I've personally never had to deal with the HR department. Most of the time when we discuss our workload, we're dealing with the department head or a dean or perhaps a vice-provost.
The larger question I'm asking universities to address more carefully is to monitor workloads and to recognize that some colleagues do different kinds of work. My indigenous colleagues, for example, spend enormous amounts of time mentoring indigenous students at the University of Manitoba. This is absolutely critical to student success. If they spend more time in teaching and more time mentoring but they perhaps publish less, are they doing a less good job?