SHRM Isn't Safe - You're Just Now Noticing

The first time I heard about The Society for Human Resources (SHRM), I was making $31,000 a year, and 11% of that was going towards my government retirement.

At the time I was working 8am-5pm as an HR Specialist, then I would drive 45 minutes to a bar down the road from my house where I would work 6pm-close. I worked in HR 5 days a week, and as a bartender 6 nights a week. I slept an average of four hours a night and rarely got dressed with the lights on to save on my electricity bill.

SHRM had never really been explained to me, it had simply been listed on the job posting for the HR Specialist role I landed and mentioned almost every day since I accepted the position. SHRM was talked about like an all knowing elite club where only the best HR professionals were members and just the name alone, the “Society” of Human Resources was intimidating to this poor HR infant.

Yet, as fate has a way of smacking you in the face with elitism, I was asked to use SHRM to research policies before writing one of my own.

Imagine my dismay when I went to create an account on a website intended to help HR professionals and was asked to pay. Passionate as I was, I was still poor, so I asked one of the HR Managers if a site preaching its desire to create better work places and a better world was actually requesting my debit card. I was met with the elitist: “Of course Kayla. They’re a business. How can you expect them to continue to provide meaningful content? Just use my login.” (Side note, she’s the one I wrote about in my HR BULLIES).

My relationship with SHRM evolved from that moment into my very firm understanding of SHRM today: SHRM is not and will not be a place for me.

HR has grappled with the need to validate our worth, to prove to “the business” that we’re smart, helpful, and worthy of a seat at the table.

We’ve traditionally fought bloody battles against administrative tasks in the hopes of winning the war for strategic trust and in the midst we allowed a “society” to emerge that is the antonym of the HR professional I want to be.

At first SHRM was presented and disguised to me as a “bank” of knowledge, a website where I can find templates for discipline, policies, and a network of other HR professionals. Then the layer of SHRM conferences was added and I was sold this idea that sitting around with thousands of HR pros and talented keynote speakers was worth three months’ rent, four months’ of extra shifts and only eating rice and chicken for half the year.

But here’s where SHRM really began to take its least safe form. If we remove for a moment these ideas that you should pay for a community of like-minded people, and strip away the bullshit that we should pay for content that makes the world better instead of willingly sharing it with each other, and look around at some minorities at the SHRM conferences that realize this was not worth half the year of chicken and rice, one very dangerous thing remains: SHRM certifications.

In an additional people-pleasing, we-are-worth-your-time effort, Human Resources allowed a system to qualify our intelligence; we needed letters behind our names to prove our value.

So the SHRM-CP, PHR, and SPHR certifications arose out of the insecurities of HR pros around the world… and we ate it up.

Business leaders finally felt like they could “quantify” an HR professionals abilities (because saving your asses daily wasn’t enough, creating vulnerable and safe spaces daily wasn’t enough, being innovative and cutting edge wasn’t enough).

HR pros felt like they could publicly show how intelligent they’ve been in private for decades. And hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent trying to show the world that HR was smart.

Do you know what it’s like as a poor brown woman to be told I need to pay thousands of dollars for a SHRM certification just to prove I’m worth hiring?

Do you know what' it’s like for the hundreds of thousands of minorities that can’t pay the $500 testing fee, plus the $600 in books alone? Who’s companies won’t pay for any of it because it’s a certification you get to carry so what if you leave they’ve wasted their money?

Who can’t get a scholarship from SHRM because the hoops that “Society” makes you jump through to beg for money are so dehumanizing you’d rather not?

Hear me when I say this friends, SHRM has never been safe.

During the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) and the push for LGBTQ rights in America, SHRM has been silent. As “The Voice of All Things Work,” this “Society” that “represents” Human Resources has yet again failed to meet the needs of minorities in our workplaces.

And white people are angry.

They’re angry because we all know that silence is violence.

For this first time in my HR career, white people feel what minorities have felt for years. SHRM is not safe, and you’re just now noticing.

SHRM is elite, and classist, and its intent has never been about a better world; it’s been about about manipulating HR into a bigger wallet.

If a “Society” of human resources professionals can comfortably say “policy not politics,” we have trained an entire globe of HR warriors that they must stay silent during adversity.

I call bullshit. I’ll fight for politics and policy for the rest of my career, fuck you very much.

I’m not sitting with you today telling you that certifications for HR are wrong, or HR conferences are inherently bad. I’m not stating that SHRM didn’t start out with well intentions or that it hasn’t helped HR pros throughout its history.

I am sitting with you today telling you that SHRM has not been safe, and it’s time for a change.

Whether that’s new SHRM leadership, or a new “Society,” the time is now. For the future of Human Resources, our work places, our leaders, our world - the time is now. We must stop letting the business, societies, or any other groups tell HR that they should be silent when employees need us the most.

If you’re looking for an opportunity to speak up about SHRM’s painful and unacceptable lack of response to BLM and LGBTQ, please consider this petition: Sign Here