Dear Johnny C. Taylor Jr.

Dear Mr. Johnny C. Taylor Jr.,

We are not acquainted personally, however your work as the CEO of SHRM is the reason I am writing to you. While I am sure you have been flooded with communication between 2019-2020 due to the direction you have led a society of human resources, as a Latina and one of the United States’ leading Employee Relations experts, it has become imperative to my own conscience that I write to you.

I do not find it worth our time to rehash your painful decision to partner with the Koch Brothers in 2019 while masking it behind employing formerly incarcerated Americans as I think when you put your head on your pillow at night you feel the weight of the devil sliding in bed next to you with that decision, and I think that is enough of a reckoning.

Your actions in 2020 are what I would like to focus on as it is evident you are beginning to welcome other demons into your bed. As a lover of humanity, a champion of Human Resources, and person that believes you, Mr. Taylor, can still escape the worst of your decisions, I am imploring you to get up out of this bed and discard the demons.

Let’s begin with the hypocrisy demon, Mr. Taylor. I know that demon, and I fight it too.

This one comes in the form of Twitter and I have watched for eleven months as you and your organization have told my warrior colleagues time and time again that we are about “people and not politics” and in the same day SHRM’s Twitter feed commends the Trump administration.

Look at my brown eyes and brown skin, Mr. Taylor; just you and me here. We both are very aware the Trump administration has nothing to do with people and everything to do with politics.

And while you and Donald shovel millions in your pockets, you mass manipulate my colleagues into believing they cannot take a stand against a politician or his policies because that is not HR best-practice when you and I both know politics are about people, and HR is about people, so politics and HR are synonymous.

All the while your Twitter profile fills with likes and retweets and comments on an administration that is waging war on the employees we are stewarding…and my brown eyes see you, Mr. Taylor. The black voices you convince to thank the Trump administration will never con me into “people, not politics.”

That hypocrisy demon, Mr. Taylor, does not take chunks out of you. It swallows you whole. Hypocrisy in Human Resources is mass homicide…or in your case suicide.

Next, the racist demon you are paralyzed next to each night. Let me start this by saying I do not pretend to understand what the black man experience is in the world. With that said, I am not afraid to come to you as a Latina and point to your racist demon even though you are a black man as many have pointed to my racist demon as a brown woman.

I hope you have not become numb to how it feels to learn another black body filled with bullets has hit the pavement because of white supremacy. I hope our world has not been so cruel to you that watching a white man casually press the life out of a black man’s body with his knee in broad daylight does not make your soul ache anymore, however, let me tell you why this is not numb to the HR community.

Around the globe we are eye to eye with the raw emotions of employees walking through these traumas on an hourly basis. In addition to our own emotions, our family feelings, and the feelings of the outside world, we are one on one with traumatized humanity on the edge of “making it” and we are still asking them to perform.

So we look to you, Mr. Taylor, and the organization you run, that Society that pays you millions, to help us navigate the bloodiest battle we’ve waged.

And because you are laying down next to your racist demon, you give us violence. Violence against the black community, black men, black women, black SHRM employees (the ones you’re telling to lie to the public), black humanity…

Violence against yourself.

Because silence is violence, Johnny.

And when the pressure to make a statement finally scared you more than your demon and you put something out so subpar, something so painfully dismissive that said, “We hold ourselves accountable to real action,” I know you curled up next to your hypocrisy demon as I have done when one bedfellow overrides the other and you took solace in him.

Mr. Taylor, you failed the black community and the HR community and you are continuing to do so with every bigot conference speaker you book. You are not equipped to lead a society of HR warriors through another year of battle with that demon in your bed.

Lastly, your imposter syndrome demon.

Here’s where you have the most in common with HR professionals, and where you have made the most money off of them. I know that you know you are not equipped to run this company. This does not mean you aren’t a capable CEO elsewhere, it simply means you aren’t the right CEO for a Society of HR warriors.

And because you know this, you’re living in imposter syndrome constantly and impose that syndrome on my fellow warriors. If you can’t be comfortable at work, no one can.

So you have monetized our worth with classes, tests, and letters that do not prepare us for a sales rep snorting cocaine off the back of a toilet, or a global pandemic, or another lynching in the streets of America, or standing up to fascism.

You continue to convince The Business that HR pros aren’t professionals without your letters behind their name.

And monetization, that doubt, forces out diverse talent, true warriors, actual forces to be reckoned with.

That demon, Mr. Taylor, is taking up the majority of the King Sized bed SHRM’s membership fees are paying for and I cannot imagine how crowded it must be in there.

Mr. Taylor, it is crucial you hear me on this point if no other - I am not angry. You are a human with demons like the rest of us. I am, however, highly expectant.

Let me put this to you like I do my C-Suite: your skills aren’t the right fit for this company. That does not decrease your value or your skillset, however it is decreasing the value of this company, and it is time to part ways. Consider this your formal performance appraisal, sir.

I can take it from here.

SHRM leadership, you know where to find me. I have a team ready to turn your organization around and would be happy to provide Mr. Taylor with placement services.

Confidently,

Kayla Moncayo, No Letters Needed To Validate How Fucking Remarkable I Am
MoncayoKayla@gmail.com