Social media is making HR cool again

Social media has allowed HR to leverage their expertise and experiences in the people profession to challenge what the general public thinks about human resources, while also showing how it can be a force for good for employees.

People people are people people. Jamie Jackson runs the meme page Humorous Resources, and she’s proving HR can take a joke. An HR manager at a healthcare tech startup in Nashville, she sees humor as a tool to connect with other HR professionals, but also to poke fun at the absurdities in HR and corporate America.

“It’s funny because everyone is supposed to be this professional, put-together person at work, and most people are not, including myself,” Jackson said. “I think that’s why I am approachable in my profession, because I build relationships with people, and I think that’s key to being a good HR person.”

Jackson’s not the buttoned-up HR manager, always on the straight and narrow, that common stereotypes of HR professionals might have you believe. She told us a coworker was shocked to see her at a brewery one weekend, and even reported it to other employees as if it were a breach of protocol.

She created the meme page to address the “weird stigma” about HR pros, and showcase “who our freaks are.”

Jackson doesn’t enjoy the parts of her job that everyone knows sucks, like letting an employee go (even for cause). The meme page is that relief valve, humanizing human resources.

Social media to explain and educate. The work HR functionaries perform behind the scenes can be complicated for the uninitiated.

But employees and job-seekers have also turned to social media to understand it, thanks in part to social media creators like Daniel Space, aka dan_from_hr, and Jha’nee Carter, @_thehrqueen.

“I believe that sharing knowledge and insight on various HR topics can really help [followers] better understand their rights and responsibilities, advocate for themselves, and then create a positive change in the workplace,” Carter told HR Brew.

Carter started posting after noticing a lack of accessible and engaging HR resources on social media. It got her thinking there needed to be more HR influencers out there sharing their knowledge. She tackles questions from followers on HR and corporate America to educate them on making work better for everyone.

“TikTok was before just dances, and social media was just about posting pictures,” Carter said. “Now that content has changed. People are wanting to learn, and it’s an educational and informational space.”

Like Carter, Space also uses his background in HR to educate. His 12-year-old cousin told him about TikTok, and after “mindlessly scrolling” through dance videos, “I typed in ‘career advice’ and I just saw so much bad advice, video after video after video of someone with  two to three years of experience with 25,000 followers, saying ‘this is the number one secret job search hack that they don't want you to know.’ And I'm like, oh my god, what are you doing?”

Now Space has made a name for himself correcting bad career advice for job-seekers since 2020 and he’s “shocked that a little less than two years later, 160,000 people follow me and take my advice and want me to go on podcasts.”

With more pros taking to social media to educate, they’re helping change HR’s uptight rep. The social media creators who spoke with HR Brew say followers have told them that they’ve helped them better understand HR or have changed their opinions about the profession, and that’s good for everyone.—AD