Each year, thousands of HR professionals, influencers, and vendors come together for the Society of Human Resources (SHRM) Annual Conference. Professionals come to learn, network, and find the latest and greatest HR technology vendors. Vendors come to meet decision makers and showcase their software. And HR Influencers go to connect, write, speak, and spread lots of buzz about the event. To everyone in the HR community, this event is a big deal.
Though lately, SHRM has been making changes that are quite unsatisfactory to many members, HR pros, and even vendors. They’ve partnered with partisan politics with literal plans to build borders at the expense of our nation’s health. They’ve invited political, divisive, and inexperienced speakers into our safe space. And, they’ve launched new initiatives with the Koch brothers, who are known for outrageous human rights violations.
Now, SHRM is under fire, once more, for recent changes they’ve made to their blogger squad that push the HR community even further away than ever before. They announced changes to the blogger community that include the following:
- All bloggers must have a minimum of 20,000 social media followers.
- Influencers from outside the HR industry will be invited.
These changes mean that bloggers who are actual HR professionals who have been been part of the SHRM blogger squad for the past several years are now no longer accepted. It means people who have no HR experience will be the key voices trending on HR topics. And, it means that the one place many up-and-coming bloggers turned to for their big break has now turned their back.
The recent changes certainly left a big impression on the HR community. So much so that 36% of Influencers surveyed said they no longer plan to attend this year’s conference. We gathered thoughts and responses from this community over the last week. Here what our friends and colleagues have said.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
Seems like it’s intended just to promote the SHRM name through a stream that appears to have lots of followers and doesn’t care about content. If they truly want to be the voice of HR they need to rely on practitioners and true professionals do the blogging.
Other comments?
Johnny Taylor is a self proclaimed workaholic and expects his staff to do the same. He’s more focused on running SHRM as a business than an organization. The shift began before he arrived and started when they decided to develop their own certification.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
It’s hard for me to answer until I see who the new bloggers are… I would love for HR practitioners handling the day to day of recruiting, benefits, employee relations etc to be represented on the team. I hope the new squad isn’t just high level consultants that feel far removed from my position. It was disappointing for sure but grateful for the 2 years I did have.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
Unexpected and can’t really tell why the new direction and not quite sure if the requirements make any sense.
Other comments?
The announcement was short notice and many were blindsided. Many hadn’t really worked on growing their followers. Majority of SHRM staff don’t even come close to 5k or 10k. So to expect that from their bloggers is a little hypocritical in my opinion. Majority of the bloggers have FT job as HR practitioners. They’re not FT brand ambassadors/marketers.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
I guess they want to ensure that bloggers have large audience to benefit from the information sharing.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
As a “small” blogger who has YEARS of experience (blogging since 2009), I find it ironic that SHRM isn’t basing their team on KSAOs and experience but instead on popularity.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
Having only been part of the “Blog Squad” for one year my experience is limited. Since joining the group I have only been to SHRM19 and People Analytics. While I understand that the 20k followers requirement will allow for greater reach (cast a bigger net so to speak), I feel there should be a good cross section of folks from different backgrounds. SHRM should have started with looking at performance, there were many bloggers who did very little “work” at these conferences, where others were dedicated and took the “job” seriously. Secondly, take a look at the number of bloggers sent, I think there were over 70 send to SHRM19, and when you look at the cost to fly, feed, lodge and register these folks, we’re talking big bucks. So on one side I get it, on the other, SHRM needs to evaluate whether their influencers are actually influential.
Other comments?
How do we do that SHRM? Many of your active bloggers are actual influencers. An influencer who has a large number of engaged followers who LIKE, COMMENT and SHARE their posts has a high engagement rate (many of your bloggers have this in spades!). A high engagement rate implies that the followers are interested in their content and are enjoying it. To gain the trust of their followers, influencers need to be AUTHENTIC. Their content needs to reflect their genuine passions towards their niches. A successful influencer is one who is able to inspire and motivate their followers with their unique content. Your potential influencer needs to be able to do so. It doesn’t matter how many followers or how high an engagement rate an influencer has – if they’re not from your niche, they can’t help you reach your goals.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
I have read and appreciated the blogs of many blogger squad members. Because there was diversity in style, background, etc they kept it real. I don’t care to hear from anyone outside of hr blog on anything from the conference. I feel that their perspective will not be relevant.
