HR Responsibility

Frankie asked:


I am an employee of a small family run company of about 40 people who like most all of the other employee feel like we are left out of the role of helping the business function, so to speak! It seems like this company does not like to give responsibilites to employees but keeps these roles among family members. My concern is we have grown so big that our human resource department “I am not even sure who that is” is not functioning for its employees. So what is the role of HR when an employee feels stressed, confused, and unsure of his/her job duties, or when an employee feels over worked and his/her co-worker is underworked. Please help to answer these questions so that I can either stop feeling like nobody cares or maybe seek action in correcting the atomosphere of the workplace.