My experience with HR has changed significantly in the past 10-15 years for the worse at my previous two positions, and the behavior was consistent. They usuall

My experience with HR has changed significantly in the past 10-15 years for the worse at my previous two positions, and the behavior was consistent. They usually left me and reports to fend for ourselves during disputes, and when they did get involve they often made things worse, in some cases violated our own guidelines. They always side with management (which while unsurprising, makes their existence and our employee handbook superfluous) or a favored employee even when demonstrably wrong. They were obsessed with bad progress reports, even suggested I wasn’t doing a very good job as a manager if my progress report didn’t have any negatives, and had no interest in improvements or generally good performance. I’d have a report that was a strong performer, but I make one comment and it gets blown out of proportion and all the sudden they’re talking about PIPs, denied or reduced bonuses and pay increases, or push them up the list for reduction in force. I was stupid enough to believe them about things being told in confidence once or twice and they absolutely used it against me. Meanwhile, they spent a lot of time spamming and hustling employees into meetings to shovel shitty services and products to help offset payroll. They felt like secret police, and we avoided and mistrusted them accordingly.