Amitai Givertz’s Recruitomatic Blog

As a professional body, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) does a respectable job of representing the HR community to its various constituents, and there are many. As well as providing education and networking for its members and the community-at-large, SHRM plays a political role lobbying government. SHRM also provides important research that helps us to understand and shape the future for our industry. SHRM does good things. Don’t be surprised then, if you die and go to heaven, to find a SHRM chapter there.

I know there will be a lot said, reported, written and blogged about the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition in Washington, D.C. this week and next. No doubt, much of it will be useful, as will the actual event for those who are surviving the rain. Some of it, no doubt, will be crushingly boring and trivial. I suggest that anyone who wants to make an impact with their commentaries on SHRM, and be heard above the inevitable din, should inject a little of what we all secretly want to know about: sex and scandal.

Your HR Guy writes an interesting take on the SHRM conference, but I fear, misses the point. The SHRM conference is, in the final analysis, about people. When people come together representing economic and political interests, in other words, vying for power, there will always be sex, lies and/or politics involved. It’s human nature. For many who are ambitious in Washington, sex, lies and politics are par for the course.

I hope that someone who is at SHRM this week and who will be reporting back will be able to peel back the layers of professional civility and expose the seedier side of what is going on there. Not for sensationalism, but to help us understand what actually happens behind the closed doors and in the smoke-filled rooms: sex, lies and politics. This isn’t Woodstock, baby – it’s Washington.

If I could have justified the outrageous amount of money that SHRM was demanding for the privilege of hobnobbing with the well-to-do’s and industry bigwigs, networking for new salespeople, reconnecting with old friends and updating my intelligence on the competition, I would have happily stroked them a check. But, to the extent that all this can be done – and more effectively – at my desk, I agree with a dry HR guy who is somewhere close, but not quite there. For me, the pressing of flesh at SHRM is not worth the money. I would rather read all about it - behind closed doors.