And yet, for an organization predicated on teaching companies how to manage people, the world’s most significant HR association now faces an uncomfortable truth: Employees say the culture is cracking. Staffers paint a picture of an internal culture that has grown more combustible, marked by finger-pointing, slow execution, and, in some cases, a creeping sense of entitlement among segments of the workforce.
Several employees say the mood has changed drastically over the past year. What once felt like a mission-driven nonprofit now feels, in their words, “corporate, political, and oddly complacent.” Several employees say the organization — which is known around the world for setting benchmarks for human resource practices — has lapsed into patterns it warns other companies to guard against.
The complaints describe a workplace straining under the pressure of explosive growth and the erosion of accountability. One employee described the culture as “a combination of entitled and sloppy,” saying that those who do not perform well are seldom disciplined, while better workers end up burning out when they pick up the slack. Another said, “We actually teach the world how to manage people, but internally it feels like we’re not taking our own advice.”
The tension, employees said, stems from a misalignment between management and rank-and-file workers. Some believe that the leadership has become more insulated, concerned with larger branding and global expansion than with day-to-day execution. Others say they think teams have become too accustomed to the flexibility of remote work, and that a sense of urgency, precision, and structure has been lost.
“You have a yes-culture,” is how some staff members describe it to me, in which leaders are reluctant to make hard calls, let mediocre performance persist, or dump more and more work on teams that were already overstretched without re-prioritizing accordingly. This, employees say, has resulted in confusion, overlapping roles, and delayed deadlines — even while the organization promotes clarity and strong leadership in public.
How is it more complicated by the context and the nature of the organization at hand? Given that it trains HR professionals across the globe, sells certifications and books, hosts large conferences, and advocates best-in-class management practices, employees say they feel a second level of shame when its own processes fail. “You can't be the world leader in HR and still function like a team with no playbook,” one employee said.
Some insiders believe the culture problems are an outgrowth of rapid scaling. But as membership and revenue grew and the organization became an international presence, its internal systems didn’t keep pace — leaving cracks that widened into frustration. Others believe the issues are deeper: a surfeit of old-timers resisting change, newbies seeking faster innovation, and leaders desperate to straddle both realities without upsetting either side.
The organization has been trying to address that. Employees say leadership has introduced new performance expectations and hired outside advisers, among other operational process changes. But some employees believe the real problem isn’t the process — it’s attitude. On both sides, there is a growing resentment when workers expect leadership to fix everything while they quietly lower their own sights.
Some of the longer-serving staff contend it offers a new energy, but that younger hires may fail to appreciate how rigorous it can be to run a giant global body. Critics say older workers are too set in their ways and condescendingly dismiss new ideas as those of the young and naïve. The effect is an internal tug-of-war: innovation versus tradition, speed against caution, remote-work comfort against in-person accountability.
Despite that tension, most employees say they believe the organization remains strong — but it needs recalibration. They want clearer expectations, more honest communication, and a move away from what one employee described as “a culture of comfortable mediocrity.” They fear that if the internal culture does not become more robust, the organization’s external credibility will be diminished.
Those stakes are high for an HR group giving advice to millions of professionals around the world. The organization’s reputation is based on trust: trust that it understands workplace dynamics, cultural changes, and the problems companies are confronting. Employees say dealing with its own issues is not just a big deal; it’s an inescapable one.
The irony is not lost on anyone: an HR leader with an HR problem. But the silver lining, employees say, is that if any company can succeed where so many have failed — in fixing culture — it should be this one. The question is whether leadership will address the tension head-on, or if frustration, complacency, and entitlement will continue to define what we hear from within.
