How the HR Monster Destroyed the Workplace: The Woke Mission Creep of Human Resources Departments 

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People have to stand together. A friend of mine a couple of years ago was forced to attend a "white privilege / problematic whiteness" training seminar to keep his job. About halfway through it, he stood up, told the "expert" running the course that he "had no time for this hateful racist and sexist garbage, I'm out", and was told he had to accept it and complete the module to keep his job. His response was "You won't have to worry about that, because my notice will be on [his manager's] desk inside ten minutes." The moment he stood up and walked out, a few others got up and left after him. Once that started, it escalated until nearly three quarters of the other attendees had followed him out the door. Such a large number of resignations would have been catastrophic for the company, which was only mid-sized with about 150 staff - at least 100 of them walked out. Cue an emergency meeting with senior management in which the CEO asked, "Ok people, what's wrong and how can we convince you to stay with us?" It was made very clear to him that he could have wokeness or staff, but not both. The result was that the company reduced its diversity/inclusiveness program to simply offering counselling to any staff member who felt they needed it, rather than forcing them to sit through woke seminars. People, it only takes ONE strong man or woman to walk out the door and others WILL follow. Nobody wants to be the first to stick their necks out, but if you find the courage to do so, you'll very likely, and quickly, find a stack of supporters behind you. And if they don't follow you out, then you've just escaped a very toxic workplace. People power is very real. You just need to find the heart and the courage to be the first to invoke it.

Meanwhile, the workers who actually bring value are more stressed, more overworked, not represented, and not remunerated. And these sorts of environments allow spiteful people to play humiliating power games on employees not part of their clique, or people who they are jealous of.

I was accused of bullying in the workplace, which I strongly denied. Human Resources took over and did a full 1 month investigation. At the end I got a letter saying that. “ After an extensive investigation we have found no evidence that you did or didn’t bully anyone, but the general consensus is that you did “. So they found me guilty. I took the letter to my boss and a copy to the union. By the end of the week I was found innocent and the HR girl was sacked. That’s my dealing with that mob.

I worked as male in one of biggest HR departments in a 30000+ company. The HR department is 95% women and they were preaching how the company needed more women managers and engineers in the whole organisation (absolutely gender discrimination) yet they had no interest in getting more men into the HR department. I confronted them with this, why they did not promote gender balance in HR and went as role models for this idea, and I became the target of bully and character assassination on a daily basis after that episode, I had to quit my job because I become so sick from stress.

I work in an HR dept. I'm one of 2 men. I'm an programmer. It is my job to automate away the jobs of everyone else. And I'm good at it. Most people in HR now have nothing to do. They tend to be 1) not very bright 2) overwhelmingly female 3) busy trying to justify their worthless existence with woke initiatives. They are not needed. They seek to bully the workforce because women in power who aren't very bright invariably do this. They want to force all the men to be 'nice', but what they actually do is make life miserable for everyone else and harass and bully people with the threat of ruining promotion opportunities, taking away perks and ultimately dismissing people who stand up to them. Oh, and 'educating people' over and over with 'training' until they submit. Solution ... fire them all. HRIS systems these days are so advanced you don't need many people in an HR dept. Leaving them will destroy your business. Keep the recruiters for interviews, a payroll manager and maybe one or two administrators for dogsbody work. Fire all the HR business partners and Senior HR business partners. They get paid a lot and they produce nothing other than woke. It's the business partners you should flush out tomorrow.

As a white male you will be considered an absolute last resort for promotion in a modern corporation.

Worked for a great, successful company for nine years and had no intention of leaving. Then came the new trans HR manager. Place became a nightmare and over 90 percent of the long term staff left within 18 months, including myself. A year later the company was no more.

I used to work in an HR-related field. The day I knew I was leaving the UK and never coming back was when I was invited to a disciplinary meeting and told "you said something bad" and when I asked what, I was told they couldn't tell me, when I asked where or to whom, the same. You can't win in a world where dribbling morons from HR hold unlimited power over you and you cannot even answer the accusations they make, because they won't tell you what those accusations are. It's purely Orwellian. So, I left the job and the UK, and a few years later, I left the profession. It's not easy making it on your own in the big wide world, but it's better than playing insane politics with power tripping shit weasels.

