This sounds like what HR wants you to think about your colleagues. Can’t organise if can’t trust your colleagues.

And HR people can never be trusted to be on your side on any issue. Never, ever confide in an HR person, getting rid of you in some way is always the easiest solution to any problem.

Only when you first take outside council and then go to HR through them, do you have some sort of protection from getting swept under the rug.

Sounds like you work somewhere shitty. Most of my coworkers mind their own business because they are too busy working to do anything else. Only time I’ve seen people “snitch” was to throw poor management under the bus, or corroborate sexual harassment complaints. And I’m not going to complain about that.