That’s been my experience with HR over the years — the simple easy things are easy to sort out and everyone’s smiling, once things get difficult you start to wonder if you’re dealing with people who really have your best interests at heart.

Do you have any links to open courseware or similar that show this?

I’m sure it’s just a question of hunting around a bit but it might help some people realise they should be as equally on guard with HR as they are with management in general.