People say that HR are on the side of the company like it's a bad thing. Every department works for the company. No one complains s about IT, or Marketing, reproduction working for the best of the company. I'd you want someone who is independently on your side as an employee, join a union. Do you really want HR to work against the best interests of the company? Make the company less profitable, less efficient, etc, so less successful, which means theres less money to go on salaries, training, staff welfare?
Saying that, we do a hell of a lot on staff wellbeing, supporting managers to manage properly (which means not letting them sack people on the spot for example), and most of us do make employees lives better in ways you may never hear of.
Yeah, as someone who also works in the field, this. This "are you on the side of the company or the employee?" is a silly and spurious distinction. Companies staff and fund an HR division (which, remember, is a big cost centre and generates 0 direct profit) because it's in their interest to effectively manage their human resources. That doesn't mean that HR is there to screw the employee. In general the best way to be profitable is to hire good people and manage them well. Companies rise and fall on their talent. It's 100% in companies' commercial interests to manage people legally, compassionately where possible, and humanly.
That doesn't mean it always happens perfectly. Managing people is very hard and many managers are very bad at it. Employees often have no real idea of the commercial imperatives or an inflated or distorted view of their own importance or of employment law. Some companies have shitty toxic cultures and consequently make bad decisions. When the profit just isn't there to fund decent HR initiatives, it isn't. But a skilled, hardworking employee is a big commercial asset and if you prove yourself as such a good company and HR department will probably go a good way for you.