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SHRM CERTIFICATION

Presented to
Perry Barton, Instructor
MGMT2215- Team Project

By
ThuyAn Nong

March 26, 2015

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Human resource management deals with any aspects of a business that affects employees,
such as hiring and firing, pay, benefits, training, and administration while Strategic human
resource management deals with thinking ahead, and planning ways for a company to better
meet the needs of its employees, and for the employees to better meet the needs of the company.
SHRM can be defined as the linking of human resources with strategic goals and objectives in
order to improve business performance and develop organizational culture that fosters
innovation, flexibility and competitive advantage.
SHRM deals with thinking ahead, and planning ways for a company to better meet the
needs of its employees, and for the employees to better meet the needs of the company. This can
affect the way things are done at a business site, improving everything from hiring practices and
employee training programs to assessment techniques and discipline.
The SHRM Certifications will become the new standard for HR professionals around the
globe, as it is among the first HR certifications that is focused on teaching and testing the
practical, real-life information HR professionals need to excel in their careers today, including
knowledge, skills and competencies. This certification program was built with employers in
mind, will help set the global standard for excellence in HR, and aims to grow certification
throughout the HR profession. Earning your SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP credential makes you a
recognized expert and leader in the HR fieldand a valuable asset to your organization, keeping
you and your organization more competitive in today's economy. This professional distinction
sets you apart from your colleagues, proving your high level of knowledge and skills
SHRM CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL (SHRM-CP)-HR professionals who implement
policies and strategies, serve as point of contact for staff and stakeholders, deliver HR services,
and perform operational HR functions, should take the SHRM-CP exam. SHRM SENIOR
CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL (SHRM-SCP) -HR professionals who develop strategies, lead
the HR function, foster influence in the community, analyze performance metrics, and align HR
strategies to organizational goals, should take the SHRM-SCP exam.
In 2008 the Society for Human Resource Management was in the midst of a makeover.
Its well-respected president and CEO was retiring after six years, and the organization was
attempting to shed its administrative image and rebrand itself as a global HR thought leader. At
that time, Workforce took an in-depth look at the initial stage of the transformation in an article
titled "SHRM at a Crossroads."
During the past half-decade, SHRM emerged from the depths of the nation's worst
recession since the Depression with a growing membership, flush coffers, an increased focus on
pushing its political agenda and a heightened global presence.
And according to current SHRM President and CEO Hank Jackson, the organization has
done so by remaining steadfast to its mission. "Our society has grown to become the largest
human resources organization in the world because it has never lost its focus on the original
principles: Serve the members. Give them what they need to assist employers and employees
alike. Advance the profession by protecting and promoting its professionalism," he wrote in the
April issue of HR Magazine, the association's publication. A spokeswoman said that Jackson was
not available to comment for this article.
While most SHRM members are content with the direction that the association is
heading, the chorus of critics who say that SHRM has lost its way seems to be getting louder.
In a recent Workforce survey on HR associations, a number of participants said
that SHRM is focusing too much on profits and increasing membership and not enough on the
needs of its existing members. Others still criticize past actions by SHRM's board of directors,