I have been a paramedic in Victoria Australia for over 20 years and have witnessed activists destroy an ambulance service. We can’t get you to hospital- but don’t worry- we’ll get your pronouns right.

HR exists for two reasons 1) to create employment for HR people, and 2) to make life difficult for anyone with a proper job.

I was head-hunted to a head-of role, in part due to my background of fostering genuine equality of access. During the probation period, a member of the group felt so distraught at “having a straight white male senior manager” that he was unable to come to work and literally put up a formal complaint that the situation constituted an unreasonable psychological impact and bullying. Instead of telling him to grow up, HR supported his claim and declared me to be a workplace risk, and guilty of bullying solely on the grounds of being straight-white-male. They confirmed that there was no behaviour at issue. I was walked out that day. Edit: I encourage everyone to look at the replies and responses of a particular person to this thread. They’re demonstrating the very type of thinking (cognitive distortions) that’s behind what I was describing. I could go on about projection, emotional reasoning, jumping to conclusions, etc. suggest use it for self-educational purposes ✌️😊

I was told by my HR manager that there is no longer any such thing as free speech. She used to work for the NBA where they notoriously demanded players stand against Hong Kong freedom. We're no longer allowed to refer to people as he or she. I objected to the emasculation of the men under me. We now have a supreme court justice who doesn't know what a woman is. If cavemen were that stupid we would be extinct. I object to the madness.

The number of oxygen thieves that clog up companies and make everyone's lives a misery is ridiculous these days!

Fifteen years ago, I was based within a university's HR Department. The head of HR earned £80,000 and her two deputies each earned £60,000. The head of HR confided in me that she was bored in her role and basically shuffled paperwork to look busy. She delegated everything to her team. The renumeration these people receive for being glorified administrators is obscene.

Also, if you are an employee, who goes to HR to complain about management, HR will do everything possible to silence you. They are there to enforce the power of those in power.

As soon as you call a worker a "human ressource", you are a criminal. Period.

I see this at work constantly. I had 11 days off in total last year, 2 periods of which were due to company policy (I had to leave to get a Covid test and wait for the result) 1 due to a sprained knee and one where they sent me home due to a very bad chest infection. On returning to work after this last event I was told I had to have an interview with my boss and HR. The upshot of which was that I received a verbal warning for going 1 day over the threshold for absence. My arguments that I was following both company policy and the law fell on deaf ears. I wasn't too worried as even at 60 years old I am quite fit and healthy. However there are many others who have been off for weeks with genuine illness/operations etc. All now get a verbal warning leading to written warnings, final warnings and then the sack. The office functions have expanded greatly in my time and those who actually produce are being wittled down and not replaced. We have had sackings for what my generation would call banter. We have had sackings for political incorrectness, people with decades of specialist experience gone over relative triffles. In production terms we are losing our way with more down time due to inexperienced staff and lack of staff. Other changes I see are LGBTQ+ support groups notices on company notice boards, mental health awareness groups and offers of in house counciling. Financial health awareness groups and offers of in house counciling and seminars. We are seeing in addition to the traditional first aiders, things like mental health first aiders being appointed after 3 day courses. There is an atmosphere of genuine fear at work, people afraid to speak normally, or raise objections etc, I'm fairly wiley due to long experience and I know with company questionnaires, and so called anonymous surveys that there is the right answer, the wrong answer and the one "they" want to hear. The frequencies of these information gathering tools is increasing. 1984 springs to mind

I worked for a UK government organisation for twenty-five years and saw the rise of the HR cult. Frontline jobs were cut but the HR department continued to expand. The workforce soon learned that HR were there solely in the interests of management and rapidly distanced itself from matters relating to the rank and file. It was one hundred percent female with a head who was on £300K a year who nobody ever saw. They resided on a closed off floor only accessible by strict appointment. I saw it only once and it was far more comfortably appointed than the other work areas. HR are a modern curse.

