The San Joaquin HR Associaiton has supported and continues to support the HR Games in California through donations and volunteers.
What are HR Games? The Human Resources Collegiate Competition (HRCC) is an annual academic event designed to foster friendly competition among university students from throughout California. While providing a positive and fun way to prepare students for the human resources profession, it also prepares them for the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification exam conducted by SHRM's Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI). The California HRCC is supported by PIHRA (Professionals in Human Resources Association) and the California State Council of SHRM through financial contributions as well as the many volunteer professionals from California SHRM chapters.
History of the HR Games SHRM (formerly known as ASPA) has conducted a number of competitions over the years, including a national championship at the ASPA Conference in Cincinnati in 1990. The current competition uses a model developed by California State University Fresno in 1992, and conducted in recent years as the California State championship HRCC. In 1993 the California State University Fresno SHRM student chapter, led by advisor Mark Keppler, MS/JD began to prepare for the PHR exam and decided to generate a competition among various student chapters. The competition grew and has been hosted each year at various locations in California, with the support of PIHRA and the California State Council of SHRM.
SHRM student program manager, Beth McFarland, observed the HRCC in 1996 and began gathering operational information. In 1997, SHRM Area VI manager, Mark Christensen attended and videotaped the competition. Mark shared the video with SHRM Area VI vice president, Gregory Green, SPHR and they made a commitment to take the competition area-wide. In 1998, SHRM vice president, Betsy Knight, SPHR attended the competition to support that vision. The goal to spread the program across the six SHRM areas of the country with a national competition was reached in the first SHRM national competition, Penn State University (Area I) defeated Cal State Fresno (Area VI) in the championship round in June 2000 at the national SHRM conference in Las Vegas. In 2001, our California/Area VI champion team from Cal State Fresno won the National competition. In 2002, our California champion team from Cal State Fresno was second in the Area VI championship.
