I was a manager at a well known .com for several years. HR exists to protect the company from its own employees. That's why you have to sit through mandatory

I was a manager at a well known .com for several years. HR exists to protect the company from its own employees. That's why you have to sit through mandatory DEI training, sexual harassment training and other indignities. Studies have shown that mandatory training does very, very little to change anyone's mind. It is simply to protect the company in case there is an incident. As for layoffs, it is always Finance and HR that know about all of the plans before anyone else. HR will try its best to perform layoffs under the guise of "reorganization" of departments or the whole company. This gives them cover to get rid of undesirables, older (read "expensive") employees and other people problems. Firing people is the hardest thing. It is simplicity itself if you are an executive VP or higher, but below that it takes a ream of paperwork, a performance plan and months-long periods where the employee sabotages work, "quiet quits" and makes things miserable for everyone around them. HR doesn't want to create a scene that might reflect poorly on the company. I'm super jaded after 30 years in IT so I apologize if this is too negative a response.