Across Canada, thousands of Canadians work in charities and non-profits; in fact, research and studies by the Canadian Policy Research Network (CPRN) and others indicate that paid employment in the non-profit sector is comparable to total employment in oil and gas, mining and construction industries. At the local level, in CCVO’s recent Strength Under Stress study, participants indicated that the strength of local nonprofits and charities is their people, both paid staff and volunteers. However, human resources-related challenges continue to be a key issue for voluntary sector organizations, including:

• difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified staff with the skills and experience needed for positions.
• Difficulty offering compensation and benefits that are competitive with those offered in the private and government sectors.
• Little additional funds for staff development and training opportunities.
• Large amount of temporary and part-time work, as well as unpaid overtime.
• Many small and mid sized organizations do not have human resources expertise in-house.

The resources in this section provide an overview of these and other human resource-related issues in the voluntary sector.