HR washing: the reality behind HR marketing

In the past decade, Human Resources (HR) has become increasingly adept at communicating success. The professional discourse is dominated by employer branding campaigns, elaborate wellbeing programs, inspiring social media posts, psychological safety training, "people first" narratives, and happiness indices. HR confidently asserts its role as a strategic partner, a data-driven decision-maker, and validates its maturity and impact with international benchmarks. This sophisticated self-representation creates an image of a progressive and employee-centric function.

However, a growing contradiction has simultaneously emerged between this communicated success and the daily experiences of employees. This disparity between declared values and lived reality is not merely a communication challenge but a deeper, structural tension. This phenomenon is accurately described by the concept of HR-washing. HR-washing occurs when HR presents a progressive, human-centered image through its language and tools, while in practice, it perpetuates and reproduces the very practices that lead to the gradual exhaustion and depletion of human resources.

The paradox of full employment

The Hungarian labor market has achieved historically high employment rates in recent years, with indicators consistently approaching, and even reaching, 75%. This figure is often presented as an unequivocal success in public policy and HR narratives. However, in parallel, the world of work is experiencing a concentration of social and mental tensions that this success narrative conspicuously fails to address.

In this context, full employment does not alleviate but rather intensifies systemic effects. When everyone is working, the structural distortions of work organization no longer manifest as problems for marginalized groups but become a widespread societal experience. Overload, increasing aggression, low wage levels, precarious working conditions, and constant performance pressure operate not as exceptions but as the norm.

Thus, a high employment rate is not necessarily proof of social integration; instead, it indicates that dominant forms of work organization directly generate psychological and social tensions. One of the sharpest contradictions is that Hungary simultaneously ranks high in employment indicators, the proportion of working poor, and the deterioration of mental health indicators. This triple convergence fundamentally questions the self-legitimizing success narratives of both HR and employment policy.

If work fails to provide stability, predictability, and social security, and instead creates a constant state of competition, psychological survival strategies, and existential anxiety, then we are not talking about individual failures but about systemic dysfunction. In this context, full employment is not the solution to the problem but rather its stark visualization. The pressures embedded within the system become undeniable when nearly everyone is exposed to them.

HR-washing as a concealment mechanism

The discrepancy between HR's self-representation and employees' lived experiences is not a random dissonance but a structured mode of operation. The concept of HR-washing increasingly and accurately describes this duality. In this sense, HR does not merely neglect to address problems; it actively participates in concealing them. It substitutes communication and narrative tools for addressing organizational tensions and distortions, all while emphasizing its own effectiveness and strategic role.

The logic of workplace operations today is largely defined by a competition-driven, cost-cutting rationality, often packaged in the language of efficiency. Behind the technical terms of lean management, optimization, and cost reduction operates an implicit moral order: the compulsion to continuously prove one's worth. Performance appraisal systems, within this framework, are not neutral measurement tools but norm-creating institutions. Relative performance metrics, quotas, forced ranking, and the categorization of top–average–low performer do not merely compare; they institutionalize an ethos of competition where the success of another is inherently perceived as a deterioration of one's own position.

Within this structure, work loses its collective nature and transforms into a constant comparison. The organization functions not as a space for cooperation but as a ranking arena. This structurally reinforces siloing, while simultaneously eroding trust and informal cooperation networks. Conflicts are not seen as deviations but as performance risks, thus becoming hidden, individualized, and unresolved, further fragmenting the workforce and preventing genuine problem-solving.

All of this is part of a broader, rarely explicit process: the totalizing nature of work. The world of work demands not just time and attention but also identity, loyalty, and self-definition. The promise of autonomy does not extend to the whole person but is exclusively interpreted within the dimension of career. Individuals are free only insofar as they are mobile, flexible, continuously learning, adapting, and performing – meaning, to the extent that they efficiently internalize the system's logic. Autonomy, in this sense, is not true freedom but a functional scope of movement within a predefined performance system.

HR often legitimizes this mode of operation through the language of team cohesion and collaboration. Simultaneously, the organization discusses psychological safety while operating evaluation mechanisms where survival depends on visibility, self-assertion, and pushing others into the background. Cohesion thus appears not as a lived experience but as a rhetorical reference, while the organizational structure itself fragments the community. In this sense, HR-washing is not a side effect but a deliberate tool for stabilizing a fundamentally flawed system.