I learned my lesson at work, never talk with a woman unless there is a witness. Never ask a woman to go for coffee together. Then HR opened a sexual harassment office. Then it expanded. I skipped on all office parties and get togethers.

As an engineering manager in the ninety's, I watched it creep into my company. Women were at the forefront of it. Common sense became a thing of the past. I changed my job to avoid having to deal with these idiots.

It really says something when CEOs are more frightened of their HR departments than they are of losing money.

Last year i quit my job at the university and went to work on the building site! I’ve never been happier and I now work amongst normal people and we just turn up, do our jobs, then we go home and it is utter bliss

My employer would rather "celebrate" my sexuality than praise the hard work I do every day. I'm sick of it.

HR is now passe in my company and is now called People Experience. They no longer do personnel things such as assisting with benefits or expense reports. They are 100% engaged on DEI and other political activism. I recently retired and there was no out processing at all including no exit interview, post-exit health benefits briefing, etc. Seems human resources only cares about certain types of humans and pushing an agenda.

The enforcer Clint Eastwood 76 , " you've been transferred to personnel " , " to personnel !! That's for assholes " , yep that just about sums them up .

I worked for 33 years in a career that I loved. I was a Sewer Worker which is a male dominated area.They hired a male hating female as the head of H.R. and she love showing her dominance over men. This and Woke H.R. became the reason for 95% of discourse in our work place. I ended up retiring for this reason.

In the US HR became the sole dominion of women by the early 1990’s when corporations staffed the department with women in order to virtue signal that they did not discriminate against women and “minorities” to satisfy Federal EEOC investigators and state employment law enforcement agencies while simultaneously filling hiring and promotion quotas. Double win for them. Now HR departments are comprise of 80% to 100% women. So much for diversity!

HR was invented because actual workers needed a challenge. Everything ran too smoothly before that department was invented.

The 2004 movie, "Mean Girls", is the training video for the 'bizzaro-world' workplace. They call themselves woke, but they're really asleep at the wheel. They scream out for safe places, but they themselves are as toxic as hell. It goes on and on. I see people taking retirement early and when I ask why, its usually, "I'm sick of this sht".

One thing ive learned is that HR is never your friend. They are not there to help you, they exist only to make sure the company isnt sued.

Agree. I applied for a position as a unit manager, RN at a facility in Michigan. When, during the interview, the question was raised about my attendance in previous jobs was asked, I replied the fact that I have worked years without any call offs or late arrivals on my shifts and expect my staff to abide by the same. The response was jaw dropping. They stated “ We cannot offer you the position and the offer is no longer on the table because the CNA staff cannot be held accountable because not arriving on time or not showing up is a cultural aspect of the staff and attendance cannot be enforced “ MIND BLOWN 🤯! Now this entitled mind set is pervasive throughout every Nursing facility in Michigan. Employees stroll in late and leave early almost daily because as they say, “ I ain’t got time for all dat”

Karen finally figured out that the best way to get what she wants is to BECOME the manager. The best people to be in charge of managing other people are people who don't want to manage other people, but do it only because they know it's necessary. Someone who WANTS to be in charge right off, someone who goes and gets a degree explicitly for the purpose of getting a job where they dictate to others, should be immediately disqualified from ever getting that job.

As manager, I fing despise HR. Every company I've been in, they've been overpaid, always offloading their responsibilities on to the business, creating "busy work", providing zero support for managers handling difficult staff. When the downturns come, its amazing how you can shed a truckload of these parasites and the business doesn't even notice they've gone. Except as a manager, you have more time on your hands to make the business money...

In 1976 I received a call from Canada's 2nd biggest media firm-- CFTO (now CTV) from the HR department regarding a job in the audio department. The (always female) representative complimented me on my resume, specifically the self improvement and knowledge I had gained through my own initiative as there were almost no resources on the subject back then. She then proceeded to tell me that she was going to be giving the job to a less qualified female (her exact words) to give her a 'chance' she would never had. Excuse me, but I made my own opportunity. I gained knowledge through my own initiative. YOU SAID SO YOURSELF.

