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[thriftyc]

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[marty998]

It's uncommon, but yes, for cases that Pizza Steve described that is what would happen.

Most performance issues are resolved with the manager "in the room".

If your staff member has not come to you in the first instance regarding something they need to take to HR, then I would politely suggest your people management skills need refreshing.

If it's HR initiated...well... HR can generally do what it likes - they're primary purpose is to protect the Company - staff and managers come second to that.

[Last Night]

Managers and Leaders:
Lots of smart people on here, so thought I would ask a work/HR related question.

As a leader in your company, it is appropriate for your HR manager to check in on your team, meet with them one on one without your knowledge?
Let me know your thoughts on this,  thanks!

This to me is counterintuitive and seems to be a reactionary measure to something that happened in the past or just a "different" work culture.  I think it's evident that if HR is having formal check ins with your team it undermines the leader tremendously, but that's only based on what's in OP and making a ton of my own assumptions as a leader.

Without context I'd say it's odd, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are outlier situations where it may be beneficial.

[Noodle]

It could even be another manager who has been doing something questionable, management finds out, and then HR decides they'd better check around to see if there's anything else going on they didn't know about. Based on the Ask A Manager http://www.askamanager.org/ website, there appears to be an almost infinite number of insane things people do at work, so it could be most anything.

It could be specifically related to your team or performance, but really it just as easily could be unrelated.

[skip207]

I run a small business now so no HR, but when I worked for a large company HR would often send out emails / surveys.  It was pretty clear they were hunting specific prey!  The also used to come to the office and sit in one of the meeting rooms to do an "open door" type thing once every few months.  Other than the usual suspects no one ever went near them LOL!

BUT, when the HR bod got up and walked to the coffee machine or stepped out for a smoke you would always see someone slink over to them to have a quiet chat.