My experience at larger companies is that, beyond providing the basics, (payroll, benefits), an HR department exists to protect the company from being sued by current and former employees.
"HR department exists to protect the company from being sued by current and former employees"
This is, of course, true.
There is a surprising amount of work involved in making sure that the company operates within the bounds of employment law. From basics, such as minimum wage, or correct application of tax credits/benefits to payroll, to ensuring that discrimination does not take place in hiring/promotions, that disciplinary processes are within the letter AND spirit of the law, to banal, such as carrying out exit interviews - ensuring that there are no buried issues about to explode.
Their more useful proceedural functions: training staff to conduct interviews within the law, ensuring performance appraisals are carried out, that staff ratios are in-line with "industry norms", or that salaries are competitive.
And finally, the stuff that most of them would actually prefer to do: ensuring that training happens, that the best staff are retained and have their career appropriately managed, that hiring of new employees is as simple as possible whilst being legal.
Of course, the only way this gets done if HR is not "embedded", is through policy and procedure. and discussion with management (not managers). As HR is a cost centre, and increasingly being outsourced (many of these functions are now seen as requiring only occasional consulting, and not full time attentions), I don't see things improving.
Also, the systems they have are shockingly crap. shudder at Oracle HR support software.
1) No communication, whatsoever, when somebody is expecting an answer - especially, during recruitment process. All I meant is just a confirmation - "We have received all the documents we needed to prepare the offer; kindly allow us till Monday evening to get back to you."
2) Mistakes (Name/Joining Date/Designation) in official correspondence. Larger companies might be getting this correct by having a central database driving everything; but those with less than 500 employees act really bad here.
3) Not intimating enough in advance about events. E.g. I received a mail about a next morning's get-together just the evening before; and that day I had left office 15 minutes early and obviously didn't check the office mail that night (I never do) - thereby completely missing the get-together; many people in the office did. This happens often. I know, it might not be very common across many companies; but I am just giving specific examples of 'bad functions'.
4) Last minute preparations. Some time ago I had to travel abroad. After reminding almost every day during the final week before traveling, I was handed over all the document just a couple of hours in advance. The tickets, too, were booked with unnecessary delay; leaving me with very little scope for advanced planning. The hotel bill wasn't settled so I had to use my credit card on arrival and then claim reimbursement. Again, just giving an example of what happened with me - I am sure, other people might be experiencing similar things.
5) Attitude. I understand, HR is an important function in any organization. But one needs to understand that, especially in IT industry (or any manufacturing industry), non-technical departments are just support staff. They are there to facilitate the technical guys to make the production happen. The HR people should be highly accessible and easily approachable; very hard to find.
I can give few more examples, but I hope you might have got an idea of what I wanted to say.
My experience at larger companies is that, beyond providing the basics, (payroll, benefits), an HR department exists to protect the company from being sued by current and former employees.