# The cost of HR theatre

Description: One sick day should not cost a 12-message Slack thread. This article explains the hidden tax of performative people operations and the coordination costs founders often miss.

URL: https://anti-hr.com/blog/cost-of-hr-theatre

ANTI/HR defines HR theatre as activity that looks like people operations but produces no filed outcome. Examples include unnecessary Slack threads, values workshops with no decision change, engagement surveys no one acts on, retros about retros, and culture decks that do not change how work happens.

The article argues that routine people-ops work should resolve into filed actions instead of public coordination. A sick day should become a notification, a system update, and any required document routing. It should not pull several people into an interruptive conversation.

Key recommendations:

- Use one front door for every people-ops request.
- Keep leave, payroll changes, onboarding, and documents in tracked systems rather than public chat threads.
- Treat most people-ops work as async by default.
- Use humans to file, check, and close loops.
- Send a weekly digest instead of turning every HR event into a live feed.

ANTI/HR's position: cutting HR theatre does not mean cutting care. It means giving pay, leave, contracts, onboarding, offboarding, and paperwork more operational discipline.