American Staffing Association (11/29/30) Stephen Dwyer

At the behest of the American Staffing Association, HR Policy Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other business groups, as well as Fortune 500 companies, the Society for Human Resource Management has withdrawn its proposed American National Standards Institute guidelines that would have required publicly traded companies to disclose confidential human resource metrics, including expenses incurred in connection with the use of temporary workers. According to SHRM, the metrics were designed to provide human resource information to investors to assist them in their investment decisions.

In written correspondence opposing the proposed metrics, ASA and others stressed the lack of a genuine need or any sort of expressed desire on the part of the investment community for human resource metrics standards, and noted that the metrics would result in publicly traded companies having to divulge trade secrets and other competitive information by virtue of the disclosure of otherwise confidential human resource information.