This is an indictment of the HR profession, its credentialing entities, and various state and federal labour laws which often create perverse incentives.
It is also an artifact (and indictment) of post S/Ox corporate culture where line managers have been removed from the "non-functional" administration of staff. and a cult of youth that has seen people with hard won managerial experience pushed out and replaced by younger employees who are too often -not- selected on the basis of management performance (since they have no track record) but rather for natural aggressiveness and disregard for others combined with an ability to hide that behind a bland non-threatening, socially acceptable, exterior. An ability that is in my personal opinion uncomfortably close to sociopathic behavior, but hey, that's just me and I am not a psychologist, right?
Anyone who thinks this is an isolated incident, or indicative of Cloudflare being in some way worse than any other similar company is profoundly mistaken.