True, and you can also have an HR department that goes beyond CYA. Some companies treat Recruiting & HR functions as strategic parts of the business. I'm not talking about lip service, like "Chief People Officer" titles, and things of that nature, which are usually just a whole lot of signaling and little else. Rather, I mean companies wherein recruiting and developing people is part of the hiring manager's job responsibility, and he or she has skin in the game. To the extent that HR is a self-contained silo, completely removed from the hiring manager's organization, it's bound to lose touch and turn into a simple, CYA-esque meat grinder.

Additionally, good HR strategy includes implementing events, training programs, talent development strategies, etc., so that retention and promotion of existing employees is just as important as recruitment of new ones.

A reasonable KPI, in this case, is turnover (both by volume and by average employee timespan). The ability to find world-class talent by the bucketload is all but wasted if existing employees tend to bounce after 6 months to a year.