I have never trusted the HR department at any company I have worked and I never will. They have too much power and often misuse it.

For women the workplace has become unbearable when a dude in a dress goes home because of period pain and nobody says anything

When I first entered the workforce about thirty five years ago, I was told that organizations hid their worst employees - their most incompetent and least useful and most unproductive members of the organization - in HR and procurement. Thirty five years on, that is no longer true for procurement - but is triply true for HR. I think I have encountered maybe a half dozen HR employees in my near four decade work life that didn't truly suck. They NEVER add value to the organization, never do anything but get in the way and demoralize good employees in the interest of making the worst employees and biggest problem children in the organization feel better about themselves. HR is truly the deeply destructive black hole of every organization I know of.

It's a very scary thought that HR departments tend to become the local corporate INGSOC branch.

The current HR people remind me of political police in Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and China, and some of the Islamic states. This policing of not actions but words and thoughts or feelings is truly sickening. I don't think it takes an adult to realize that to continually ask a person for a date and be refused equally continually is unacceptable in a workplace. When I started working they just said with regard to your coworkers be professional. I'm at work and so we can relate to both people we like and dislike by keeping the conversations professional and work related. The simplest rule is don't fish on the company pier. Its easier for the company and the employees. This current HR policing is worse than anything including embezzling. Its become a separate force that can order punishments for even the slightest thing. I know of a case in ON where a supervisor was forbidden from saying "good morning" to a particular employee because it was seen as offensive. We had a division in our Ministry that looked into complaints that very quickly became labeled as the Gestapo, and the Ironic thing was that at the end of three years, the division with the most complaints was that one. The final straw for me was a code of conduct that stated if three employees are in the same place work harassment policy is in effect even off duty. I asked and was told that if I invited a couple of fellow employees to my place for a BBQ, an employee could file a harassment complaint on being excluded and they would win. If a friend and I attended a sports event in a crowd of 70000, and another employee unnoticed by us objected to anything either of us said that was a violation. The worse part was that if someone complained you wouldn't be told who made the complaint nor the actual offence, just that you had violated the policy. Again I reminded me of reading about the midnight appearance of the political police the charges that were not allowed any due process, and just punished. HR should be put back in their box where they belong. Before these sick policies there were employees like myself that would step in and say enough, no more and that would be that for bad behaviour. In one instance of sexual harassment we made the guy ask for a transfer, so it was effective. Self policing is yes a big responsibility, and it requires one to pay attention to things, but you know being someone that people would come to for help is actually very reassuring.

HR really seems more powerful than it should be. They definitely believe it’s their job to enforce a certain culture and mindset for all employees not just while they are at work, but also when they are outside of work, going so far as to monitor employee’s social media and requiring them to dress and act a certain way while in public. I also noticed that in many companies they alone determine salary ranges. I’ve been involved in salary negotiations where the SVP of the division couldn’t even approve a salary adjustment outside of the HR specified range. Also, when HR wants someone gone, they will make it happen, even if that someone is a friend of the CEO or extremely vital to the company.

Working in a medical research facility where scarce funding is wasted on art works, ceremonies and worthless but expensive 'cultural sensitivity' courses, I can totally agree with with this lady. We know that left-wing activists have never been able to sell their message directly, so they infest anything that is popular, respected and successful like charities, sporting organisations, the media (well, initially they were respected!), volunteer groups, churches etc. The workplace is just the latest vehicle by which they wield influence. Her point about CEOs being scared of their own HR (or 'People and Culture') department is bang on. They get a foothold in and before you know it, the department has grown from one person to 6 in about 2 years and suddenly you are required to attend training courses warning that conventional conservative attitudes will now constitute 'hate speech' and dismissal could be the result. I'm so glad I'll be retiring soon but I pity the employees of the coming years.

And in the end there is nobody to do the work.

