• No products in the cart.
  • No products in the cart.
Back To Top
Image Alt

SHRM

SHRM

Some people may thing SHRM is the Society for Human Resource Management. It is not. It stands for the Stupid, Hardly Relevant Mess.

I’ve thought for a long time that HR in general is a vestigial appendage, to the extent it makes an appendix look useful. Transactional stuff (benefits, relocation) can be outsourced for economies of scale, and transformational stuff (restricting, change management) can’t be done by internal HR people 99% of the time.

Apparently, nor can removal from mailing lists. I’ve left messages for the executive director of SHRM, sent emails, returned their hard copy letters—to no avail. The want me to rejoin since I left them only a decade ago, finding them clueless. But they just keep spending their time and money fruitlessly going through the routine.

Sort of like an internal HR function.

© Alan Weiss 2015

Written by

Alan Weiss is a consultant, speaker, and author of over 60 books. His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients from over 500 leading organizations around the world.

Comments: 6

  • Tim Wilson

    July 21, 2015

    Alan, that’s what shredders are for.

    • Tim Wilson

      July 21, 2015

      It helps explain a recent series on blowing up HR in the Jul-Aug of HBR. Consider this point, “think of the simmering debate within HR about whether it should be a profession like accounting, with universal practices. This view has been champion by, the Society for Human resource Management and driven by its very successful certification programs, which teach and then document knowledge in designing compensation systems and other specialties.”
      There focus is on their certification programs not how to help people be better managers. If they were then they would acknowledge your request. I’m thinking I have something I can use in my practice.

    • Tim Wilson

      July 24, 2015

      I remember first reading that statement I think in Million Dollar Consulting and it has stuck with me. I have often used it myself the looks I’ve gotten are very amusing.

  • Alan Weiss

    July 24, 2015

    The complete unconcern and non-responsiveness of SHRM–and I wrote to the executive director twice– tells you how woeful the HR profession is and how vacant their SPHR or whatever dumb initials are. “Doctor, remove the HR people, but please save the appendix!”

Post a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.