[nickdothutton]

In large companies, especially those which do not depend on especially talented or specialised workers, HR is very much just a "people risk" department. People are an input, with them comes some risk, like tonnes of coal which might cause pollution, or sacks of ingredients which might go off and poison customers. Over many years I have come to understand this is how BigCo HR operates.

The risks might be different, they might be a bully, they might do bad work, they might be dishonest, or even just screw up (honestly) when under pressure, it's all risk to HR. I decided not to be an employee of such companies 20+ years ago, although I am not in the "commodity employee" set.

Feel free to adopt your own mental models.