Other comments?
Shrm needs figure out other ways to shake it up and be relevant.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
I understand and applaud SHRM for trying something different. However, the change they propose is significant enough to shut out many members who have championed SHRM and looked forward to being part of the blog squad. The squad built excitement and enthusiasm for the conference, and did a great service to SHRM. I was even hoping to have a chance at it myself this year. I can see adding influencers from other professions for a good mix, but not eliminating the chance for dues-paying members to participate.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
Change happens, however, it comes down to how do you communicate it. I understand the need for ROI but there is benefit in including new voices that may not have the exposure.
What are your thoughts on the changes?
Using influencers outside of HR is unacceptable.
“I want to see someone LIKE me tweeting about conference topics and vendors.“
Wendy Berry
What are your thoughts on the changes?
I’m not surprised they’ve changed, but their new expectation is outlandish and takes away the authenticity behind what I always thought the blogger team was about. I was selected for it in 2018 and 2019 with ~2,000 Twitter followers, but I would imagine I was selected because I participated in Twitter chats, engaged others, and was obviously a genuine person in my social media feeds. People are over “influencers” in the sense that they make a profession out of taking pictures with a certain type of anything or regurgitating the same thing tweet after tweet. People with 20,000 followers are great – don’t get me wrong! But the idea of someone following a hashtag and only seeing people w/ that many followers isn’t relatable all the time. I want to see someone LIKE me tweeting about conference topics and vendors. It’s a representation issue, but it’s one that will generate more revenue and if that’s where SHRM wants to focus their efforts, this should work for them.
Thank you to all who submitted responses and shared their thoughts. We reached out to a SHRM representative to get SHRM’s take as well but have not heard back.
So… I guess the big question is “where do we go from here?” If you’re an HR practitioner, you need to decide whether you’re renewing your SHRM membership or attending the conference. If you’re a vendor, you need to decide whether you’re sponsoring or even going to the event, or whether you want to go and sponsor some of the beloved HR Influencers who will no longer be invited as an official blogger but can still promote the heck out of your brand! If you’re an Influencer, you need to decide whether this is the one conference you’ll get a year for professional development.
Now that there’s so many other great HR conferences, I’d imagine the choice will be tough.
If you’re a vendor and want some advice on which influencers to sponsor at SHRM, 63% of Influencers surveyed said they’d be interested in being sponsored by a vendor. Shoot me an email and I’ll connect you with some great folks.
I worry that those SHRM bloggers remaining, those that meet 20K in followers, will represent a less diverse population of people reporting on the conference. I wonder if that’s been considered
I think an important question is WHY? announcing it and explaining it w/ compassion and integrity are 2 different things. …kinda “unhuman” to not do so w/ appropriate sensitivity ..oh the irony. Making a change with a note of explanation in the context of inspiration and appreciation would have been the better course.
This move by SHRM does not surprise me. What surprises me is that so many of the bloggers seem to be “surprised” by this move. This is a professional “membership” organization that has made it very clear over the last several years that, despite the rah-rah cheerleading to volunteer leaders, “membership” is the least important component of their raison d’etre.
I joined the Blog Squad team circa 2010 and rolled merrily along until a few years ago when I removed myself (and then went back for one more year in NOLA cuz it’s down the road) before removing myself entirely.
Let’s be real: this is simultaneously ABOUT money and also NOT about money. SHRM only covered registration for the ever-expanding blog squad which really meant feeding them (the hard costs) since it’s not like there was a finite number of tickets and a blogger ticket meant there was one less ticket for a paying attendee. Bloggers covered all their own travel and lodging. SHRM, obviously, got a pretty sweet deal from this free labor: less so “during” the conference when the content tends to be lots of selfies and “woo hoo!” “yay SHRM” BUT in the MONTHS leading up to the big show – this crew of dedicated HR folks provided millions of words of FREE content for the SHRM website/blog.
The saddest part, to me, is that once again SHRM has alienated some of its biggest cheerleaders (much as they have done with various moves and affiliations during the last few years as mentioned at the beginning of this post).
But, as is abundantly clear…..they don’t care. And, in the bigger scheme of their business plan…. this means nothing.
SHRM is NOT, protestations aside, a “membership” organization. SHRM is a lucrative money making venture.
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