By Nancy A. Woolever
No one thought 2021 would be status quo compared of the 2020 world situation caused by the pandemic. For SHRM certification, now in its seventh year of operations, the rapid-fire challenges that needed solving in 2020 evolved into a smoother cadence of trouble-shooting minor issues for candidates. This allowed us to turn our attention toward the future. 2021 became the year of being responsive to the evolution of the practice of HR—a story told to us by thousands of HR professionals across the world who participated to help update the SHRM practice analysis that drives the SHRM Body of Competency and Knowledge (SHRM BoCK). Continuing the mantra of ‘listen and learn’ SHRM completed its latest practice analysis to inform SHRM certification exams of the future starting in 2022. The practice analysis informs the SHRM BoCK; the SHRM BoCK drives the test blueprint for the SHRM certification exams. A year of learning occurred this year.
As you might imagine, some things also did not change in 2021. With the resurgence of the variants of the coronavirus, 2021 brought a new slate of candidate-related matters to manage in a creative way to make sure SHRM certification candidates were able to achieve their career goals by earning the SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP credential.
While 2020 was The Weird Year, 2021 can be characterized as The Year of Doing Things Differently for Good Reason. And that good reason is the profession is changing—so we must also change the SHRM certification exams to keep pace with the HR profession and remain relevant and timely.
SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP-certified HR professionals continue to state that the SHRM certifications are the certification that is most relevant to the work they do each day. Research completed in 2021 also shows that HR executives have very positive perceptions of SHRM certifications. 81% state that holding a SHRM certification increases the chances of securing a job in the field, and 92% of these executives state that it will be important to hold a SHRM certification in the future. All the more reason to implement changes that resulted from the latest global practice analysis.
It was true in 2020 and it is still true in 2021. To remain successful, to offer a testing program with a high degree of reliability, validity and integrity, and to continue to satisfy the needs of aspiring SHRM certificants, SHRM focused its efforts in three key areas. First, understand how to keep SHRM certifications relevant and timely. Second, determine how to best support each HR practitioner’s professional development and career journey. And finally, accomplish this by leveraging creative ways for HR pros to contribute their expertise without the need to convene in-person for the safety’s sake.
Leading the Charge Leads to Change
This year, thousands of HR professionals across the globe—some SHRM-certified, some not—enthusiastically engaged with SHRM through a variety of virtual opportunities, workshops, focus groups and survey research efforts to help SHRM define the practice of HR in its current state. The 2020-2021 Practice Analysis completed in June 2021 not only provided evidence on how the profession is changing, it also redefined and refocused the importance of building inclusive workplaces. This will likely come as no surprise to anyone. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) emerged as a discipline HR professionals do every day, not just an important topic that HR professionals know. DE&I is infused in every single component of an organization’s workplace and workforce. The social movements of the past several years paid a large part in this most recent and dramatic shift, but it is something that has been changing slowly for the past 20 years. Newer concepts like diversity of thought and sense of belonging emerged from the latest practice analysis as integral components of DE&I that can no longer be overlooked if an organization wishes to remain competitive and attractive to applicants. Indeed a 2021 SHRM research study also showed that applicants do not want to work for an organization where DE&I is not important. Concepts like thwarting intolerance, removing barriers that cause conscious and unconscious bias, equal access to opportunities for all regardless of background or individual characteristics, and actively providing opportunities for all to contribute to an organization’s success emerged as practices that bear witness to competent behavior in action for HR professionals—in other words, ‘this is what good performance looks like in practice’ according to thousands of HR professionals all across the world.
