r/humanresources: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

Threads assume you do the job. People write HRBP, HRIS, ER, EOI, iFMLA and PHR without spelling them out, and answers cite regulations and form numbers. People new to an HR role are treated kindly, but a question from outside the profession gets a stock reply pointing to r/AskHR and is usually removed.

• HR generalists, coordinators and departments of one at small companies, asking how others handle a policy or a system.
• HR business partners, employee relations and HRIS specialists comparing roles, pay and career moves.
• People in their first HR job, nervous about payroll, open enrollment or a first termination.
• Certification candidates studying for the PHR, SHRM-CP or CHRP.
• Employees and managers with a workplace problem, who are not the intended audience and are often removed.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/humanresources.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.

• Stayed up30%
• Removed by Reddit's filters9%
• Held by AutoModerator8%
• Removed by moderators51%
• Deleted by the author2%

Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.

What happened when we posted here

We have posted here ourselves. This is how our own posts and comments fared.

Stayed up

94%

Removed by Reddit's filters

0%

Removed by moderators

6%

Period

September 2025 to April 2026

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   /r/humanresources is for HR professionals.

   We are NOT a clearinghouse for employment-related questions: try /r/AskHR, /r/Jobs, /r/Careers, or /r/Resumes instead. Although /r/HumanResources is open to everyone, we strive to focus on the needs of HR professionals. We do not provide career advice, unless you work in HR.

2. 2

   No how do I break into or transition into HR posts.

   See rule #1. This is not a subreddit for your questions about how to get into HR.

3. 3

   No surveys or research

   This subreddit is not a place for surveying HR professionals or conducting market research for your product.

4. 4

   No homework

   This subreddit is not a place for surveying soliciting feedback from HR professionals to complete a homework assignment.

5. 5

   No advertising.

   r/humanresources is, as much as possible, an ad-free space. We do not allow advertising, solicitations or other materials of this type, with the exception of information about conferences and other events of that character. Please note: this rule also applies to personal promotion, as well as to blogs and resources which, regardless of their stated intent, are -- in the judgement of the moderators -- advertising.

6. 6

   No disinformation.

   As HR professionals we are tasked with complying with set laws and regulations as a part of risk mitigation for the organizations we work for. We therefore cannot condone comments or posts that provide disinformation, misinformation, or intentionally malicious, illegal, or unhelpful suggestions and advice to other HR professionals. This rule supports Reddit's overall stance on preventing the spread of misinformation.

7. 7

   No Requests or Offers to Communicate via DM

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

r/humanresources has about 241,000 members and one rule that shapes everything else: it is for HR professionals, and the mods say outright that it is not a clearinghouse for employment questions. Most of the moderation work is turning away people who do not work in HR. In our sample of 400 posts only about 30% stayed up, and moderators removed 51% themselves, which is far higher than most subreddits.

What survives is shop talk. About 85% of posts are text, the typical one runs to around 130 words, and a bit over a third of titles are questions. The staples are career threads from people already in the field, compliance questions that depend on the state or country, system and vendor comparisons, and tired honesty about the job. There is a weekly Friday vent thread, and it draws more comments than most standalone posts.

The fault line is the door itself. Employees with a grievance keep arriving, some posts from them do slip through, and a few of those are openly hostile to HR. Regulars answer the ones that stay up, but the default response to an outsider is a pointer to r/AskHR.

What lands

• Open questions about the profession that any HR person has an opinion on, such as why payroll ends up sitting under HR. That was the most upvoted and most discussed recent post.
• Honest career reflections from people with real tenure: burnout in a well paid role, feeling behind after a few years, whether to change industry.
• Specific compliance or policy questions with the location and the facts laid out, like doctor's note requirements for extended illness or how to handle new hires with trips already booked.
• What is it really like questions about a segment of the field, such as HR inside big tech.
• Admitting a mistake and asking for help fixing it. A benefits error posted that way got practical answers, not a pile-on.