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such as its 2005 decision to pay board members and allow them to travel business class. Others
say that SHRM has shifted its focus from helping employers and employees to representing the
interests of employers only. And others took SHRM to task for not doing a better job in elevating
the status of the profession.
Just over half of the respondents -- 51 percent -- indicated that they are satisfied with the
direction that SHRM is leading the HR profession, while 40 percent said they are unsure and 9
percent indicated dissatisfaction. Of SHRM members, two-thirds were satisfied.
Still others praised many of SHRM's efforts, including education, lobbying and some of
the things critics have pointed out, like representing the needs of small employers and entry-level
professionals. "Need to make sure that we remain focused on what's fair for the employer and
employee, omitting any political-party agendas," one respondent writes. "So far, I
believe SHRM has been able to do that. Also, the recognition and respect HR professionals now
receive, I believe, has been partially achieved by SHRM's efforts."
The majority of respondents -- 67 percent -- said they are satisfied with the organization
overall, and many praised SHRM's efforts in education, lobbying and meeting the needs of small
employers and entry-level professionals.
Criticism of an organization as large as SHRM -- it has 265,000 members worldwide -- is
probably inevitable. But many SHRM critics are respected longtime members who have been
deeply involved in its activities, like Barbara Hobbs, an HR director in Tallahassee, Florida. She
has been an active SHRM member for 30 years and is a past president of SHRM's Jacksonville,
Florida, chapter. She says that she is disappointed with some of the association's actions.
While there is little doubt that SHRM is a powerful force in the HR industry, its efforts to
be a thought leader have not always been successful.
Last year its proposal to standardize a set of HR metrics, such as employee satisfaction
and money spent on training, was torpedoed by an association of CHROs. The HR Policy
Association, or HRPA, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organization representing 335 of the
nation's largest corporations, strongly opposed the measure, which called for the data to be
shared with the public. The HRPA argued that it would overburden employers and expose
proprietary information to competitors. SHRM withdrew the proposal late last year.
Some say that SHRM's effort to be all things to all people has compromised its cache.
Anyone who coughs up its $180 annual membership fee can join, whereas organizations like
HRPA and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in the United Kingdom are
much more selective. HRPA's annual CHRO Summit is by invitation only, and the CIPD only
admits those who pass rigorous testing.
"If you want respect as a profession, you need to limit the numbers of the people you let
in," says Bridie Fanning, a Milwaukee-based consultant who is a member of both SHRM and the
CIPD. "Look at law and medicine. You have kids coming out of law school, and there are no
jobs. It's great for the law schools but not for the profession. And then you look at the medical
profession, and we don't have enough doctors. A business strategy is that you say yes to some
customers and no to others. SHRM doesn't know who it's saying yes or no to."
While 127,439 practitioners have an HRCI certificate, according to the institute, just how
much weight those certifications carry is unclear.
In the U.S. some companies, like Netflix Inc., don't ask for the credentials when hiring,
while in the United Kingdom, "You rarely see an HR job that doesn't require CIPD certification,"
says Fanning, who wrote her master's thesis on HR professionalization in the U.K. and the U.S.

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CIPD certification is not required by all U.K. employers, but "they do have a high degree
of currency in the employment market, with many employers considering the credentials to be
desirable," says Katy Askew, a CIPD spokeswoman. She says that a CIPD chartered
membership, which is awarded to practitioners who pass a rigorous exam and have three to five
years of HR experience, is equivalent to a master's degree in the United States.
While the CIPD is the only HR association in the U.K., there are several in the U.S. in
addition to SHRM and the HRPA. Among them are International Association for Human
Resource Information Management, which has 1,700 members and National Human Resources
Association, which has 1,200 active members.
And there are divisions within SHRM itself. In 2010, a group of former SHRM leaders
who were concerned about decisions made by the association's board of directors formed a
splinter group called the SHRM Members for Transparency. It is a small but powerful group
made up of past presidents, former board members and HR leaders like Gerry Crispin, Jac
Fitzenz, Mike Losey and others.
Among their grievances was the board's 2005 decision to pay its members and allow
reimbursement for business-class travel for board members. Other key issues included the large
number of board members without HR credentials and the association's inability to hire a
president and CEO in a timely fashion after the departure in 2010 of Lon O'Neil, who took over
after Sue Meisinger retired in 2008. The job went unfilled for nearly a year before SHRM hired
Jackson as then-interim president and CEO. His lack of HR credentials was also a point of
contention for the transparency group.
Employee satisfaction is a measure of how happy workers are with their job and working
environment. Keeping morale high among workers can be of tremendous benefit to any
company, as happy workers will be more likely to produce more, take fewer days off, and stay
loyal to the company. There are many factors in improving or maintaining high employee
satisfaction, which would be very well implemented by the wise employers.
To measure employee satisfaction, many companies will have mandatory surveys or faceto face meetings with employees to gain information. Both of these tactics have pros and cons,
and should be chosen carefully. Surveys are often anonymous, allowing workers with more
freedom to be honest without the fear of repercussion. Interviews with company management
can feel intimidating, but if done correctly can let the worker know that their voice has been
heard and their concerns have been addressed by those in charge. Surveys and meetings can truly
get to the center of the data, surrounding employee satisfaction, and can be a great tool to
identify specific problems leading to low morale.
Many experts believe that one of the best ways to maintain employee satisfaction is to
make workers feel like part of a family or team. Holding office events, such as parties or group
outings, can help build close bonds among workers. Many companies also participate in teambuilding retreats that are designed to strengthen the working relationship of the employees in a
non-work related setting. Camping trips, paintball wars and guided backpacking trips are
versions of this type of teambuilding strategy, with which many employers have found success.
The backbone of employee satisfaction is respect for workers and the job they perform.
In every interaction with management, employees should be treated with courtesy and interest.
An easy avenue for employees to discuss problems with upper management should be
maintained and carefully monitored. Even if management cannot meet all the demands of
employees, showing workers that they are being heard and putting honest dedication into
compromising will often help to improve morale.

