5 signs your HR job is making you unhappy - and what to do about it

As HR leaders, we're experts at spotting when others are struggling at work. We notice the signs of burnout in our employees, coach managers through their career transitions, and help teams navigate workplace challenges. But when it comes to recognizing these same signs in ourselves? That's a different story.

Let me share five clear signs that your HR role might be making you unhappy – signs I've both experienced personally and observed in many senior HR leaders I've coached.

1. Your role has become overwhelmingly negative

If your days are filled with redundancy conversations, employee investigations, and putting out fires, you might find yourself losing touch with the aspects of HR that originally attracted you. In my last corporate HR role, I realized that I hadn't had a positive conversation with an employee in months. Every aspect of my role had become about problems to solve rather than potential to develop.

2. You're just going through the motions

The annual comp round, performance reviews, talent planning – these used to be opportunities to make a real difference. Now they feel like repetitive exercises that you could do in your sleep. When you catch yourself thinking, "Here we go again," during what should be critical HR initiatives, it's a sign that something has got to change.

3. Your work is bleeding into your personal life

Are you constantly checking emails during family dinner? Finding it impossible to be present with your partner because you're mentally replaying work conversations? This was me a few months before I left my last corporate role. My husband was so sick of listening to me complain about the same things again and again. When work intrudes on family time (no matter how many boundaries you set), it's because you are in a role that's taking more than it's giving.

4. You're questioning your value

Despite years of experience and a track record of success, you find yourself wondering if you're good enough. You look at job postings but don't apply because you think it would just be "more of the same." The imposter syndrome that affects 75% of senior female leaders feels particularly acute when you're unhappy in your role (KPMG, 2022).

5. The Sunday night dread has become your new normal

Remember when you used to feel energized about tackling a new work week? Now you find yourself lying awake on Sunday nights, mentally rehashing conversations with your difficult stakeholders and dreading the week ahead. You might even wake up in the middle of the night, doom-scrolling through your phone trying to delay the inevitable. This isn't just "normal work stress." This is a sign that something deeper needs to change.

So what can you do about it?

• Recognize that feeling this way isn't a failure. As HR leaders, we often think we should have all the answers to our own career challenges. But being too close to the situation can make it impossible to see clearly. That’s why working with a coach can be so impactful. A coach can help you to get out of your own head and see things from a different perspective. As Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

  
  

• Create a "6-minute journal" You write in it for the first 3 minutes of your day and the last 3 minutes of your day. It gives you a few prompts such as “I am grateful for” in the morning and “Great things I experienced today” at the end of the day. It doesn’t take a huge amount of concentration or time. But it does allow you to steal a few minutes of reflection. Studies show that writing things down and getting them out of your heads and onto paper helps to make them more clear and make them easier to remember. This type of “snap journaling” can help you to quickly identify patterns of behavior, such as why you might be unhappy at work.

  
  

• Build a "brag file" to remind yourself of your achievements and capabilities. It’s difficult to remember all of the amazing things that you have done in your career if you are feeling stressed, burned out or at the end of your rope. A brag file is a place where you note down all of the great things that you have done – projects you launched, glowing feedback you got from your key stakeholder, emails you received from your employee thanking you for helping them through a difficult time. You can keep this brag file in whatever format you want – an .xls document, a Google doc, audio files or Microsoft Onenote files. You can pull it out when you’ve had yet another bad day to remind yourself of all of the amazing things you’ve done.

Most importantly, acknowledge that wanting more from your career isn't selfish – it's essential. Sometimes, the path forward isn't about leaving HR entirely. It might be about reshaping your current role, moving to a different sector, or finding a new way to leverage your HR expertise. Other times, it might be about giving yourself permission to explore entirely new possibilities.

The key is recognizing that you don't have to figure this out alone. Just as you wouldn't expect other leaders to navigate major career transitions without support, you deserve guidance and clarity too.

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I work with female senior leaders in Human Resources who feel stuck to help them love their work or find work they love. Like this newsletter? Please sign-up, share + follow me if you found this interesting. I write about:

👂 Executive & career coaching

📄 Career development and career transition

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