Systemic outcomes of mental overload

Loneliness and mental overload are no longer secondary phenomena but systemic outcomes. The incidence of mental illnesses is continuously rising, particularly among the actively employed population. This inherently refutes the implicit assumption that obtaining employment acts as a mental protective factor. The very act of working, under current conditions, is increasingly contributing to, rather than alleviating, psychological distress.

It is no coincidence that, in parallel, luxury industries focused on mental well-being have flourished. The market for wellbeing programs, happiness management, and business and life coaching is not proof of the healthy functioning of the world of work but rather its opposite. These industries could not exist at such a volume if the pathologizing work environment did not massively generate anxiety, burnout, identity crises, and the deterioration of relationships. "Wellbeing" here is not a baseline state but a corrective service: a retrospective, commodified response to the symptoms of a structurally damaging system.

The workplace, which once also functioned as a community space, has in many cases transformed into a functional performance system where relationships are instrumental, loyalty is transactional, and individuals are merely resources to be optimized. In Hungary, nearly 900,000 individuals are affected by alcoholism, drug use is increasing, and the annual number of approximately 1600 suicides remains consistently above the EU average. Meanwhile, mental illnesses cause economic losses amounting to 2–3.1% of GDP. These are not isolated individual crises but structural societal symptoms, reflecting deep-seated issues within the economic and social fabric.

The individualization of responsibility

HR's response to the systemic outcomes of mental overload is typically framed in the language of reactive well-being. Programs, campaigns, mindfulness workshops, vitamin days, and internal communication messages emerge, while the structural causes generating the overload remain untouched. The focus of intervention is not on the mode of work organization but on the individual's adaptability.

The rise of the concept of resilience is particularly telling in this context. The emphasis on adaptability as a virtue subtly but consistently shifts the responsibility for managing the consequences of the system's operation onto the individual. The problem is thus reframed not as the totalizing nature of the performance system, but as the individual's inadequate stress management; not the identity-consuming logic of work, but the individual being not conscious enough, competent, or prepared. This perspective ignores the external pressures and inherent flaws of the system, placing the burden squarely on the employee.

This interpretative framework is often reinforced by an elitist leadership discourse. Leadership becomes the knowledge of the chosen few, where the development of "high potential" and talent groups, continuous self-optimization, and a leadership ideal that normalizes overload become the norm. The leader is not a figure protected from the system but its most effective carrier: the mediator and reproducer of its expectations. This creates a cycle where leaders, having succeeded within the demanding system, then perpetuate its values and pressures.

This perspective implicitly legitimizes organizational inequalities. Those who do not fit into the narrative of the performance elite become invisible, while the underlying structure remains unchallenged. The language of selection and development conceals the mechanisms of exclusion and narrows the legitimate space for criticism. Instead of the system's functioning, the aptitude of individuals becomes the subject of evaluation. This diverts attention from necessary systemic reforms and instead fosters a culture of self-blame among those struggling to keep up.

These destructive coping patterns – long working hours, emotional suppression, a tough it out culture, and performance fetishism – are passed down from generation to generation, often packaged in the narrative of lifelong learning and continuous improvement (CI). Young employees, upon entering the workforce, are socialized into a work culture where competition is normalized, autonomy is conditional on career progression, cohesion is a rhetorical element rather than a lived reality, introversion is a disadvantage, and security is conditional. This creates a deeply ingrained set of expectations that can be extremely detrimental to long-term well-being and genuine fulfillment.

An alternative to HR-washing

The performance of HR must also be measured at the level of the common good. It is not enough for an organization to function well in the global race for cost reduction while its work practices are societally destructive. Therefore, genuine HR value creation is not measured by the number of good practices but by their actual, tangible impact. In this sense, HR cannot be separated from the true content of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): it should not be merely a campaign or an attractive brand, but should result in measurable intangible social benefits.

If CSR represents a company's social responsibility, then the workplace is one of its most direct arenas of implementation. Until HR's success can be measured by whether it reduces psychosocial insecurity, strengthens mental health, and contributes to social stability, the people first language remains nothing more than self-legitimizing rhetoric. In an HR ecosystem, the function must build a bridge between economic rationality and human well-being, fostering a healthier and more capable working population. This requires a fundamental shift in perspective, moving beyond superficial initiatives to a deep, integrated commitment to employee welfare and societal contribution.

Ákos Jagudits, HR manager