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Ngo Hang-Yue (2008) examined strategic human resource management (SHRM) and
human resource practices in the People's Republic of China to assess the impact of these
practices on firm performance and the employee relations climate. They also tested whether firm
ownership moderates the above relationships. Empirical results from a sample of Chinese firms
from various industries and regions showed that the levels of adoption of SHRM and HR
practices were lower in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) than in foreign-invested enterprises
(FIEs) and privately owned enterprises (POEs). Both SHRM and HR practices were found to
have direct and positive effects on financial performance, operational performance, and the
employee relations climate. However, the moderating effect of ownership type was significant
for financial performance only.
Wright, P.M and Boswell W. (2002); assessed the impact of SHRM on organizational
performance is assessed. Additionally, the impact of a SHRM approach on the individual
performance, organizational commitment and job satisfaction levels of human resource
professionals is investigated. An organization exhibits SHRM when the human resources
function is vertically aligned with the mission and objectives of the organization and horizontally
integrated with other organizational functions. The findings show that SHRM does have a strong
impact on the firm's performance. Work performance increases when SHRM is followed in an
organization.
According to Rogers W Edward (1998) a major challenge for Strategic Human Resource
Management research in the next decade will be to establish a clear, coherent and consistent
construct for organizational performance. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to review the
measures of firm performance that have been used in strategic HRM research, and to provide
some recommendations for how the field might expand both its conceptual definition of
performance, as well as broaden the measures used to assess the construct. This paper describes
the variety of measures used in current empirical research linking human resource management
and organizational performance. Implications for future research are discussed amidst the
challenges of construct definition, divergent stakeholder criteria and the temporal dynamics of
performance. The result shows that SHRM research to link HRM with organizational
performance has spent much effort looking where there is already light. As the quick analysis has
shown, there are gaps and thin spots where much more empirical work needs to be done.
Importantly, future empirical work to formulate a clear and comparable construct for
organizational performance that integrates the stakeholder markets with respect to time will
require expanding the concept of performance.
Christensen, C., Zaleznik (1958) examined Strategic Human Resource Management
(SHRM) and HR practices in Turkey to assess the impact of these practices on financial/market
performance, operational performance, job satisfaction, and turnover. Empirical results from a
sample of Turkey's Top 500 firms-2007 demonstrate that SHRM and selection/development
practices have direct and positive effects on financial/market performance and operational
performance.
The commitment of any organization and firm is to achieve the higher productivity
whereby the employees functioning according to the organizational system. The idea that
motivated and committed workers are the essential condition for accomplishing the
organizational goal. The strong positive relationship between SHRM practices and employee
satisfaction provides a wisdom way on how an organization can motivate an employee to work
efficiently. In addition, the negative relationship of HRM practice and turnover has clearly

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enlighten the importance of providing a good supervision, training, and pay practice in order to
reduce turnover rates of employees.
In other words, employee satisfaction can reduce turnover of employees when there is a
high job satisfaction and vice versa. Thus, the organization needs to take a consideration about
employee satisfaction and apply SHRM practice in the workplace in order to reduce turnover and
gain the organization goals.