DHR - Human Resource Certification

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Human Resources Certification Program

Program Overview

The State of Delaware’s Human Resources Certification (HRC) program is a three-year program designed to develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities of Human Resource (HR) professionals and state employees assigned HR support functions within the State’s Merit and Merit-comparable systems. The program stresses the importance of best practices, customer focus, managerial flexibility, organizational vision, and worker empowerment while developing the disciplines used to attract, retain, motivate, and compensate employees.

Program Goal

The goal of the HRC program is to provide education, experience, and career development opportunities to HR professionals that support best practices and maintain compliance with standardized processes that best support personnel and improve the performance of State government.

Experiential Requirement

While there is not an experience requirement to enter the program, there is a requirement for certification. Applicants must provide a plan that outlines how they will obtain the required credible experience. Experience may be obtained by performing assigned duties that support an HR discipline within the State Merit system such as Employee and Labor Relations, Employee Engagement, Benefits, Job Classification, Compensation Analysis, Pension, Recruitment, Selection or AA/EEO for at least one year, or at least two years satisfactorily performing HR support functions for or with an HR office.

Application and Approvals

The HRC Application and HRC Program Model can be downloaded at the bottom of this page under Program Documents.

HRC Program applications are only accepted during the two open enrollment periods, which are:

April 1st – 30th
November 1st – 30th

Applicants must complete all fields in the HRC Application and fully explain their current duties, program goals, and obtain the approval of their supervisor, agency Director, and agency HR Manager. The applicant’s supervisor and agency Director must submit recommendations that outlines a clear path of how the applicant will obtain the job training needed to perform the HR functions that satisfy the experience requirements. Additionally, the recommendations will identify the reasons the applicant is a good candidate for the program and summarize how the supervisor and the agency will support the applicant with mentorship as well as obtaining access to HR systems (such as DEL and PHRST). HRC applications must be approved by the agency director as well as the department’s HR Manager.

All applicants must have earned a “Meets Expectations,” or better, rating on their most recent annual review to be considered for acceptance into the HRC program.

The completed HRC Application and recommendations shall be emailed to: statewide_training@delaware.gov. Please begin your email subject line with “HRC” to ensure your email is routed to the proper destination.

Competency Development

The HRC Program focuses on the personal development of eight core competencies that will serve the HR professional from their entry through the executive career level. The eight competencies are business acumen, communication, consultation, critical evaluation, ethical practice, HR expertise, leadership & navigation, and relationship management.

Program Documents

Please download each form directly to your computer prior to completing. This step is necessary in order to access the full functionality and instructions built into the fillable forms.