"Mission creep has turned the once humdrum human resources department into an ultra-woke, bureaucratic beast. Formerly humdrum bureaucratic backwaters, charged with processing paperwork, HR departments have in recent years morphed into real centres of power: controlling who keeps their job, what workers can say or do, and, in some cases, even determining the entire mission of an organisation. Fuelled by the pandemic and social unrest, these office bureaucrats have used workplace policies and practices to become all-powerful arbiters of social norms – professional and political....Academics and lobbyists make grand claims for the beneficial effects of HR on work, but there is little definitive evidence to support these...there is a basic question of whether HR is actually making life better for managers and workers, or making it harder."