|
 There have been some interesting reactions on a number of HR blogs to Seth Godin’s post, 'Marketing HR'.
Noting that ‘Human Resources’ is an increasingly inappropriate name for the way that organisations are managing their people, Godin suggests changing the department’s name to ‘Talent’:
“Like it or not, in most organisations, HR has grown up with a forms/clerical/factory focus. Which was fine, I guess, unless your goal was to do something amazing, something that had nothing to do with a factory, something that required amazing programmers, remarkable marketers or insanely talented strategy people.
"What if you started acting like the VP of talent? Understanding that talent is hard to find and not obvious to manage. The VP of talent would have to reorganise the department and do things differently all day long (small example: talent shouldn't have to fill out reams of forms and argue with the insurance company... talent is too busy for that... talent has people to help with that.” Most blog comments are very favourable, noting Jay Shepherd at Gruntled Employees that "Human Resources is a term that no one likes". Kris Dunn at the HR Capitalist notes that a name change won’t suffice – HR's capability needs to be developed too. So other blogs, for example Oracle’s TalentedApps, suggest that ‘Talent’ should be the name of the new strategic part of HR which is separate too, although still manages the traditonal operational and administrative duties of HR and personnel.
I tend to use the term 'Human Capital Management' to refer to this strategic part of HR, as for me, it’s the intangible capability, human capital, rather than just talent, and the management of this capital (hence HCM), that is increasingly important. But I accept this term is even more disliked than Human Resources and I would never advise its use in referring to the people management function in an organisation.
So I’d go along with Shepherd:
“Your company - whether it's a hospital, a software company, a bank, a paperboard mill, or a law firm - does not work without the talent that makes it work. Put someone in charge of finding and keeping that talent, and then recognise that person's job with the proper title: chief talent officer.”
|