea that people would look for jobs online was a hard sell. The original site had postings of 400 jobs, 8,000 resumes and 40,000 visitors a month.

"We had to convince people that one day Canadians would find jobs on the web and I can tell you that very few companies believed that at the time," the vice-president and general manager of Monster Canada said during a presentation last week. "But almost 10 years later, for the first time the Internet has become the number one tool for Canadians aged 18 to 49 when it comes to finding a new job. There are 35,000 postings today on Monster."

Quoting a recent study by Ipsos-Descaries, he showed that the Internet has surpassed newspaper ads and word of mouth as the most effective tool for job searchers.

While this milestone is a great accomplishment for the career website, Mr. Bouchard was using it as an example of how the human resources industry as a whole is rapidly changing. He was one of the speakers at the Human Resources Solutions Show 2005 that took place last week at the Congress Centre on Dec. 7.

His seminar, entitled "Recruiting Top Talent in a Changing Labour Market," examined many of the challenges Canadian businesses are beginning to face as the struggle to find the best and brightest talent intensifies.

"The Conference Board of Canada is predicting a shortage of up to one million qualified workers in the next decade," he told the crowd of local human resource professionals. "By 2016, this labour shortage is going to make it a very challenging task to recruit job seekers, especially when people are used to recruiting in a market where there's a huge supply of applicants."

Mr. Bouchard explained that HR personnel are going to have to change their mindset as a result and begin to focus more on marketing and advertising. He stressed the growing importance of properly wording Internet postings, along with putting them into as many job categories as are appropriate. He said most corporate websites also need an overhaul to make them more attractive to job seekers.

"The candidates will be in the driver's seat and while I know how you hate to hear that, it's actually going to become a privilege to receive a resume from a qualified person," he said. "You need to find out what's unique about your company and sell that. The success is in the details."

This idea of recognizing the needs of job seekers was echoed by Dave MacKay during his address to participants at the HR show. The chief operating officer for Ceridian Canada, a human resources provider for more than 40,000 Canadian businesses, he discussed the 10 HR trends that are changing the face of business in this country.

"The most important corporate resource over the next 20 years will be talent: smart, sophisticated business people who are technologically literate, globally astute and operationally agile," he said during his keynote speech. "Traditional marketing practices are going to have to be applied to recruitment. Employer branding and unique selling points with a strong differentiator are imperative. Look at strategies such as changing your employer brand from the groan-inducing 'we're a big successful company' to a company delivering on the promise of continuous learning, work-life balance, personally-fulfilling roles and innovative reward and recognition programs."

Mr. MacKay also addressed other changes, including the growing recognition in the business world of the necessity for a healthy workplace and the trend of outsourcing HR functions.

Another challenge the HR industry is facing is the management of a diverse workplace, which Mr. MacKay sees as a key business strategy.

"The reality is that today's workforce and the workforce of the future will be made up of a diverse, complex collection of employees, all with different needs and experiences," he said. "But diversity is not just about race, colour and creed. Diversity is about managing the demographic and psychographic characteristics of an evolving workforce."

Mr. MacKay said HR departments are going to have to balance the requirements of the technologically advanced "millenials" who are just entering the workforce with the other demographics, especially the needs of the aging baby boomers.

"The challenge for managers and HR is to create an environment in which older, longer-service employees can continue to be fully engaged in the work of the organization," he said, adding businesses should continue to provide learning opportunities, while also giving workers a chance to build a legacy through mentoring and more flexible work environments.

Another key strategy for HR professionals to deal with the shortage of qualified employees is through talent management. Mr. MacKay said both leadership development and succession planning will be fundamental tactics in the next decade.

"Do real talent management and know who your stars are, nurture them, develop them and figure out what support they need to thrive in your organization – because if you don't another company will," he said. "If there is a rallying cry for HR professionals, what is it? It's that we need to change the world of work. To do so we need to change HR departments into talent departments."