The world’s largest human resources organization just lost an $11.5 million lawsuit over its own human resource.
Go fucking figure.
SHRM, pronounced “SHERM”, is the Society for Human Resources Management. With ~340,000 members, it’s the largest association for HR professionals in the world.
SHRM positions itself as the central authority on HR best practices. They certify HR professionals and teach companies how to manage employees. They create standards that everyone else is supposed to follow.
Which is downright absurd when you consider my next sentence.
In December 2025, a federal jury found SHRM liable for racial discrimination and retaliation against a former employee.
Wait whaaaat?!
SHRM asked the judge to overturn or reduce the verdict. The judge declined.
SHRM asserts that the claim has no merit, but that’s not the reason we’re talking about this right now.
The reason I brought up the SHRM case is because of what allegedly happened before the lawsuit.
Because that part may have something to do with you.
When Being Different Makes You More Visible
Rehab Mohamed joined SHRM in 2016.
She is a woman of Egyptian decent. Her skin color, background and, heck, even her name made her different from many of the people around her.
According to Rehab, her supervisor began treating her differently from her white colleagues. She was cut out of meetings she had previously attended. Her work was more closely watched and got stricter scrutiny. And whenever she got close to meeting the standards for good performance, the standards would suddenly change.
When she complained, she says the treatment got worse. There was more isolation and stricter scrutiny.
So she escalated her concerns to the HR company’s HR department. She had five meetings with the VP.
Five.
But still, nothing got resolved.
So she went over everyone’s head and went directly to SHRM’s CEO, Johnny C. Taylor Jr.
Three months later, she submitted a formal retaliation complaint.
She was fired that same day.
Whoa, right?
The Pattern, Not The People
I’m sure SHRM has a different side of the story. The thing is, at least as it relates to our discussion, it doesn’t matter.
Let’s forget SHRM for a minute. In fact, forget Rehab too. Let’s just consider the situation.
Have you ever been part of a team where one employee looks, sounds, or appears differently than their manager and most of the people around them?
That employee is more noticeable.
And being more noticeable means being more closely watched.
That is called tokenism.
Research on tokenism has found that people who are underrepresented within a group can become hyper visible. Their behavior attracts more attention, their differences are more exaggerated and their performance can get greater scrutiny.
It’s not uncommon for the supervisor to start micromanaging that one person a little more than everyone else.
That doesn’t mean the manager is consciously racist, sexist, ageist or any other -ist. Heck, that manager may not even be doing any of it consciously. They just naturally pay a little more attention to the one person who is different.
And that little difference in attention can turn into a big difference in evidence.
Let me explain.
Everyone Makes Small Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes. We’re human, after all.
Maybe someone sent a presentation with a typo. Or someone else was ten minutes late to an important call. And who among us hasn’t forgotten to copy the right person on an email.
You’ve done it. I’ve done it. We all have.
Most of those mistakes aren’t performance problems. They’re proof that humans are involved.
When you pay attention to everyone equally, you’ll notice some of everyone’s mistakes. Most are corrected and quickly forgotten. They don’t matter in the long scope of things.
But what about the person you watch twice as closely?
You’ll notice more of their mistakes.
Not necessarily because they make more mistakes, but because you’re paying closer attention for when they come around.
Since you notice more mistakes, you start to get concerned.
So you pay even closer attention to them.
Maybe you start following up more often. Or you ask for more explanations. Maybe you start making notes about their mistakes, even though the same mistakes would’ve been forgotten if somebody else did them.
Somewhere in here, confirmation bias joins the party. Because once you suspect that someone isn’t meeting your expectations, your brain is really good at finding the evidence to prove you’re right.
Six months later, that one person has a file filled with missed details, questionable decisions and minor incidents. Everyone else has a clean record.
From the outside, their failure to perform looks objective. After all, look at all the documentation.
But in reality, it may not prove one person performed worse than others. It’s only proof that one person was watched more closely than everyone else.
This is a real thing.
It’s called Prove-It-Again Bias.
Prove-It-Again Bias
Prove-It-Again Bias was coined by Joan C. Williams, a professor at UC Law, San Francisco.
Williams’ research found that women and people of color are often required to provide more evidence of their competence than their colleagues. Other employees are more likely to receive the benefit of the doubt, or to be judged on their potential rather than their actions.
Some people are assumed to be capable until proven otherwise. Others are required to prove they are capable.
Then prove it again.
And again.
The same idea applies to mistakes.
When someone “looks the part,” a mistake is often assumed to be a fluke.
When someone looks different, the same mistake can be treated as evidence to a larger pattern.
And one success is never enough to change the manager’s opinion, because the whole thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That’s how unequal scrutiny can eventually create what looks like an objective performance problem.
The evidence is fair.
The way it was collected isn’t.
The Part That’s Actually About You
You’re probably reading this thinking that you don’t do that. You’ve never watched someone more closely because of their race, gender, accent, age, background, personality, or anything else.
I doubt it, but let’s assume that’s right.
So here’s my question.
Think about everyone on your team. If you aren’t part of a team now, think of a previous one.
Can you name, off the top of your head, the last small mistake each person made? Not the catastrophic ones. I’m talking about the small, forgettable ones. The typos. Missed deadlines. Showing up late. That type of thing.
If you can quickly name multiple mistakes from one person and nothing about anyone else, you may want to take a breath and think about why.
Maybe that person is actually struggling. Or maybe you’ve just been watching them differently.
I’m not saying you’re a bad person. I’ve seen no evidence to make me think otherwise. Well, aside from those photos. But you said it was just a phase in college.
This whole thing isn’t about intent. It’s about where your attention goes when you’re not paying attention to your attention.
Because whoever you pay more attention to will usually have a longer list of mistakes. Not always because they’re worse at the job.
Sometimes it’s because of you.
Nobody Outside That Room Knows
Only a handful of people really know what happened with Rehab at SHRM.
A jury found in her favor. SHRM’s response was succinct: “This claim has no merit. None.”
Maybe SHRM will eventually win an appeal. But that’s not my point.
My point is that somewhere in your work life right now, evidence might be getting built against one person while everyone else’s files stay conveniently empty.
But documentation is only objective if the observation behind it was done fairly.
So the question isn’t simply whether you’re biased.
It’s whether you’re watching everyone the same way.
P.S. SHRM certifies HR professionals and sets the HR standards companies follow. Their own HR department had five meetings about this situation and resolved nothing. If that doesn't make you think about your own HR processes, I'm not sure what will.
The patterns shaping how you distribute your attention — and who ends up with the most documentation — are exactly what the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop uncovers. Learn more here.
GFF is right.
Setting aside the sizeable, financial judgment, this is egg all over the face of SHRM and a "scarlet letter" black mark. You are absolutely correct: confirmation bias because people find what they want to find and simultaneously, ignore what they don't want to learn, admit and have to pretend doesn't exist.
Love this too, Jeff: "It’s about where your attention goes when you’re not paying attention to your attention."