What stuck with me after SHRM26

The honest debrief, now that the badges are packed away.

Kristy McCann

BBP Contributor · LinkedIn

Hi again. Did my restaurant recs hold up? If you made the 25-minute trek to Winter Park, I hope the beignets at The Ravenous Pig lived up to the hype.

Food aside, SHRM26 has wrapped and Orlando’s quieted back down. I’ve finally had a week to think about the rest of it. Thousands of HR professionals, a packed expo floor, and, like every HR event right now, AI as the official headliner. Every keynote, every booth, every hallway debate.

But none of that is what I keep replaying on the way home. What lingered was quieter, and a lot more human: the stuff you’re still dealing with once the lanyard comes off. Compliance you cannot ignore. Culture you cannot fake. And benefits: the thing your people feel in their actual paycheck.

A CHRO from Houston named Pamela summed up the mood better than any keynote did:

“AI is everything and nothing at the same time.”

That tension was in every room. People are exhausted by the hype and hungry for the practical.

Quick note before we get into it: Previ is a partner of mine, and they’re the reason I was able to spend SHRM doing what I love most: sitting in real conversations with HR people instead of rushing past them.

01 · The sessions that earned their seat

A conference is only as good as what you carry out of it.

A few sessions did that for me. Three in particular.

The compliance chaos around I-9s. I watched a group of CHROs practically flood into that room. One of them said, half-laughing, half-serious, “I am done with AI. Where is the compliance session?” I followed them in. You could feel the collective exhale of people realizing they are not the only ones white-knuckling this. I-9s sound boring until they’re an audit, and the session was a sharp reminder that “we’ve always done it this way” is not a defense. The rules moved. A lot of our processes didn’t.

The session

Compliance Chaos: I-9, E-Verify, and Workforce Continuity in 2026

Watch the replay (SHRM sign-in required)

The talent room everyone packed into. I hopped in late and could barely find a place to stand. The room was buzzing, and the energy told you everything. We spend enormous energy on the front door and almost none on the reasons people walk out the back one, and a room that full says everyone already knows it.

The session

Ten Things I Hate About My Manager — Why People Leave

Watch the replay (SHRM sign-in required)

The sexual harassment session. A clean, necessary reset. No drama, no fear-mongering, just a clear reminder of where the lines are, why prevention beats response every time, and how easy it is to let training go stale until the day you desperately wish you hadn’t. Sometimes the most valuable session isn’t the flashy one. It’s the one that quietly saves you from a problem you didn’t see coming.

02 · The genuine hit

Benefits is where the room actually leaned forward.

The benefits sessions were packed, and it wasn’t an accident. Because this is the part of HR people feel. Not the policy. Not the handbook. The paycheck. The unexpected bill. The “do we have coverage for this?” moment at the worst possible time. When you talk about benefits that put real money back in someone’s pocket, you’re not talking about a perk. You’re talking about whether your people can breathe at the end of the month.

The benefits sessions, at a glance

If Employees Don’t Get It, It Doesn’t Exist: The Case for Better Benefits Communication

Adapting to Change: What Workers Really Need in an Age of Economic Uncertainty

Watch the replay (SHRM sign-in required)

I felt this most at the Previ booth, where nearly every conversation went the same delightful way. Someone would ask, a little skeptical, “You got something that will really help my employees?” And I’d say, “Yes I do. How about money back in their pocket, an iPhone, and a horoscope too?” It got a laugh every time, and then it got their full attention, because underneath the fun is something real.

An attendee celebrating after winning an iPhone at the Previ x T-Mobile booth, in front of a You win! screen, face covered with a party-face sticker for privacy — One of the (100!) iPhone winners at the Previ booth.

That’s the part of the job I care about most, and it’s exactly why I partner with Previ. The future of benefits comes down to one thing: does it actually show up in your people’s lives in a way they can feel? Everything else is decoration.

03 · The conversation I’ll remember longest

“We are all screwed — but it’s workable.”

Late in the event I met Ken, an enterprise HR leader from Illinois. I asked why he comes to these things. “I come to these conferences to learn and see how others are dealing with anything,” he said. So I asked the obvious follow-up: and what have you learned, Ken? He didn’t miss a beat:

“We are all screwed — but it’s workable.”

— Ken, an enterprise HR leader from Illinois

Reader, I bought Ken an adult beverage after that. We got to talking about my long HR career, and how even though I’m “out” now, building on the other side of the table, I’m still very much here. “I’ll be here,” I told him. “I am HR.” That stuck with me more than any session. You don’t stop being HR just because your title changed. The instinct to protect people doesn’t retire.

A classy moment with the head of SHRM

I’ve written honestly about where I think SHRM needs to do better, and to his credit, President and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. engaged directly and graciously: “people are ultimately what make organizations successful… that’s why conversations like this matter.” So we’re going to talk. That’s how this field actually moves forward: disagree out loud, then shake hands and get to work.

What I keep coming back to

For all AI’s airtime this week, what will define HR teams over the next year is more old-fashioned: do the fundamentals actually serve your people, or just protect the company? Compliance that prevents harm. Culture that holds up on a bad day. Benefits people can feel. Get those right and the AI conversation gets easier, because you’ve earned the trust to have it.

Pamela was right. AI can feel like everything and nothing at once. But the people part? That was never nothing. That’s the whole job.

So here’s the question I left Orlando with, and I’ll hand it to you: if you stripped away the buzzwords, what’s the one thing your people actually need from you this year, and are you giving it to them?

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See you at the next one,

Kristy

P.S. Next issue, we’re breaking down the SHRM sessions that actually mattered and what the data says about where HR is headed. We’re even building a session matcher quiz to point you to the sessions and trends that fit your team. Want a preview of the format? Here’s the breakdown we built for Transform 2026.

Built By People

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First sent to BBP subscribers on June 26, 2026 · All issues