Press Release: New Initiative Calls for Human Resources Professionals to Be Licensed
A Massachusetts-based initiative launched to examine professional licensure as a means to restore trust, accountability, and ethical standards in Human Resources.
BOSTON, MA — A new initiative is calling for a serious public examination of whether Human Resources should be regulated through professional licensure following a series of high-profile employment lawsuits tied to HR failures.
The HR Accountability Project, founded by veteran HR practitioner, author, and speaker Jonathan Villaire, aims to build a coalition of HR professionals, employment attorneys, worker advocates, employers, and policymakers to explore whether state licensure is needed for HR practitioners who make or influence high-impact employment decisions, including hiring, termination, compensation, discipline, and workplace investigations.
“Human Resources professionals manage employment actions that directly affect people’s livelihoods, career trajectories, well-being, and dignity,” said Villaire. “Yet HR remains one of the few professions with this level of impact that has no required licensure, no enforceable ethical standards, and no independent mechanism for accountability.”
The launch comes amid renewed public scrutiny of HR practices. In May, Google settled a class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination in pay and promotions for $50 million. In December, a jury found the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the world’s largest HR professional association, liable in a wrongful termination and discrimination case, resulting in an $11.5 million verdict.
At the same time, retaliation has remained the most frequently filed charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for several consecutive years, often linked to how workplace complaints are handled by HR.
“These developments didn’t surprise many people working inside HR,” Villaire said. “They highlight a structural gap we’ve normalized for decades: HR relies almost entirely on voluntary credentials and employer oversight, even as it's expected to function as an ethical safeguard within organizations.”
Unlike professions such as law, medicine, teaching, accounting, and social work, HR practitioners are not licensed by any U.S. state. Credentials such as SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, and SPHR are voluntary, privately administered, and do not restrict practice or provide independent disciplinary authority.
The HR Accountability Project is not advocating for immediate legislation. Instead, its first phase focuses on coalition-building, research, and public dialogue, beginning in Massachusetts. The initiative plans to examine licensure models in comparable professions, identify risks and unintended consequences, and assess whether a licensing framework could improve outcomes for employees, employers, and HR professionals themselves.
“Licensure is not a silver bullet. It doesn’t eliminate misconduct in any profession,” Villaire emphasized. “But it does establish a legally enforceable baseline and an external accountability mechanism. Right now, HR has neither.”
The project also frames licensure as a potential form of protection for ethical HR practitioners. In licensed occupations with mandatory reporting obligations, such as teaching and nursing, professionals are legally protected from retaliation when reporting misconduct in good faith. HR professionals, by contrast, are often expected to handle complaints involving management without comparable safeguards.
“Many HR professionals want to do the right thing but lack the independence or protection to do so,” Villaire said. “That tension contributes to burnout, moral injury, and declining trust on all sides.”
If licensure were eventually pursued in Massachusetts, the project envisions the resulting framework serving as model legislation that other states could adapt to their own legal and workforce contexts.
More information, including a fact sheet outlining the public interest case for HR accountability, is available at HRAccountability.org.
###
