I'm an HR professional. I've done extensive consulting to organization of people processes and HR functioning. I've found that companies typically get what they pay for in their HR department. Many organization echo the sentiment that many contributors on HN have (i.e., that HR is a sometimes necessary evil; the people are marginally skilled; etc.). Organizations that have that mentality of HR hire HR teams that are fine at transactional work, "saying yes", and managing to targets. And then when situations arise - either acute situations like sexual harassment or problems that manifest over longer timeframes - they pay the price.

Like any department, HR should be staffed with intelligent, values-driven leaders with the spine to take strong perspectives and the ability to form collaborative vs. transactional relationships with the business. Constantly saying "yes" and failing to push back or take principled stands is not collaborative. Yet that is what many young companies want out of their HR department. I've found this more true in young(er) tech companies, though my sample size is limited.

When you build your HR function as a transactional service center, you get short-sighted decision-making.

That's all just my professional opinion.

From what I have observed, there is a tussle between Eng managers and HRs for supremacy, plus few HR folks have overly inflated ego. A friend of mine was asked to relocate in a firm, she refused due to personal reasons, she was harassed daily by the HR fellow, daily he asked her to come to his cabin to mert at 10am and never did meet her and when he did meet her he basically threatened her. (She lives next to a HR person, she was told by her neighbour that "this is what we are paid to do, you should have recorded his audio and threatened to leak audio in public, he'd have come begging to you").

This, well, this is what the dark side can be. Of course, at the end of the day it depends on the org and the kind of people we let grow, if the people in our org are good, capable then it is fine, but from the words of that HR friend of my friend, that's the job of HR.

I agree with your assessment. Quality insight is worth the price, and lack of it will ultimately cost more, whether you want it to or not.

That's a sweeping statement that I utterly disagree with.

We do HR software, I've interacted with many HR people at many companies and I've never even heard of anything as outrageous as the behavior described in this case. In no way is it the way"most HRs" behave.

My experience is different. Every HR person I have ever interacted with was either entirely clueless or immensely evil.

I've had some bad experiences, but I've never felt the need to describe them in those terms. And yes, even in the worse case

This has been my experience too. Always. Without fail.

Though I still believe it must be because many (if not most) firms invest very little in their HR departments and hence they get what they pay for and employees make do with it until something blows up; e.g. scenarios like this. And I am sure there are stellar HR departments out there I have never interacted with.

But then again an industry, a field, or a practice is usually stereotyped based on the reputation of the majority and majority in this case, in my humble opinion, seems to be lying somewhere down south.

OK; how many is that?

This kind of behaviour isn't advertised in the newspaper, you know about it only by experience, the dark side (if you choose to ignore it, please do). This is like the earlier people who said "there is no black swan" because all swans I have seen are white, no, there are events which happen without you being aware of them

33 years across 6 companies, from Fortune 500 to 20-person startups. HR departments have been, without exception, absolutely useless except to protect the company's hide.

> absolutely useless except to protect the company's hide.

But that's my point. If Uber's HR properly cared about protecting the company's hide, they would have immediately disciplined the manager involved, and "sexually propositioning a first-day direct report" is so egregiously over the line that they would have fired the manager.

Uber's HR failed here not because they only cared about protecting the company's hide, but because they didn't.

They did care but in their short sighted way. They don't really mean "save company", it means dancing at the tone of the HR boss, if they truly cared for the company they'd do something about this.

So, they just don't care about employees