This very much depends on the culture of the company. I've experienced toxic HR, indifferent HR, incompetent HR and awesomely helpful HR. It depends on the people in the HR team and the people on the exec team.
HR is a really hard job too, very hard to do well and very stressful. Most people never get to see this as it's part of their job that they can't talk about most things they are having to deal with.
Bad HR is a nightmare, good HR can make a massive difference to a company.
> But I cannot agree more that HR is not on your side.
Just to add a counter in case early career people see this and take it as truth - there are companies out there who have really good HR teams who are aligned to their employees. Don't put up with shitty HR because you think all HR teams are shit.
Org I work for has really good HR teams for both the boring process stuff, and fostering a decent working environment. It's one of the strings still holding me to stay.
