After a Colorado jury awarded $11.5 million to Rehab Mohamed, a former employee of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the world’s largest HR organization helped shape one of the year’s biggest HR stories (sorry, Coldplay), and probably in a way that wasn’t on anyone’s 2025 bingo card.

A jury found SHRM liable of racial discrimination and retaliation on Dec. 5 and awarded Mohamed $1.5 million in compensatory damages and an additional $10 million in punitive damages.

We called HR Bestie Ashley Herd, who runs a manager training and consulting firm, Manager Method, and has served as in-house counsel and HR leadership roles throughout her career, including one year at McKinsey & Co. Herd has had no direct involvement with the case but she and her cohosts on the HR Besties podcast followed the case this year with some gusto. Herd told HR Brew that some actions taken by SHRM leaders appeared to stray from HR industry norms and best practices. SHRM regularly produces how-to guides, articles, and worksheets highlighting these norms and best practices for the broader HR community.

In his first media interview following the Dec. 5 judgment, SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor told HR Brew, “Our North Star is to be the trusted source and resource for all things work…We invest so much in our thought leadership and our research, following the data to make decisions and to suggest and recommend what the best practice is.”

For more on the lessons HR can learn from the SHRM lawsuit, keep reading here.—AD

The Trump administration is seeking to weaken the power of proxy advisors that play a major role in shaping corporate governance issues, including compensation.

In a Dec. 11 executive order, President Donald Trump called for increased oversight of the proxy advisor industry, arguing that these organizations have used their power to advance shareholder proposals related to issues like DEI and ESG, rather than prioritize investor returns.

The order specifically calls out Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which advise institutional investors on voting for shareholder proposals, and account for more than 90% of the proxy advisor market. These firms have previously waded into hot-button workplace issues when making vote recommendations, such as boardroom diversity or CEO pay, but have recently shifted their focus in light of scrutiny surrounding their work.

For more on what proxy advisor policy shifts mean for executive pay, keep reading here.—CV

Want to cultivate a culture that encourages work-life balance? Be the change you want to see in the workplace.

“HR needs to set the example,” Sam DeMase, career expert at ZipRecruiter, said during a recent episode of HR Brew’s People Person podcast, later elaborating, “When I was leading a team, I tried to go off the philosophy of authenticity, transparency. If I’m setting a boundary, I’m explaining to my team why. If I’m leaving for an appointment, I’m being radically honest about it.”

And urge leadership to do the same. “Just because [leaders] work 9-to-6 doesn’t mean [employees] have to work 9-to-6, without a lunch,” she said. “Let them be outcome-oriented instead of hours focused.”

DeMase discussed work-life balance—how to define it, promote it, and prioritize it—with Kate Noel, SVP and head of people operations at Morning Brew.

For more from our conversation with DeMase, keep reading here.—VV