It sounds like your company has a human resources director whose skills in the area of humans and resources may be a little thin. Even if he walked into an absolutely overwhelming personnel disaster, he has overlooked a key opportunity to build credibility, trust, and communication with the rest of the employees.
One of the more enduring criticisms of traditional personnel managers is that they tend to generate too much paperwork and too many memos. The fact that your new human resources director played the memo card is not the most promising start.
Although you do not want to sound like you are telling him how to do his job, you can call him, introduce yourself, and invite him to one of your meetings so that he can meet your staff. The actions that he takes in response to this call will tell you a great deal about his style as a human resources professional. Hopefully, he will come to the meeting prepared not only to discuss the key human resources programs, issues, and objectives, but also prepared to listen. At the same time, if his response to your overture is another memo or two, stand back because masses of paperwork are just around the corner.
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