iMore:
Apple has announced that it has named Deirdre O’Brien, a 29-year veteran of the company who currently serves as vice president of Worldwide Sales and Operations, will be the company’s first vice president of People. In this role, O’Brien will lead all of Apple human resources, including recruitment, talent development, and more. She’ll also head up Apple University.
“vice president of People” sounds….odd.
Although ‘of people’ sounds MUCH better than “Human Resources” which always has felt depersonalizing to me. “You’re a resource of the human type…”
My company has People people.
The Apple Soylent Green initiative…
She comes from heading Worldwide Sales and Operations? I wonder how the HR staff feels about this. To some, this may be a slap in the face.
Some people always call it Human Remains at some point. Some people also deserve a good kick.
It’s an odd title, but considering what “human resources” has come to mean within the past couple of decades (in a CYA behavior-police context), I can understand the inclination for distance. I hope Apple’s version is more about taking care of employees than about reporting on them.
I had summer jobs in “personnel” departments. Is that more depersonalized than “human resources,” or less? I have no idea.
Is it the title that depersonalizes the jobs, or the jobs that depersonalize the title?
Vice prez of Carbon Units can’t be too far
“Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the Human Resources”?
My objection to Human Resources is that it puts the people in a company in box called “resources” – there are Human Resources and property resources and computer resources… The message it sends is that the people are simply a resource to be managed, hired and discarded just like any other resource. It deliberately depersonalizes employees. Personnel feels neutral to me. People, while not perfect, accurately describes that the department is concerned with, well, people and not a generic resource type.
Thank you. I’ve been saying the same thing and others always look at me like I’m crazy. Resources sounds like we’re cogs in a machine that can be replaced when we go bad. That’s simply untrue. Two people will never execute a job exactly the same way.
it doesn’t sound odd to me, you’re just used to decades of impersonal Human Resources.
VPs exist for technology, and facilities, why shouldn’t there be one for people?
no, because people is moving the language back to normal use. calling people human resources is what is dehumanizing