When I speak to HR, she will ghost me. When I speak to upper management, he will get defensive, and twist truth. When I speak to my manager, i am told to shut up and produce.
The VP of engineering is very inexperienced, and demands that everyone agrees with him. Management as a whole cares little about their employees. What they need to get better at? A firestorm needs to happen, to clean the entire lot.
The "strongly encouraged" forced "fun" where you are to write whitepapers and "be creative" by fixing code smells, and bugs doesn't work. The HR "employee representative" only cares to make the VP of engineering happy. Company culture can start there.