Why Human Resources Is Dead - Essay Example

Current Event HR Article Summary Current Event HR Article Summary Within the framework of this paper, I am going to provide a brief response to the article Why Human Resources Is Dead? written by Jacob Morgan and published on 8 June 2015 in Forbes Magazine. I decided to choose this article for the assignment because it discusses an issue, not many people even know about. The article I would like to discuss concerns an interesting trend within the Human Resources industry. Jacob Morgan, the Forbes Magazine Contributor, shares his vision on the transformation of the term human resources and the processes and changes which stand behind it.

According to his point of view, more and more companies nowadays shift from considering the management of people as a traditional Human Resourcing to seeing it as a more people-centric process. As a result, some companies start to change the name of certain positions or even whole departments. For example, today it is already a trend to use such terms as chief talent officer, head of talent, chief people officer, and so forth. At the same time, the once commonly used title of a Chief Human Resource Officer appears to fade away gradually.

Jacob Morgan continues a discussion on this subject by raising a critically important question. The author of the article doubts whether changing of titles of certain positions actually changes the attitude toward the concept of human resources. According to the author, the term human resource dates back to the beginning of the 20th century when people were literally considered capital assets. However, times have changed and so do the perception of employees. Nevertheless, the author claims that a change in perception appears to be a subject of dispute since the same term is used by a vast majority of companies till the present.

The most interesting aspect of the article for me is the question if the perception of employees actually changed over time or not. The author seems to be stuck in between being not able to say for sure if the transformation of job titles is an outcome of changes in the perception, or a push promising those changes in the nearest future. It is not subject to debate that employers no longer see their employees as capital assets, but still we cannot be sure that our society has already reached a point where a people-centric approach is considered the only acceptable one.

The author refers to examples involving such world-recognized companies as Google, LinkedIn, Cisco, and Walmart in order to demonstrate the extent of transformation discussed in the article. Taking into account that the companies he names are believed to be so-called trendsetters within a global business community, the author makes a logical conclusion that a lot of positive changes have already happened and even more of them are about to come. To my point of view, the subject discussed in the paper is of greater importance than it may seem at first glance.

As time goes on and our society develops, people should no longer be considered human capital. The globalized world can only function effectively once each person is valued as an individual and treated as such. Speaking of how this new trend might affect the hospitality industry, I believe that it will initiate a push for positive changes in regard to the prestigiousness of professions related to hospitality. Consequently, this industry will become more attractive for talented and skilled people, which in its turn will result in drastic development of the industry as a whole.