Feature
Imagine you're an HR leader paying $249 a year to an organization that trains other companies how to handle discrimination complaints.
Now imagine that organization just lost an $11.5 million verdict because a jury found it drafted termination papers for a Black employee before finishing the investigation into her discrimination complaint. An action that they would advise against themselves.
That's SHRM. The world's largest HR association with over 345,000 members and 75 years of telling employers how to do HR right.
Days after the verdict, another lawsuit landed. This time, alleging SHRM rescinded a job offer when a candidate with diabetes requested her service dog as an accommodation.
SHRM is appealing and fighting both, as expected. However, many HR professionals are now asking a question they should have asked years ago: Why are we paying for this?
SHRM Lacks What Real Professional Bodies Have
Credentials
Let’s start with credentials.
In accounting, CPA exams are jointly administered by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA). In the legal profession, lawyers are educated through colleges and pass their bar through state associations. These associations serve as quasi-regulatory bodies enshrined in lawmaking. You could take them away, but they would need to be replaced by something.
The SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP credentials are legally optional and have viable, longer-running alternatives in HRCI’s PHR and SPHR credentials. You can spend 30 years in HR and never touch a SHRM credential. While these may signal generalist knowledge, they don't gate practice or determine hiring the way legally enshrined professional certifications do.
Lobbying
Now consider lobbying.
Construction trade groups shape apprenticeship rules and prevailing wage standards. Financial services associations influence compliance frameworks at the federal level. Retail coalitions move state-level scheduling laws and labor standards.
Those groups work because they represent employers facing the same regulatory environment, operating under the same economic conditions, and competing in the same markets.
HR issues fracture immediately across geographic and industry lines. Manufacturing workforce problems bear no resemblance to professional services talent strategies. California employment law moves at a different speed than federal consensus. What matters in government labor doesn't translate to finance or hospitality.
SHRM advocates nationally on broad positions, but that leverage evaporates at the state and industry level where decisions actually get made. Unless they partner with another group, their voice is ineffective.
Community
Finally, let’s talk community.
SHRM's national conference draws tens of thousands, but sprawling vendor halls and keynote sessions don’t build reliable connections for many. Dozens of other regional and national events with more focused topics often prove to be attractive alternatives. Industry-specific events with HR topics might be even more appealing for some.
Local and regional HR groups — including SHRM-affiliated chapters — still work, too. They solve real problems tied to geography and industry clusters. Monthly meetings with HR leaders facing the same state labor laws, the same talent market, and the same local regulatory environment have lasting value, with or without an affiliation to the national organization.
Online, SHRM hasn't cracked community engagement at all. Meanwhile, Slack channels, Discord servers and invite-only executive forums deliver what practitioners actually need: fast answers, candid takes and people who've solved your exact problem last month.
Here's a SHRM-Free Model That Actually Works
Other industries figured this out decades ago. They stack credentials and communities based on what they actually need instead of joining generalist organizations by default.
In accounting, you’ll find a leader far more likely to be a member of a state or local accounting group that handles regional requirements. Beyond their mandated CPA, they may also go for a specialty certification in forensic accounting or valuation for depth. You’ll also find them using informal peer groups for candid exchange. Project managers do the same with PMI and agile communities. Cybersecurity professionals layer ISACA with industry forums.
What does this look like in practice for HR?
A senior People leader in Bay Area tech builds influence through TechNet or the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the coalitions that actually shape California labor rules for tech employers. Legal grounding comes from employment law sections, where case law and enforcement trends surface months before SHRM summaries arrive. Peer learning happens in invite-only CHRO forums where people talk candidly about layoffs, board dynamics and activist employees.
Functional depth comes from ATD for learning strategy and analytics groups for measurement frameworks. Real-time learning lives in Slack channels focused on HR tech, AI governance and the post-2023 reality of DEI work.
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A healthcare HR leader in Chicago needs something completely different, though. The professional home is the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration, which is purpose-built for clinician shortages, credentialing and union strategy in healthcare delivery environments. Policy influence runs through the Illinois Hospital Association and the American Hospital Association, where staffing mandates and reimbursement rules actually get shaped.
Legal fluency requires Illinois employment law expertise, because Chicago healthcare is union-dense and arbitration-ready in ways that don't map to other industries. Workforce economics demands WorldatWork for comp strategy and the Healthcare Financial Management Association to tie people decisions to both reality and payer.
Clinical insight comes from the American Organization for Nursing Leadership and regional hospital consortiums, because designing policy for people who deliver care requires understanding their world.
Legitimate factors may keep some HR professionals associated with SHRM’s national chapter. It might be credentials that are difficult to transfer. It could be that they get value from the big national events. They might even agree with SHRM’s lobbying and think it’s an effective vehicle for their voice on work issues.
But for most people, the right combination is local peer networking and learning, industry-specific groups, and an online community to stay connected with broad trends. There’s no national organization with broad coverage of SHRM, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an alternative.
The Verdict Just Upset the Status Quo
SHRM has been growing its membership, and it would likely argue that it has also increased its influence on matters of work. Its CEO has spent years increasing his own visibility, hoping that it would translate to attention for the organization. The most noteworthy accomplishment of this effort seems to be his being shortlisted for President Trump’s labor secretary, a role that eventually went to former U.S. representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer
SHRM has long been the default option for HR professionals, and many organizations continue to pay for it on behalf of their HR employees. I know mine did when I worked in HR. That inertia is hard to disrupt.
But an embarrassing $11.5 million discrimination verdict can do that. It exposes the gap between SHRM's brand and its execution. When you sell yourself as the authority on workplace practice, credibility is the entire product. A jury verdict alleging the organization drafted termination papers before completing a discrimination investigation undercuts that positioning in ways a generic employer would never face.
Many senior practitioners have already moved on. They're in the stacks above or versions tailored to their context. The verdict will push mid-career and early-stage HR folks to ask the same questions.
SHRM will survive because 345,000 members and 75 years of history don’t evaporate overnight. But the default is breaking, and the question has shifted: Can you justify national membership when every function SHRM claims to own has a more targeted, more effective alternative?
That answer will increasingly be no.
Related Articles:
- SHRM's Dumping of Equity Won't Solve Any Problems — SHRM CEO Johnny Taylor announced the HR society would drop the "E" from DEI in July. Experts say removing equity is a distraction and weakens their efforts.
- Why HR Needs to Be a Change Agent — American Public University System's Marie Harper discusses the transformative role HR can play when treated as a strategic partner.
- Why the Best Leaders Never Stop Learning — The willingness to continuously acquire new capabilities isn't universal, but it's what separates leaders who adapt and thrive from those who plateau.
