The Decline of HR Blogging: Authentic HR Voices Still Needed

I opened my Feedly for the first time in about five years and felt a shock. The HR blogosphere that once shaped my mornings, my thinking, and my career was nearly gone. And while a few reliable voices in HR were still there, it was nowhere near the robust list of learnings I first curated on my Google Reader back in 2008. Back then, I was checking in on Punk Rock HR, Fistful of Talent, My HR Guy, the HR Minion, and Upstart HR on the regular.

If you were part of that era, you know exactly what I mean. There was a time when HR blogging felt alive. We wrote daily, debating and pushing each other. We challenged the corporate speak that dominated our profession. And thousands of people showed up daily to read because they wanted something real.

Then, slowly, it faded.

What Happened?

It was not one thing. It was everything.

• People grew into bigger roles. The bloggers who once wrote every day became CHROs, founders, analysts, and executives. Their time, and their freedom to write candidly, disappeared.
• Vendors built content machines. Many of the strongest voices were hired by companies, and their writing became part of a brand strategy instead of a personal one.
• Social media took over. Threads replaced essays. Algorithms replaced communities.
• Google Reader died, and with it, the ritual of reading independent thinkers.
• Life got heavier. Writing honestly about work requires emotional bandwidth. Many of us simply did not have it anymore.

The result was a slow, quiet collapse of a community that once felt unstoppable.

Entrepreneurship Changed the Writer in Me

When the blogosphere disappeared, I lost more than a platform. I lost part of a creative engine.

Blogging was one place where I tested ideas, sharpened my voice, and built the early foundation of my entrepreneurial identity. It was where I learned to think in public and connect dots across HR, technology, and human behavior.

As I stepped into entrepreneurship, I had to build new muscles. Strategic narrative design and research backed storytelling. Long arc thinking that led to advisory work that required depth, not daily output.

But I also had to grieve the loss of something irreplaceable. The daily exchange of unfiltered ideas with people who cared deeply about the future of work.

What it Meant for Writers Everywhere

The disappearance of personal HR blogs was not just a shift in format. It was a cultural loss.

• We lost the messy, honest stories from practitioners in the trenches. Those stories that if told today, seem highly impossible because work and people can’t really be that horrible, or can they?
• We lost the debates that shaped early HR social media. Everything was debated from what is big data and how do we harness it to whether information should be “in the Cloud.”
• We lost the camaraderie that came from reading people who were not trying to sell anything. This is a big loss, for sure. I met literally thousands of people in the online HR community who wanted more, who needed connection. When we’d meet IRL at “tweet ups” it was like a big family reunion of people whom you may have never met in person before.
• We lost the diversity of voices that made the field feel human. This is the biggest lost, for sure. It’s been replaced by corporate speak from corporate blogs.

In its place, we gained something more polished but less personal. We’re living in a time where content is optimized for SEO instead of connection.The voices did not disappear. They simply moved into roles where candor became a liability.

What the Moment Demands Now

HR leaders today are overwhelmed by noise and starving for clarity. The world of work is full of overly processed narratives designed to sell, soothe, or spin.

That is exactly why independent writing matters again.

Because without it, we lose unvarnished truth and real practitioner experience. We’ve already lost critical thinking that is not shaped by brand agendas. And if we’re not careful, we’ll lose the human stories that remind us why the work matters.

The hunger for authenticity never went away. It simply did not have a home.

Honoring the Voices of the Early Era

As I reflect on what the HR blogosphere meant, I think about the people who helped build it. The ones who wrote boldly about work and talent when it was still a little rebellious to do so. The ones who created a sense of community long before algorithms took over.

Some of the original voices are still writing today, still shaping conversations about work, leadership, and talent. A few of my faves include:

• Robin Schooling: https://robinschooling.com
• Steve Browne: https://www.sbrownehr.com
• Laurie Ruettimann: https://laurieruettimann.com
• Tim Sackett: https://timsackett.com
• Ben Eubanks, who continues to write at Lighthouse Research and Advisory: https://lhra.io

I also want to recognize Steve Boese, my business partner, who wrote The Steve Boese Blog for many years and continues to write with me today on our H3HR Advisors blog: https://www.h3hr.com/insights/  Steve remains one of the best writers I’ve ever had the privilege of reading.

And many of my own early HR Ringleader articles still live on our site, a snapshot of a different era of writing and community:
https://www.h3hr.com/leadership-team/trish-steed/whos-that-girl/

The Evolving HR Communication Channels

The evolution of the space has continued with people who brought new energy and clarity to the conversation about the future of work. I’ve personally found that writing about life and work on Substack feels akin to those early days of blogging.  You can find me here: https://trishsteed.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips

Two other writers I respect are still writing actively today on Substack and I encourage you to subscribe to them. Both write about work and technology and all the messiness of life that comes in between.

• Jason Averbook on Substack: https://jasonaverbook.substack.com
• Jess Von Bank on Substack: https://substack.com/@jessvonbank/posts

Their contributions remind me that while the platforms changed, the impact of honest, practitioner driven writing never disappeared. It simply shifted, waiting for a moment when the industry would need it again.

The more I reflect on that early era, the more I realize that none of it was in vain. The writing, the debates, the community, the willingness to challenge the status quo, all of it elevated the HR profession in ways that are still visible today. It pushed the industry to think differently about people, technology, leadership, and the experience of work. It created a foundation for the conversations we are having now about humanity, transparency, and the future of talent.

And it continues to matter. Those of us who built that early ecosystem are still shaping the field. We’re out there questioning norms and experimenting with new delivery mechanisms, still pushing for better and more human ways to do great people work. The HR technology platforms have morphed into something much less human, but the influence did not. The spirit of that era lives on in every honest conversation, every practitioner driven insight, and every piece of writing that chooses truth over polish. And now, in this time of AI, we need real voices even more than before.

The work we did helped move the industry forward. The work we are doing now keeps it moving.