SHRM also continued to leverage the voice of the customer to make improvements to the testing experience that will go into effect in 2022. Customer feedback identified some roadblocks to success for them. Later this month, SHRM will be formally announcing changes to the structure of the exams. Why? Because customer feedback and influence told us that there were some processes that needed a second look. SHRM conducted three interwoven research studies in 2021 to gather the data needed to figure out multiple key concepts that impact the customer’s testing experience: the optimum number of questions to ask; the optimum amount of time for the exam that allows a minimum of 90% of examinees across all subgroups of examinees to complete the exams in the time allotted without rushing; the best way to articulate how to choose the right exam and understand the eligibility requirements in an unconfusing way; and, to determine what all this evidence shows in terms of supporting a candidate’s success toward passing the SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP exam. The most compelling component of the these research studies, however, was this: can we make changes without affecting the reliability and validity of the SHRM certification exams and without diminishing the accuracy of testing results. The answer to both was shown through the research to be “yes.” 2021 helped SHRM understand that it is still important, now more than ever, to listen to customers, allow them to provide you feedback, take the feedback and decide how to incorporate it into the future of the SHRM certification testing program—without changing the integrity, reliability, validity of the exams or the accuracy of the results.
Some things will change in 2022, but many things will not change in 2022, the most important of which (to candidates especially) is the option to test from home or the home office. When the pandemic made its unfortunate world debut, just about everyone had to take the exam from home. But live, remote proctoring is here to stay—with one very important safeguard. SHRM is committed to the highest levels of test security; we have not experienced security breaches as some other testing programs, unfortunately, have. We constantly monitor what is ‘going on with testing’ during the exam windows, and we have already decided that the first hint of an anomaly that will affect test security will trigger whether or not live, remote proctoring remains part of the permanent solution-set for SHRM-certification candidates worldwide. For now, however, it’s an integral part of the lexicon. Between 55% and 60% of candidates prefer to test from home. It is a major customer-experience satisfier.
Driving Results—Also Here to Stay
This snapshot shows how SHRM certification continues to grow. It continues to be the primary choice of over 80% of candidates who seek an HR generalist certification from the available options. Just like in 2020, SHRM certification again experienced significant growth.
- More than 34,000 individuals took the exams in the first two testing windows in 2021.
- About 4,000 more are scheduled to take the exam this month in December.
- More than 1,400 HR students in their final year of study in an HR degree program that teaches the concepts described in the SHRM BoCK took the exams in 2021, representing 400% growth year over year.
- SHRM education team continues offering virtual instruction for certification preparation, and this fall reintroduced live, in-person instruction via seminars and through educational partners worldwide for aspiring certificants who prefer in-person learning.
- Renewals continued at a very high renewal rate. 75% of SHRM-certified HR pros renewed their SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP credentials through the recertification process again in 2021.
- Advance Your Organization work-projects linked to the SHRM BoCK increased in popularity. This idea was borne out the concept of ‘using your e-mail inbox and outbox as a recertification pipeline.’
- SHRM made it easier to connect learning outcomes from professional development programs to complete work projects to improve the certificant’s workplace by debuting a new program called the “Better Workplaces, Better World” recertification package. The natural first choice of this new program was a package created to apply concepts learned through SHRM’s Inclusive Workplace Specialty Credential to complete work projects that improve the workplace.
- SHRM’s network of preferred providers through which SHRM-CPs and SHRM-SCPs can earn professional development credits (PDCs) increased to well over 3400 providers. The program has grown by 10% so far this year—and the year is not over.
- 90% of SHRM certificants report they plan to recommend SHRM certification to colleagues.
The Story Will Continue
Later this month, I hope you will explore the SHRM Certification website, shrmcertification.org, to learn more about the evidence-based changes that will take place effective with the May 2022 testing window. More is also planned in terms of making recertification more easily accomplished and the processes streamlined. And our dedication to helping military service personnel, veterans or transitioning-to-veteran status military service personnel and military spouses continues as we grow programs geared toward these aspiring HR practitioners. The next steps include helping these special groups connect the dots to understand how their time-in-service translates to a new career in HR.
SHRM is excited to see what the future holds! If you are considering HR certification and like what you’ve read here, please join the SHRM family in 2022 by earning your SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP.
Society for Human Resource Management
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www.shrm.org