For a department as essential and ever-present as human resources, there are certainly lots of biases and misconceptions about what exactly it is that we do all day. Every HR professional can relate with at least one (if not all) of these weird myths we’ve had to debunk at one time or another:

HR Only Cares About The Company

We’re not out to “get you.” While HR has to be concerned with many different forms of compliance, that doesn’t mean that we’re the “fun police” or exist only to hand out rules and punish transgressors. HR cares about guarding the best interests of all concerned parties, not just the company.

HR Is A Good Place To Vent

On the other hand, if an employee comes to HR with an official complaint or issue, especially one that violates state or federal law, we have to follow up. HR is not a sounding board, nor is it a cheap alternative to therapy – while you might be tempted to vent all of your frustrations to us, there is no guarantee of confidentiality. We will share information on a need-to-know basis, and protect your confidentiality as much as possible, but HR has a duty to follow up on inappropriate behavior.

Want More Money? Talk To HR

Listen, HR does have insight into payroll. However, we cannot help guide you to the right number to ask for while negotiating a raise or when accepting an offer – that would mean we would be revealing confidential information about other employees. We want you to earn that top dollar, but we can’t tell you what top dollar is.

HR Is A Bunch Of Sad Sacks With No Sense Of Humor

What? We’ve got jokes for days! The best part about HR is that on the whole, we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Check out cheeky HR publications FistfulofTalent or EvilHRLady if you don’t believe us.

While the rest of the world continues to ponder what other weird and wacky things HR could be up to, we wanted to really find out what is going on in HR today. That’s why we created the HCM Trends 2015 report; read it today to see what challenges are keeping your peers awake at night – and what they are doing to overcome them.