This article discusses HR as a profession, focusing on present HR issues, and whether the SHRM as a professional body serves to highlight and discuss these issues and attract more people into this field.

Human Resource Management may be defined as the science and art of managing people in an organization.

According to Webster's dictionary, a profession is "a calling, vocation or employment requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation." The following six characteristics must be present for a quantum of knowledge and practice to be classified as a profession:

(1) A common knowledge base;

(2) Performance standards that have been agreed upon;

(3) Perception as a profession over a geographical area/ areas;

(4) A code of ethics or social responsibility;

(5) An established certification procedure; and

(6) A representative body incorporating the standards of the profession and practice.

While we can see that the established professions such as Law or Medicine easily conform to these criteria, HR has only been recognized as a profession in the last 50 years or so.

The acceptance of Human Resources Management as a profession in a particular geographical area owes a lot to the local and international organizations that promote and propagate its cause. In the field of Human Resources, an organization known as SHRM or Society for Human Resources Management is widely recognized and accepted as an international professional body: it operates out of Alexandria, Virginia in the USA.

The following is an evaluation of the SHRM Web-site:

The SHRM home page (http://www.shrm.org) contains links to an historical introduction, tracing its origins back to 1948. It claims to be an international forum, representing 180,000 individual members, with 500 affiliated chapters within the United States and members in more than 100 countries. Mission of SHRM is threefold: (a) to advance the human resource profession (b) the capabilities of all human resource professionals and

(iii) to ensure that HR is an effective partner in developing and executing organizational strategy. The important and worth-while links on the homepage are the ones on Education/Conferences, Forums, Governmental Affairs, HR Careers, Resources, Tools

and Publications. However, the detailed resources are available to members only.

The HR News link (http://www.shrm.org/news_published) contains published reports and decisions received from different sources, relating to HR issues, mainly those with accounting and legal implications for the industry. Current news items for example, cover the decision of the House of Representatives to limit consideration of Stock Options as a business expense for only upto five of its topmost officers, Department of Labor’s

Overtime Exemption Policy for white collar workers, and ethical considerations including the right to sue an employer denying a rightful promotion to a qualified and well deserved candidate. Detailed reports are only available to members.

The HR Magazine link (http://www.shrm.org/hrmagazine) deals with the in-house publication of the SHRM called simply, HR Magazine. July 2004’s cover story is 50 Best Small & Medium Places to Work, selected on the basis of best HR practices. Another

article deals with Retirement Benefits, specifically Pension Management. There is a special report on Outsourcing. Under the tag of HR Agenda are two topics; one about cutting commuting costs and its tax benefits; the other about getting the best value from MBA programs. Compensation & Benefits and Training & Development seems to be two areas on which HR Agenda is currently concentrating. The rest of the magazine is devoted to regular Columns and Departments; these are accessible by members only and contain articles or features on current and future trends in the industry. Again the focus seems to be on the legal, technological and societal issues. Trends and practices on HR training and development are also covered here. There is also a column for reader’s comments. The site has a Search option for those seeking to look for articles from its HR Magazine archives covering a specific topic or issue. Once again this is only available to bona-fide members.

The HR White-papers link (http://www.shrm.org/whitepapers) contains Research Papers obtained from HR professionals and researchers. The articles focus on specific areas of HR management. Many of them have been contributed by members of SHRM’s National Volunteer Committees. Before publication on the web-site, the papers are reviewed by the SHRM Information Center. These articles are provided exclusively to national SHRM members. The HR Links page (http://www.shrm.org/hrlinks) contains links to information on General Resources, calculators of different HR measures, Compensation & Benefits, Diversity, Education, Training & Development, Flexible Work Arrangements, HRIS, International HR, Internet Resources, the IRS, Labor & Employee Relations, Legal Issues & Resources, Management Practices, Publications, Recruitment & Career Planning, Safety Health & Wellness, Work/Life balance and SHRM Links. Basically the creators of the web-site have realized that a lot of the topics overlap and are repeated across different links; therefore this page is an attempt to be a one page focus point for all the different links on the site.

The SHRM web-site as a whole does focus on the areas of HR practices, trends and the current status of the industry, with an outlook on the future as well. However, by restricting all of its information to members only, it offers little charm or incentive to the enthusiast seeking to gain some knowledge about the field. Contemporary issues and challenges such as globalization, diversity and outsourcing, employee rights, productivity and performance, and the changing role of HR management (Werther & Davis, 2000) are well represented here. There should however be an attempt to make some information generally available to the casual visitor, so that people are intrigued and motivated to learn more about the field. By restricting access to members only, the web-site fails to be inviting and leaves the impression that it is little more than a certifying body, interested in providing its facilities to professional members only. While the online membership link provides information on the benefits available to members, nowhere is there any matter of interest to general readers.