All this stuff coincided with the empowerment of women in the workplace. I honestly think a lot of this is just the greater female tendency toward passive aggression and emotional sensitivity. In a male workplace jokes are not “micro aggressions” they have a social function. Add “diversity” to that and hurty feelings can become a political tool to destroy one’s ethnic and ideological enemies

This started with the idea of at least half of all kids needing to go to university, that in turn led to all manner of useless courses to draw in more money no matter how useless the degree, from there to lots of people having useless 'social studies' degrees that looked good to employers at the time. From that point the new hires in HR with the useless degrees also employed more people with useless degrees and tried to implement the idiotic and divisive ideas they had learned in their useless university courses. By this point HR had taken over almost all hiring and firing at the ground floor level, thus ensuring only likeminded people were employed, and removing anyone who tried to point out where they were wrong.

I'm a senior HR exec in one of the UKs largest companies. I have been fighting a rear guard action against the culture of woke for many years now. I think we are at the turning point or not far from it. HR is there to support the business.. it is not there to bully, Hector or politicise its employees, customers or colleagues.

This happens every time bottom feeders (such as HR) are given an inordinate amount of power.

One of my sons has been HR'd out of any relationships at work. Male or female. He goes in, does his job, only talks to people about work, and then goes home. He saw a fellow employee get canned for making a complimentary statement about a female co-workers haircut. My boy won't partake of any work related events. Even the Christmas party is a no go. He says he likes his job and won't risk a trip to the HR for any misunderstood phrase or even a misconstrued look.

HR departments have to be reformed urgently.

My boss (Bob) asked the woman (Anne) on the desk nexk to him if she'd had a good weekend. She told HR that she was being sexually harassed, they took it seriously and went nuclear. Now, NOBODY talks to Anne. HR got involved again, and were told in no uncertain terms that the situation was entirely their fault. Then Anne complained about me, because I wouldn't do part of her job for her, suddenly, according to HR lady I was a huge misogynist and I was guilty. However, I had a video of the entire conversation. So Anne complained again that she felt unsafe, and this time I was guilty of gross misconduct and told I would be fired for secretly filming Anne without her knowledge or permission. So I asked for a meeting with HR lady and her boss and my legal advisor. After showing them the video of nothing happening to Anne, I was asked what right I had to film a woman without her permission, at which point I pointed to a spot on the screen behind Anne where there was a big yellow sign on the wall of the meeting room, warning people that they were being recorded by cctv, which was the very reason I had chosen that meeting room. Today; Anne still has her job. Bob has been given a written warning and never talks to Anne. Anne is complaining that the men in her office are creating a hostile work environment and babbling about toxic masculinity. I have been given written warnings for exposing Anne and HR, however, because of their own policies I have been able to force them to write down precisely what the warning is for, which makes them look really bad every time a manager reads it in my monthly reviews, which they almost never fail to do. HR have a new rule in place designed to discourage people from involving legal advisors in disputes with HR, which of course has lead to more people doing exactly that and the firm getting not just sued but thoroughly spanked in court over a simple issue. But we do have a woman's group and there are Pride flags and posters in the engineering workshop even though the engineering department officially doesn't care, not joking, they really did tell HR that nobody cares who sleeps with whom as it has nothing to do with work, (good for them).

The quality of guests on this programme never ceases to amaze me. Why on earth do we not have the same calibre of clear thinking, straight forward people in our parliament?

Someone I know said his corporation’s widely despised HR chief hassled and fired many employees often without much cause. She died young and a number of non-HR current and former employees went to dinner with the stated aim of “celebrating” her memory. Several former employees whom she fired got very drunk during the dinner as it seems they were so distraught by her passing!

The great irony is that by accepting all lifestyle choices as legitimate, corporate HR has eliminated the possibility of passing any moral judgements. Behavior in the workplace is neither right or wrong, but rather in or out of alignment with momentary cultural fashion. Like trying to keep the beach ball submerged, the self-contradictory nature of moral relativism keeps surfacing.

