⚠ Now that you know why HR is terrible at helping employees, will you be more cautious about going to them with issues? ⚠

A coworker used to always say, "HR does not exist to protect you from the company, HR exists to protect the company from you".

It's called Human Resource for a reason. It treats you like a resource, something to be exploited, extracted, and used.

Just remember that the employee that helped convict the Killer Nurse was: 1) Reprimanded by HR for causing the hospital "trouble" when she first raised concerns to them; and 2) Told by HR to keep quiet and not to talk to the authorities when the FBI started investigating the case. The guy was convicted of killing 29 people (although he claims over 40 victims) and all the hospital cared about was reputation and liability.

HR is absolutely delightful when they're trying to get you to join their company. Once you do, then they don't want to know you.

Don't ever trust anybody at work. Your co workers are not your friends.

My mom once went to HR (she was a nurse) she was being sexually harassed by a doctor. She complained to hr. Next day she was fired. She tries to sue but hr had mysteriously lost the complaint document. Lessons: always get copies of documents and that hr is full of awful humans.

As HR professional for over 17 years, I confirm that he's correct. HR is in the position to protect the company and its resources from liability. Great breakdown 👍

I started studying HR at university until I discovered what HR actually is...I left that course soon after.

My company’s different! They told me on the first day “we’re all one big family”, and they treat me exactly like my siblings who also mistreat me

I really hate working for people. Bullying does not just happen in the playground anymore it happens in almost every stage of your life especially in the workplace.

I'm an HR professional and it's all true sadly.  I've been in situations where me and my HR department wanted to help employees, but were powerless to because of management ignoring our advice.  And I've also dealt with management telling me to discourage employees from discussing their pay.  I even had one department manager tell me to tell employees it was illegal and I was like, "It's actually illegal for us to tell them that."  And they didn't want me repeating that.

I will never forget this:

I worked at target in the electronics section and was training this new girl. Our store had partnered with a company so they could sell at&t plans in our store.

This guy from the AT&T company wouldn’t stop harassing this new girl to the point she would just avoid the counter (where he stood) cause he wouldn’t leave her alone.

I had been there for years and she asked me what to do. I knew none of the higher ups liked the other company in the store so I told her she should tell hr about it.

She was let go the next week. I had trained so many people before and she was actually doing a good job. I had no idea why they would let her go…unless it was hr’s move to avoid a problem. She was let go, and that other dude and their company stayed.

I still feel terrible for suggesting that she talk to hr. I honestly thought they would take the side of their employee, especially when she’s being constantly harassed. But no.

Never talk to your hr.

Well... As a wrongfully terminated former HR professional who suffered from her own department incompetence, I have to say that Branigan's videos opened my eyes on some very important things. My pink glasses are lost forever.

I worked at Target as an HR rep, I actually thought my job was to help and protect employees. My boss wanted to do something against HR policy and I said we can’t do that. I dug my heels in for another employee. Soon I found myself the target of my boss, she told me this was not the right position for me and scrutinized everything I did. I was so confused, I thought I was doing the right thing. This video is so dead on, I thought my case was unique, come to find out I was part of the 20% that does the right thing. 😊 it’s been 10 years since I left, but this video has made me feel so justified. Thanks!!!

One of my best friends who dedicated her life to becoming an HR generalist because she thought they helped people, was devastated when after completing her schooling and getting hired that she found that this was the case over and over again. She couldn’t help anybody if the owner/c-suite didn’t want to.

My experience  with HR  is that they have a lot of power to hurt you but very little to help you

It should be called corporate resources not human. Human is a laugh.

I never forgot when someone said HR was there for the company, not you.

YES, everyone just starting work out of college needs to learn this. I'm an old fart, 30+ years in corp in high tech companies. HR absolutely doesn't keep confidences. The few times I went to them with anything beyond minor, my manager knew I had talked to them before I got back to my office. I swear they have a big red button under their desk which alerts your manager and starts a recording.

Document, document, document everything once you start to see a pattern of anything that prevents you from doing your best work. You may never need it, but it helps to show a timeline, a pattern and also to help you think if what you are witnessing is a one-off which you can handle yourself, or a pattern of bad behavior. Companies will keep bad people on and get rid of the one who complains!

And if you get harassed or attacked at work, never talk to HR first, call the police. HR will hate this but you need to protect yourself. It's not different than if the incident happened anywhere else, call the police and file a report.