Time was the HR dept was staffed by long time employees of the company, or in the least individuals with significant experience in the industry and who had an aptitude for dealing with people. Beginning in the 70s, however, colleges and universities began churning out mostly female graduates of their HR programmes. Following decades of research initiated by the large companies like GM in the 50s it was generally accepted that the soft sciences like psychiatry had figured out the working man's brain and trained HR graduates were well positioned to assist companies AND employees. Nothing could be further from the truth. The graduates of these 2 year degree programmes had mostly never worked a real job let alone in the industry BUT were hired and given significant authority from day one. This of course lead to a grossly inflated sense of importance, power tripping, and other excesses. Senior management was happy to fob off the messy job of dealing with employees to someone who was well 'qualified' and so these woefully inexperienced yet power mad individuals were given carte blanche. They didn't have a fucking clue what they were doing. Women naturally gravitate to these sort of positions for reasons that are today generally well understood. Their natural inclination towards Marxist approaches to social issues as well as the misguided sense of entitlement as a result of feminism has turned HR into the holy living hell that it is today.