people operations

Get rid of Human Resources. Human Resources: what an ugly term!

Wikipedia defines a resource as “a source or supply from which benefit is produced“. Is this how we think of employees—as resources for a company’s benefit?

I think it’s telling that many organizations still use this term to label the office that hires, manages, and fires employees. And such organizations, at least in the IT industry where I’ve had some experience of them, often don’t do a very good job.

Nowadays I’m noticing a trend in larger organizations to rebrand Human Resources as Talent Management. This is better—we’re not classifying people as resources like steel ingots. But the m-word—management—is still there, emphasizing the role of guidance on how employees work.

So here are a couple of alternative descriptions that I like better.

The first is Talent Leadership. As I’ve written here, I see leaders as influencers and facilitators of process rather than high-ups laying down the law. Organizations need both leaders and managers, but I think that forward-thinking institutions should have their talent led rather than guided.

Want an alternative? Google calls its Human Resources Department People Operations; employees shorten this to POPS. I think this neutral term is a sensible reframe of what “HR” does in a modern organization; covering the nitty gritty work while avoiding any connotation of employees-as-cattle.

Words have power. Let’s use the best ones we can.

Photo attribution: Flickr user olathegovnews