Just a heads up if you've never thought about it this way: HR exists to protect the company from employees. From a purely business-minded standpoint, I gather t

Just a heads up if you've never thought about it this way: HR exists to protect the company from employees. From a purely business-minded standpoint, I gather that they're taking a risk basically dealing with people unprotected (with "common sense"), and at the level of pay/performance, people are so happy/willing to buy-in/comply (or get fired when they're not) it hasn't bitten them in the rear. If I were to over-simplify what they've actually done, it seems more like they changed the culture closer to survival-of-the-fittest (which seems quite optimal), and put more actual power in the hands of managers (which could be good, if you have a good manager).