What gets removed or ignored

• Any title without a location tag in square brackets. This is the single most common AutoModerator removal in our data, and a location written without brackets or in round brackets does not count.
• Posts from employees asking HR for a perspective on their own situation, such as a performance plan or a reference check.
• Questions about how to break into HR or which entry-level certificate to get when you are not yet in the field.
• Tool announcements, blog links, surveys, homework and market research. A post offering a free tool for a compliance form was removed.
• Networking and contact requests, such as asking people to connect on LinkedIn or to message privately.

The unwritten rules

• Say what your role is in the first line. Posts that open with a job title, company size and years in the field get approved and get better answers.
• If your post is removed for the tag, repost it once with the tag fixed. The removed list is full of the same post submitted two or three times, and the corrected versions are the ones that stayed.
• Answers are confident and cite the regulation. Comments run to about 40 words, and replies that guess at the law get corrected fast, because the rules treat bad compliance advice as disinformation.
• Links in comments are rare, around 1% in our sample, and are mostly government sources. A comment that mentions something you are building stands out badly.
• Do not ask people to message you. Requests and offers to talk by DM are against the rules.

Self-promotion

The rule says the subreddit is as ad-free as possible: no advertising or solicitation, with an exception for information about conferences and similar events. It also covers personal promotion and any blog or resource the moderators judge to be advertising, whatever its stated intent. Surveys and product market research are banned by a separate rule. In practice there is no opening. Tool posts and blog links are removed, a word filter holds suspicious posts for review, and the only thing that works is being a useful HR peer in the comments without mentioning what you sell.

How people write here

Typical post length

128 words

Typical title length

7 words

Titles phrased as a question

37%

Typical comment length

40 words

Comments that include a link

1%

Posts that carry a flair

58%

The regulars

The accounts that showed up most in our sample. Worth reading before you post: they set the tone, and they are usually the first to reply.

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/humanresources.

• employees 37 posts
• employee 32 posts
• company 67 posts
• hrbp 11 posts
• manager 42 posts
• united states 21 posts
• hris 15 posts
• role 41 posts
• hr generalist 8 posts
• hr experience 8 posts
• career 33 posts
• job 53 posts
• hr professionals 7 posts
• hr manager 8 posts
• payroll 15 posts
• shrm 6 posts
• boss 16 posts
• benefits 18 posts
• usa 15 posts
• phr 6 posts
• states hi 5 posts
• shrm-cp 5 posts
• hr career 5 posts
• talent 11 posts
• managers 15 posts
• leave 23 posts
• coordinator 9 posts
• director 12 posts
• employment 10 posts
• recruiting 9 posts
• recruitment 8 posts
• video training 4 posts
• hr coordinator 4 posts
• financial wellness 4 posts
• fellow hr 4 posts
• eois 4 posts
• talent acquisition 5 posts
• hr role 5 posts
• hr professional 5 posts
• hiring 17 posts

Recurring topics: in, ca, n/a, hr, offer, ai, usa, work, employee.

Posts that did well

• Why is Payroll considered to be part of HR? [N/A]76 upvotes · 74 comments
• Everything is well on paper and I want to walk away from it all. How's everyone doing it? [United States]55 upvotes · 25 comments
• HR Folks In Big Tech / FAANG - What’s it really like? [N/A]42 upvotes · 32 comments
• Friday Vent Thread [N/A]26 upvotes · 48 comments · Friday Venting Chat
• Feeling lost/behind in my HR career [OH]17 upvotes · 20 comments · Career Development
• 2027 Observed Christmas-Eve and Christmas [United States]15 upvotes · 38 comments
• Have you ever asked a manager what the person before you in your role previously did? [N/A]11 upvotes · 10 comments · Off-Topic / Other
• I messed up! Help with EOIs!! [United States]11 upvotes · 8 comments · Benefits

Growth

1. 2012504
2. 2013887
3. 20141.6k
4. 20152.4k
5. 20163.8k
6. 20175.8k
7. 201810k
8. 201924k
9. 202039k
10. 202156k
11. 2023109k
12. 2024153k
13. 2025200k
14. 2026241k

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Common questions