I think their role is really to determine if there’s any legal risk which they use to determine if they should eliminate the problem or ignore it. In theory tha

I think their role is really to determine if there’s any legal risk which they use to determine if they should eliminate the problem or ignore it. In theory that should mean protecting the company from a manager or other employee engaging in discrimination or harassment. The trouble is that HR is like internal affairs. Since they’re part of the organization they can be influenced by politics. I sometimes wonder if legal aspect of the role HR serves would be better served by an outside legal firm that can determine the risk “objectively”. They’re never going to choose an outcome that will better serve an employee but HR doesn’t do that anyway. At least they’ll be able to tell the organization, “This dipshit is going to get you sued and you’re going to lose” without worrying about an HR manager trying to sweep something under the rug because they have a good relationship with the people in question.