What I always found unbelievable was that employees would come up to me and expect me to tell them why so-in-so left the company or all of the details of a particular situation. It was like they believed that ononmy sole purpose for being was to provide them with “dirt” on their co-workers. My response was always the same. “Just as I would not share information about your employment record with other employees, I am not going to tell you about another person’s employment record.” This line usually stopped them mid-sentence.

If you cannot keep your mouth shut when you need to, HR is not the field for you.

“I think the reason this happens in because of HR trying to become ‘business partners’. As such, they are trying to align themselves with executives and the management team so their first loyalty is to management, not the employee. But is that really a bad thing? Yes, it’s bad to share something confidential, but as long as HR holds the position of employee sounding board, HR will never become strategic thinkers – oh, and, by the way, managers are never forced to develop the managerial skills they need since employees should be communicating with them directly. If they have a problem with that person, they need to go one step higher, not sideways to HR.”

@Phil - Excellent point! This would close the gap between the theory of what should occur and the reality on the ground.