After 50 years, SHRM and HR still growing hand-in-hand - Society for Human Resource Management

HR Magazine, March 15, 1998 by Bill Leonard

The end of World War II created a historic challenge for human resource management. As hundreds of thousands of GIs returned home, employees scrambled to reintegrate the former soldiers into the civilian workforce and to retool to a peace-time economy. So-called personnel managers had a tough job ahead and would face many demands during the rest of the century.

Academicians and personnel practitioners began debating as early as the 1930s whether personnel management should be considered a profession. One of the earliest articles on the topic, "Professional Consciousness in Management," was published in the July 1938 issue of Advanced Management. After World War II, interest in personnel management intensified, and trade journals published articles such as "The Profession of Personnel Administration" and "Should Industrial Relations Men Be Professional Status?" (both in 1946), which fueled debates about the nature of the job.

A national association

Most professions establish a national association to promote professional interests and provide information and services to members. But no viable national association for personnel management existed before 1945. The National Association of Personnel Directors (NAPD), operating out of Chicago since the early 1940s, was "pretty much just a diploma mill," according to one SHRM founding member. Anyone who sent $50 to the group would receive a document stating they were a certified personnel director.

So as World War II ended, personnel managers "were literally starved for information," recalls Mary Hopkins, SPHR, a retired management professor and the only female founding member of the American Society for Personnel Administration (ASPA). "We grabbed at anything we could find, and that's why we bad an interest in NAPD."

Russell Welch, the NAPD's smooth-talking executive director, convinced many top personnel managers and academicians to participate in the Society's 1947 annual conference in Chicago. Leonard J. Smith, SPHR, a personnel director with Lightolier Inc. in N.J., agreed to serve as co-chairman of the conference.

After arriving in Chicago, Smith and Russell Moberly, SPHR, a management professor at Marquette Univer-sity, visited the NAPD office and were disturbed by its small, dingy basement site and lack of financial controls. After returning to their hotel, Smith and Moberly called a meeting to discuss, their concerns. Nearly 30 people attended the meeting and formed an advisory committee to review the future of the NAPD and the personnel profession. Smith was named committee, chairman. Hopkins, as the only female member of the advisory group, was naturally asked to be the committee's secretary."

"Everyone on the committee agreed that we needed a professional organization and felt that die current association might not fit the bill. But we wanted to review the situation and see what we could do to improve the NAPD," Smith says. "Even though we probably didn't realize it at the time, we had set in motion the founding of a brand new association."

The advisory committee's review of NAPD financial statements found them to be untenable. When Hopkins returned from the Chicago conference, she showed the statements to her employer's lawyer. "He recommended that we completely disassociate ourselves from this group," Hopkins recalls. "He also suggested that we consider forming a new association. And I think everyone else on the advisory committee was coming to that same conclusion."

A new beginning

On Feb. 11, 1948, the NAPD filed for bankruptcy, effectively forcing the advisory committee's hand. In March, the committee recommended founding a new national organization and held meetings in New York, Cleveland and Chicago to assess interest. The strong response prompted the panel to schedule a planning meeting Nov. 20-21, 1948, at the Carter Hotel in Cleveland, and there the American Society for Personnel Administration (ASPA) was born. Smith was named chairman of the steering committee, and Hopkins was again tapped as secretary. As the organizational meeting drew to a close on Nov. 21, Walter V. Ronner became the first person to apply for membership.

"Looking back, I can joke about it now. Since I was the only woman, then I guess that I was uniquely qualified to be the secretary," Hopkins says. "But I did take the job seriously. We were creating something new, and we all wanted to make sure it worked."

The failures and shortcomings of NAPD provided lessons to make ASPA a stronger, more enduring organization. The founding members were determined to build a democratic and open organization.

"We all knew that we didn't want to go down that NAPD road again," says Smith. "So we looked to the more successful organization and Wed to pattern ourselves after them. I think it's pretty safe to now say that we succeeded."

By the spring of 1949, the steering committee had completed writing bylaws and a code of ethics. Incorporation papers were filed May 8, 1949, in Cleveland, with Joseph P. Bell, John J. McBride and Henry J. Post signing as incorporators. The papers established the principal office at 2917 E. 79th St. in Cleveland -- the office of Harry H. Willett, director of industrial relations for the Cleveland Cap Screw Co. The articles of incorporation listed Willett as the statutory agent, a post he held until 1964.