She's absolutely correct, except for one thing: This is absolutely an intentional outcome. The Post-modernists discussed how they would undermine Western culture extensively, and we are seeing their plans manifesting almost on cue.

I have been working for 42 years in the old days we have personnel who were not too bad, HR started to creep in in the late 80s early 90s I suffer with an incidence of bullying in 2014, I had had three family bereavements in succession over a 6-week period, I was in my last month at work waiting to be made redundant along with all my colleagues plant was shutting down, which was upsetting one day somebody roared at me for nothing and I snapped and had a bit of a meltdown if you like, I was carted off to HR along with the occupational health nurse HR were bullying me and the nurse had to intervene, telephone my GP and put me in a taxi when my GP saw me he said I am surprised you can even get out of bed after losing a brother and a cousin and an uncle very recently, psychopath HR 💩💩💩

This is the first and ONLY interview I have heard on this subject that so succinctly describes the phenomena. I love The New Culture Forum. Such a fantastic channel.

As a person who has worked in HR for many years, I can attest to all of this being true and a real issue. The scary thing is this culture within HR departments chases off the people who would prefer a more grounded or factual basis from their teams. True HR work is actually very difficult and takes into account psychological and sociological science and study, paired with analytics and strong business acumen linked with 'Why are we doing this? How are we going to do it? What are we trying to achieve?', however most importantly 'what impact will it have on the business?' is often missed. I think like many workplaces these days, HR is infested with busy work, which then takes away from actually studying and determining a way forward, many will take a cookie cutter template and implement it so they can achieve a bunch of arbitrary targets and say "look I did my job". Too many times I have presented ideas and options for strategic focus or process implementation, but its not the data that sways approval it's if a well known company is also doing it or if an Exec backs it. I have literally sat in meetings arguing with a manager over the way something is being done, them ignoring all facts, only once I mention an executive manager approved the idea then they will back it unwittingly. There needs to be more 'profession' added to this field with 'best practice' focusing on HOW you determine an initiative need, or strategy, rather than best practice being mindless initiatives created by social movements setting baselines which aren't often needed in most workplaces.

I work for a company out of Atlanta, GA that issues credit cards to large organizations for their fuel purchases. The head of the HR Department and her staff initially were sending out BLM (black lives matter) internal 'flyers' via email promoting the organization of BLM. That slowed down when it became known that BLM was a Socialist organization. This year then sent an offer to buy everyone a PRIDE T-shirt, and sent a flyer the month before and throughout the month of June for PRIDE month, and went so far as to SAY "we encourage you to support and participate in your local PRIDE events." They have even gone so far as to create several "networking at work" groups: LGBTQ group, Women's group, and Black/Ethnic groups. You tell me what's missing from those? I don't care what you do behind doors, but I'm not going to go along with a celebration of your sexual choices.

every person I have interacted with in HR over the past ten years has been a complete bastard

Ive left three employers as they presented the WOKE sociopolitical ideology at work., and each time went to their competition. Now my talents are with a firm that does not involve in such ideology.

The one thing I used to like about work you were treated like an Adult and I was able to leave the toxic school play ground culture behind, but now I feel that we have brought it into our work culture and it is driving me nuts. 😵

This isn't exactly woke, but in 2021 an Hungarian women was made the head of HR where I work; within a YEAR, everyone working in HR were Hungarian women. Among the other company staff, the majority are now east Europeans. Some days I even hear English being spoken if it's really necessary.

HR dept , they are like the Political Officers in institutions in the former Soviet era .

As an HR director (male) for 30 years, it is very disappointing to see what has happened to the profession and to workplaces as a result. HR has one role which comprises many aspects. That role is to help management optimize the performance of the employees, whether that be compensation, benefits, management training, or legal compliance. “Diversity” is only important insofar as excellent talent is being kept out of the organization or being kept from performing at an optimal level. Color, race, gender just shouldn’t matter.

This looks interesting. I have a friend in corporate HR whose job and personal values have changed out of all recognition in the last 10 years. It really scares me.

