People are people - not things!

This morning I received a management development guide through my door. I flicked through it and came to rest at the "Human Resources" section. And I shivered. No nothing unusual. In fact more of the same! What made me shiver was the language used to describe people.

There were four training courses and I wanted to rename each of them - to change the language that was used in talking about people.

• "Managing human resources" to "Managing people" or even to "Working with people".
• "Attracting, retaining and developing talent: a strategy for increasing human capital" to "Attracting, retaining and developing people: a strategy for helping people to develop themselves"
• "Return on investment on human capital" to "Helping people to be their best."

The idea is simple:

• Lets STOP thinking of people as resource, or talent or capital but quite simply as people!
• And lets stop talking about manipulating people but about working effectively with each other and helping and supporting each other.

And of course lets not just change the language lets change our behaviours too!

But try as I might I cannot think of a better name for the most hated term of all "Human Resources"! Any suggestions?

Or maybe a paradigm shift is in order? Lets transform the concept of "HR" and then we would not need a new name!