When HR Fails The Team

Let’s start with a truth that may be uncomfortable but necessary: HR often exists to protect the company, not the employee. Yes, there are exceptions—and to those rare HR professionals who do advocate for their people, we see you. We appreciate you.

While there are rare and commendable exceptions where HR professionals truly advocate for employees, those moments are the exception, not the rule. Those who do show up with empathy, integrity, and fairness, we need more of you.

This isn’t about vilifying HR as a whole. It’s about acknowledging a systemic disconnect. True partnership between employees and HR requires trust and neutrality. When trust and neutrality is absent, the result is an environment shaped by fear, silence, and self-preservation.

This isn’t an attack on Human Resources as a concept. It’s an invitation to examine what happens when trust and neutrality is replaced with bureaucracy, and processes are weaponized.

Psychological safety depends on direct, honest, and transparent conversations. In this scenario, that wasn’t the starting point. In fact, the HR Leader never once invoked the concept of psychological safety. Looking back, it’s clear they had little understanding of it—and even less interest in cultivating it.

This is a story about the absence of psychological safety—because it was never even considered. It wasn’t overlooked; it was never part of the mindset to begin with.