Did you know it was HR Professionals Day on 26th September?
It's not a real surprise, given that most days of the year mark something, whether that's a national appreciation day for a favourite food or animal, right up to an international awareness day shining a light on important topics.
I've been in HR for over 20 years, and I can't say this date has ever had any significant meaning for me. I had a look on LinkedIn and found a handful of posts from fellow HR professionals and a few businesses, but nothing close to the scale you'd see for other days on the calendar.
At first I thought that was a mildly funny observation. I've worked in corporate businesses in the past who've marked days like this with a flower, a card, or even a small gift. Like most of these appreciation or awareness days, small gestures can be nice, but they don't address the real problem underneath.
Silence is not the same as peace
It doesn't matter how small or large an organisation is, HR as a function, and the people making it work, tend to sit far enough down the list of things to acknowledge that it rarely gets any appreciation at all. That's not because HR professionals aren't worthy of it. It's more about the underlying assumption that we're meant to quietly fix problems and get on with things.
Most businesses tend to be oblivious to the HR function until something goes wrong. As individuals working in this profession, we struggle to shout about our own achievements, because it's a bit of a double edged sword. How would it land if HR announced that they had just made a certain number of people redundant to save the business money, or recruited a batch of people on lower salaries? Those wins don't carry the same feeling as other departments sharing a finished project or a happy client.
Instead, the function and the professionals behind it tend to quietly get on with things, and when there is a win, it often gets celebrated in silence too, a nod in a leadership meeting rather than anything shared more widely. Part of that comes from the profession's own hesitation, and part of it comes from a genuine lack of knowing how to explain what "good HR" even looks like on paper. There's a narrative in there somewhere, but as a profession, we find it genuinely difficult to tell it, because the moments that matter most rarely translate into the kind of headline other departments get to claim.
What actually deserves attention for HR professionals
The deeper issue here isn't a missing card. It's that the function is invisible until something goes wrong. Nobody sees the strategic work you didn't get to do because something operational landed on your desk that was never HR's to carry. Nobody sees the hour you didn't get this week that belonged only to you, to think about the work you actually want to be doing rather than the fires you're putting out. That invisibility is the real story, and it was there long before the 26th, and it'll still be there long after it.
I don't think the answer is a louder HR Professionals Day or more noise about appreciation. I think it comes down to both HR professionals and the organisations they work in recognising that the role needs more support and more structure. What would actually matter is far less visible and far more simple: a peer at your level to think alongside, the backing to say no to work that isn't yours, and space to do the strategic work you came into this profession to do, rather than everything that gets pushed onto HR because nobody else wants to carry it.
What good support for HR actually looks like
None of this has to stay the way it is. The businesses that get this right aren't doing anything mysterious. They're simply choosing to build the kind of structure around their HR leader that most organisations never think to ask for, and the shift, once it happens, tends to be felt fairly quickly. Leadership makes clearer decisions, the HR team develops and grows rather than just being directed and the strategic work, finally gets the time it deserves. Good support doesn't look like a card once a year. It looks like consistency, someone who understands the role well enough to ask the right questions before things go wrong, not just after. It looks like having somewhere to put the weight down occasionally, rather than carrying all of it, all the time, alone. HR professionals are not naturally good at asking for help, but this is the first thing they encourage others to do. You don't have to wait for someone else to notice what you're carrying, before you do something about it. There is a version of this role with room to breathe in it, and it is closer than it might feel.