One of my friends works for English Heritage and this conversation is incredibly relevant regarding how the HR is promoting wokeness there. Apparently the HR there is "encouraging" managers to hire certain types of people which only helps the organisation to prevent backlash. I heard that his impacts the quality of work in departments, things getting very sensitive and many women openly being racist and sexist without consequences (comments like white male this and that).

HR: The woke government wing of your business. Musk was right to sack the lot of his DEI personnel.

My first fiancee had an HR position while we were in college. It's easy to see how this happened, these professions appeal to gossip girls . Your HR director was likely the cause behind a less popular kid's bad experience of High School 10 years earlier. People don't change.

I was a lawyer in a government department. The HR department was a nightmare. I quit in the end.

I remember one "party" at work many years ago, wherein a toast was brought out to celebrate the timely closure of an entire department - this was one week before Christmas. A well prepared operation had just robbed 30 people of their livelihood. I was shocked to see managers and HR people backslapping each other, big smiles and all. In many companies, loyalty is a one way street, and humans are a renewable resource.

This is clearly related to the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) political agendas: *"Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) is an approach to evaluating the extent to which a corporation works on behalf of social goals.... as a set of goals having to do with supporting certain social movements... .... In less than 20 years, the ESG movement has grown from a corporate social responsibility initiative launched by the United Nations into a global phenomenon representing more than US$30 trillion in assets under management. In the year 2019 alone, capital totaling US$17.67 billion flowed into ESG-linked products, an almost 525 percent increase from 2015..."* This was why ultra-powerful and ultra-wealthy transnational corporations (some which sell weapons and are involved in slavery) supported Black Lives Matter. Basically, unelected pressure groups (such as Stonewall and those those groups, lawyers and academics trained in Critical Theory) are imposing their will on councils, corporations/ businesses , politicians, journalists, the police, universities, etc.

About time some you tube channel brought this subject up. I am 64 and have been a gifted (truly talented) artist, writer and designer from an early age and I would like to say that amongst the most ignorant and incompetent enemies of real talent are HR personnel. They are the last people on earth who should be allowed to judge creative, imaginative, intellectual and gifted people! It is analogous to allowing swine to judge musical talent or defining a brilliant writer by the standards of a scribbling baby!

HR is, in & of itself, a self-fulfilling prophecy. They say we need more HR personnel because the company is so toxic, then the new personnel have to find/create problems to justify their existence. "Human Resources" is a poor moniker for them as they are neither human nor resourceful. In a 40-year career that included being an executive at 3 publicly traded companies, I saw maybe 2 people in an HR department that were competent and helpful. One was the head of a very small HR department (which was fantastic). The other only lasted about 6 months in HR before she was fired.

What an amazing discussion. No shouting, interrupting or talking over each other, so rare to see nowadays.

Personnel Departments renamed Human Resource Departments, was the real beginning of woke in the workplace, because the very term Human Resource identifies people as things. I always though it derogatory from the get go.

The people going the so-called training are acting out their trading places fantasies. In one of several I was required to take, I asked ‘What exactly are you looking for from me?’ I said it courteously and it was a genuine question. Four trainers were in the room and not one was prepared to answer it. Then I tried, ‘What does success look like? What would you like me to get from this training?’ Silence again. Then -wait for it- I was bombarded with questions including, who I was, they were sure they had dealt with me before, was I a plant, etc. It was pathetic. I was polite, friendly, and felt like I had farted at dinner.

What a marvellous, proper, professional and thought-provoking interview. Well done.

So pleased you covered this, it's an absolute nightmare where I work.

If you are in disciplines like engineering you really need to find ways to bypass HR when hiring new people these days. If you get CVs though HR most of the good candidates will have been weeded out before you see them.

What amazes me is how this is taken 30 years to come out

They also managed to get paid ridiculously for their negative impact on productivity and performance of companies

My father was a personnel manager and ended his career, when he was in his sixties, running a job shop in Finchley. Happy times before the post modern culture kicked in. He enjoyed an excellent work life balance and worked to realistic objectives without the poisonous political vibe.

