I’ve seen a few suggestions recently that it’s time to change the name of HR. There is real potential during this period of re-thinking, re-orienting and re-aligning of business models that we could create a tipping point for HR.
‘Resources’ seems rather cold and impersonal and, well, not very human. This suggestion of ‘assets’ came from Kevyn Rustici, whose mission is to ‘turn HR from a cost centre to a profit centre.’ He’s passionate about people analytics.
He and I are, of course, on the same wavelength, and we’re working on some tools to prove HR’s business value. Watch this space.
In the meantime, I googled ‘asset management’, and of course there are very different types of assets. There are IT assets – they are highly valued, upgraded regularly without argument, treated with care and if you damage one you’ll be in trouble. Good news for IT assets.
In finance, an asset manager is a company whose business purpose is managing wealth. Their entire mission is to improve the value of that wealth.
That’s a great way of looking at it, isn’t it? Maybe talent should be regarded as wealth; to be quantified, valued and invested carefully in a way that leads to growth that can be celebrated. Precious.
An asset seems to be defined as anything with an economic value. That makes sense too.
Resources tend to be things that get used up. Resource management seems to be about efficiency rather than growth.
What’s in a name? Surely it’s about the work that HR does, not what it’s called? True. But a name gives a vital message – not only about the way the organisation regards its people, but also the way it regards HR. Maybe also about the way HR regards itself.
What do you think? Is it time for a name change?
