Leadership undervaluation outranked pay as the reason HR professionals left their jobs last year. HR Recruit analyzed the exit debriefs of candidates who registered with the firm during 2025. Around 30% said they left because leadership undervalued the HR function. Pay accounted for 19%, close to half that share.
The figure climbed at senior level. Among HR Managers and above, 45% named undervaluation as their reason for leaving, 15 points above the group as a whole. Those professionals stayed an average of one to three years before resigning. The analysis covers HR professionals from HR Generalists through to Chief Human Resources Officers, registered with HR Recruit at organizations across the US and Canada, from privately owned businesses to large enterprises.
Jo Thompson, Regional Director at HR Recruit, said the results point to a leadership problem rather than a shortage of skilled HR professionals. Many employers still misread what the function does.
“The professionals we speak to rarely leave because of pay. They leave because they cannot influence the people making decisions and eventually they stop trying,” said Jo Thompson. “Many chief executives have not held roles that exposed them to HR’s commercial impact, so they treat HR as a cost to manage rather than a function that reduces risk and supports growth.”
HR professionals who translate their work into financial terms are the ones employers keep. “The ones who get retained present an absence policy as a measurable dollar saving, not just a policy,” Thompson said.
Those who cannot make that case are working under conditions that make it harder to try. The pressure on HR teams makes the problem worse. SHRM’s 2026 State of the Workplace research found that 58% of HR professionals regularly worked beyond their limits. HR Recruit’s analysis identified the same group as the most likely to leave. The firm found the greatest pressure at manager level and above, where HR professionals stay for the shortest time and are most likely to feel undervalued.
Thompson said the pattern holds across every company size. “When an employer loses an experienced HR professional, it loses the person who helps keep everyone else on board.”
About HR Recruit
HR Recruit is a division of Exec Recruit Group, placing top-tier HR talent across North America. Experienced recruiters connect organizations across the US and Canada with elite HR professionals, including C-suite leaders and specialists in talent acquisition, DEI and compensation. Years of industry expertise and a vast network enable HR Recruit to deliver quality hires. For more details, visit https://hr-recruit.com/about-us/