By now, HR tech is a crowded, buzzing sector—rife with startups promising to “revolutionize” the workplace with AI, automation, and analytics. And yet, most HR professionals—those actually tasked with using and implementing these tools—don’t feel revolutionized. They feel buried. Confused. Often patronized. Why?
Because for all the brilliance poured into the engineering side of HR technology, public relations and communications have been, more often than not, tone-deaf, overhyped, and misaligned with reality.
This op-ed is not a dismissal of HR tech’s potential. It’s a callout of the sector’s frequent failure to communicate its value effectively—and ethically. In too many cases, HR tech PR prioritizes buzzwords over clarity, headlines over human outcomes, and investor optics overbuyer trust.
If you’re building or promoting an HR tech platform in Europe or anywhere else, here’s a breakdown of where so many go wrong—and what you can learn from these cautionary tales.
1. The AI Mirage: Promising Magic, Delivering a Spreadsheet
One of the most common—and damaging—patterns in HR tech PR today is overpromising artificial intelligence. Founders throw around phrases like “ethical AI,” “bias-free hiring,” or “intelligent performance optimization,” assuming journalists and buyers won’t dig too deep.
The reality? Many of these platforms are glorified dashboards with limited if any, true machine learning under the hood. Worse still, they often require heavy manual input to “train” the system—something not disclosed in press materials or launch announcements.
Case in Point (Fictional Composite):
A well-funded UK-based startup claimed to have an AI engine that could “predict attrition with 97% accuracy.” The story got them features in business magazines, investor buzz, and a keynote at a workplace innovation conference.
Six months later, enterprise customers realized that the engine was essentially a rules-based survey tool repackaged with a neural-network aesthetic. Attrition predictions were based on simplistic signals: number of sick days, recent performance reviews, or lack of internal messaging activity.
The damage wasn’t just to the company—it undermined trust in HR tech overall. When PRspins futuristic capabilities and the product doesn’t deliver, the entire category suffers.
What They Should Have Done:
- Be honest about what your technology is and isn’t.
- Don’t use AI as a narrative unless it’s central to your product—and explain it in non-technical terms.
- Avoid misleading claims about bias reduction unless independently audited.
2. Overbranding the Pain Point: When Every Problem Looks Like a Sales Opportunity
Another recurring issue is the weaponization of workplace pain for commercial gain.
Too many PR campaigns frame burnout, employee disengagement, or hiring bias as conveniently solvable problems—just a click away from resolution. This reduces complex emotional and systemic challenges to transactional slogans.
Example (Fictional):
A Central European HR tech company launched during the pandemic with the tagline: “End Burnout. Forever.” Their product? A time-tracking app with mood emoji check-ins.
The absurdity of such claims becomes glaringly obvious when HR leaders—many of whom are already under strain—realize that the tool offers no meaningful solution to the structural causes of burnout: poor management, excessive workloads, and lack of psychological safety.
The media picked up the tone-deaf messaging, especially in healthcare and education circles. The backlash turned a promising launch into a public trust issue.
What They Should Have Done:
- Acknowledge the complexity of the problems you claim to solve.
- Frame your product as a tool in a broader strategy, not a silver bullet.
- Use real stories or case studies, not pain-porn headlines.
3. Announcements With No Substance: The Press Release Black Hole
HR tech companies often push out endless press releases filled with fluffy milestones: “Platform Launches in France!”, “New Chief People Officer Joins!”, “Series A Round Led by XYZ Ventures!”
All well and good—if those announcements say something. But more often, they don’t. They’re bland, jargon-laden, and focused on internal wins rather than customer value.
Pattern:
Press releases fail to articulate:
- Why the expansion matters to the people in that region.
- What the funding will enable (besides “scaling faster”).
- What the new CPO will do to advance the company’s mission.
Without context, these announcements don’t generate interest—they generate eye rolls. Especially from journalists bombarded by 10 similar emails every day.
What They Should Have Done:
- Always answer: Why should someone outside the company care?
- Tie announcements to user stories, product improvements, or broader workplace trends.
- Drop the buzzwords. Speak plainly.
4. Thought Leadership That Isn’t Thoughtful
The HR tech space is flooded with blog posts and LinkedIn essays by founders and CMOs waxing poetic about “the future of work.” But most of these pieces are hollow, stitched together from industry clichés, ChatGPT-generated phrases, and generic stats pulled from McKinsey.
The worst offenders are those that use thought leadership as a thin veil for product marketing. Audiences can smell that a mile away.
Example:
An Eastern European CEO writes a Medium post titled: “Why We Must Build for the Remote Worker.” It includes sweeping generalizations about Gen Z, a couple of stats on hybrid burnout, and… a link to a demo of his new productivity-tracking tool.
This is not thought leadership. This is bait-and-switch. And it harms credibility.
What They Should Have Done:
- Share unique insights from your actual users—not recycled industry noise.
- Reflect vulnerability: talk about what didn’t work in your own company.
- Elevate voices beyond leadership—include stories from employees, partners, or customers.
5. Misreading the Market: Global Language, Local Silence
Many HR tech startups expand into new European markets with no real localization strategy—not for product, not for compliance, and certainly not for PR.
The press releases are in English. The messaging assumes American HR norms. Theexamples feature companies from the US or UK. And the result? Zero resonance in markets like Germany, France, or Italy, where workplace dynamics—and labor laws—are very different.
This isn’t just ineffective. It’s perceived as arrogant.
What They Should Have Done:
- Hire local PR partners or advisors who understand the culture and regulations.
- Localize not just language, but narrative—what matters to HR leaders in Munich is different than in Manchester.
- Don’t launch in a region unless your support, onboarding, and data compliance are already adapted.
6. Ignoring the Employer Brand Behind the Product
HR buyers today are not just buying a tool—they’re partnering with a philosophy of work. If your company treats its own people poorly, or fails to live up to its values, it will leak into your PR—especially when your customer is an HR leader.
Yet we still see companies that:
- Don’t pay interns.
- Brag about “hustle culture.”
- Use toxic job descriptions in hiring, even as they sell “culture tools.”
The disconnect is fatal. Internal brand hypocrisy is a PR time bomb.
What They Should Have Done:
- Ensure your employer brand aligns with your product’s promise.
- Let your employees be part of your public story—highlight how they use the platform.
- Fix your own HR before selling tools to others.
Conclusion: HR Tech PR Must Re-Humanize or Die Trying
The HR tech industry claims to care about people. About better workplaces. About dignity, productivity, and belonging.
But if the public relations strategies don’t reflect that—if they are full of bluster, devoid of empathy, and anchored in vanity metrics rather than lived experience—then the whole sector becomes noise. Worse, it becomes a threat to the very trust it seeks to earn.
The companies that will win in the next wave of HR innovation won’t be the loudest. They’ll be the clearest. The most human. The ones who know that every product claim, every press release, every blog post, and every keynote is a promise—and that in HR, broken promises have long tails.
To all HR tech founders, CMOs, and PR heads: you’re not just building software. You’re shaping how work feels for millions of people.
So stop hyping. Start helping.
And let your PR speak human—before someone else does it better.