This is so amazingly true. HR used to provide essential services. Now, at least in the US, they are full of people with high-falutin' titles who do nothing but create divisions. They decide what "tribes" exist and they encourage us to report members of the out groups to "rat" on each other or call people out during meetings for supposed infractions. Meetings, encounters, and generally all communications have become sterile and emotionless. There is NO trust between managers and workers and between workers. Having worked for large companies for over 35 years I've seen this transition mostly in the last 5 years and it is OBVIOUS. People who inhabit bodies that look like mine are discouraged, maligned, and unfairly characterized as the root of all evils in society. There is a huge brain drain happening at our tech company as 100s of highly knowledgeable, experienced people leave for companies with less-adversarial relationships with certain groups of employees. I know dozens more that are looking. They are being replaced by minimally experienced workers who spend half their time doing "tribal club" activities and celebrating various groups and activities that have nothing to do with work. Good luck with that!

In 2020-21, my former employer nose-dived into wokeness. I eventually left, but as a survivor of the woke HR machine and the supervisors who support it, I offer this advice: Get screenshots of all e-mails, document everything, record all Zoom/Google meetings, record all conversations (state that you want to be sure to have an accurate record--"You understand, don't you?"), find out the relevant state statutes about discrimination and remind your HR department if necessary of them (this will give them a good scare), and invoke your membership in a protected group (religious affiliation is good) to both HR and your supervisor via company e-mail, so that there is a permanent record and no one can play dumb. These steps will not guarantee anything, but will give you both shield and sword in case of any further legal action--and your company will know it.

From the comments here, it sounds like returning HR departments to personnel roles would not only boost productivity but also improve the mental health of the workforce.

What we need is for companies to adopt the Elon Musk method of dealing with HR. He sacked them all.

One rule to follow when dealing with HR is NEVER trust them.

Workers want to take yoga breaks meanwhile executives want to play golf. The infantile behavior in most organizations is astonishing, from the bottom up.

She is so right,, I am retired from corporate management and the term HR is like saying the SS. They are really out of control, and it got to the point where you couldn't sit a poor preforming employee down and tell them they weren't doing their job. In fact a manager could put their own job at risk by doing so. It's really ashamed what this new HR has done to the work environment. I'm just glad I don't have to play their stupid game anymore.

A few years ago, in an HR induction, I heard an HR person let drop that every employee, all of us, has a "number", ie a kind of employee credit score.

Finally! A genuine, quality non-woke journalist

I wonder if entertainment companies like Disney or EA have HR departments that have been able to hire creatives that fit the agenda which in turn is why so many games and movies seem to be influenced by this ideology.

As a wise man said not too long ago: "Everything woke turns to sh/t!"

Our HR dept, hired a new Director, salary £100k, she's done 4 months and is now on maternity leave, she also recruited her friend, (no nepotism) to act for her while she is away for 12 months, she's forced out 3 good staff at a time when she introduced a new anti bullying policy, you couldn't make it up.

Our HR is there to discipline people, everything goes straight to Gross Misconduct.....sack people.....oh and get prime, well paid jobs for family members. All without a HR qualification between them!

This is soooo accurate! My work (nhs) has done the exact thing she says in ever level. There’s a black & ethnic race network that do events on how to “appreciate & show representation” for us white racist’s lol & an LGBT network which is basically pushing transgender ideaology in regards to using the bathrooms, wards on hospitals & pronouns. But it’s not just those issues or things these HR people are doing - it’s other areas whereby every “discrepancy” of life (parents vs. Childless, young vs old, managers vs minions) needs a meeting, a network, a conference which all lead to the unfairness across the board.

Professor Cary Cooper, Organisational Psychologist, has shown - some years ago - that Organisations which have HR people on the Board are less profitable and have a greater turnover of staff.

This is straight from a Soviet Commissar playbook. The intention is to destroy everyone who doesn't falls in line.

I cannot put in words how much I hate wokeness and political correctness

Human Resources is such a derogatory term.