Publicly-listed US firms will not be required to disclose confidential metrics, including those related to expenses incurred in connection with the use of temporary workers, after the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) withdrew its Investor Metrics proposals.

The American Staffing Association (ASA) claims that alongside various stakeholders including the HR Policy Association and US Chamber of Commerce, it played a “key role” in ensuring that proposed guidelines did not go through.

According to Lee S Webster, SHRM’s HR standards director, quoted in a news release from his organisation, the metrics were “intended to show the value of human capital in a manner that would be compelling to investors in publicly traded companies”.

“It became clear that there wasn’t sufficient support from the business community to proceed with this effort. After seriously considering all relevant views, the taskforce decided to discontinue work,” Webster said.

In a 26 October posting on its website, the HR Policy Association claimed that SHRM had “dismissed most of [the] business community’s concerns” regarding the proposals.

The ASA says it had “stressed the lack of a genuine need or any sort of expressed desire on the part of the investment community for HR 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 HR information”.