Earlier this week, I made an announcement – new job, new chapter – and did so in the manner of our times: LinkedIn posts, Facebook update, and everything short of choreographing a TikTok. The news was well-received by friends and family of course, but one comment caught my eye. When I shared that I’d started a new position as “Head of People,” someone replied with “Head of People? Really?”
I couldn’t quite tell if he was questioning the title, questioning my credentials, or questioning the general direction of HR nomenclature. So I kept it light: “It’s what all the kids are saying.” His reply – “Thanks. I’m completely out of touch but not completely out of mind” – made me laugh,
It also made me think; I had given my title real thought because I had the rare and genuinely enjoyable privilege of determining what I’d be called. And that’s not a decision I took lightly, even if the options sometimes feel like a choose-your-own-adventure through the world of HR branding.
And since “Queen of All She Surveys” seemed a touch presumptuous, I had to narrow it down.
The Taxonomy of HR Titles
Let’s be honest about what our titles signal – to others, yes, but also to ourselves. In HR, the job is fundamentally the same across a spectrum of organizations, but the label we slap on it carries an entire narrative, and those narratives have not aged uniformly well. Please note, of course, that this is a blog and these are my opinions; there is no shame in holding any of these titles and there are no aspersions being cast upon any HR professional who has one title or another.
HR Manager/Director/VP – whatever the level, this combination of letters tends to conjure a very specific image: someone in sensible slacks and a blazer, armed with a policy binder and a firm handshake. Let’s call her Jessica. Jessica knows every compliance requirement cold, she handles benefits open enrollment without breaking a sweat, and she will absolutely send you home for a dress code violation. Jessica is not without value – in fact, Jessica is essential – but “HR Manager” as a title leads people, immediately and almost involuntarily, to think about compliance, handbooks, and the more transactional machinery of the function. It positions the work before the person even walks into the room.
Head of HR is a step toward something – the “Head of” construction has a certain authority to it – but it’s still tethered to the same mental model. People hear “HR” and they think payroll, benefits administration, employee relations investigations, and the ever-present specter of legal liability. None of these things are unimportant; they are, in fact, critical. But if your title is leading with the administrative and operational infrastructure, you’re already managing perception before the first conversation begins.
Head of People is where I’ve landed before (circa 2018) and where I’ve landed again (circa 2026), because what it conveys – and perhaps more critically, what it declines to convey – aligns with the work I want to be doing. It’s strategic, yes, but it’s also humanistic without being saccharine. It implies that the function is centered on people as a genuine priority, not as a compliance category. It reads as modern and forward-leaning without, IMO, trying too hard. “Head of People” doesn’t announce itself by what it manages so much as by what it values.
People Operations is another iteration worth considering, and one I find incredibly compelling – it speaks the language of the business in a way that resonates with the CFO and the COO as much as it does with the employee base. “Operations” signals clarity, process, and a results orientation, which is useful in organizations where HR has historically been seen as occupying a softer, more peripheral lane. The combination says: “we understand how the business works, and we’re here to make it work better, for the people inside of it.”
Where I personally start to lose my patience is when “Culture” gets added to the title – as in, Head of People and Culture, a configuration that’s become genuinely fashionable. I understand the appeal; it signals intentionality about the kind of workplace an organization is trying to build. But culture is not a portfolio. It’s not a department, a program, or a function that any single person – however talented and however well-resourced – can own. Culture is a living, collective organism, shaped daily by every leader’s behavior, every hiring decision, every moment when stated values either hold up under pressure or quietly fall apart. Putting it in someone’s title, however well-intentioned, implicitly removes accountability from the people who actually determine what culture looks like on the ground.
Employee Experience carries similar risks, though for different reasons. There’s something aspirational and genuinely meaningful about centering the lived reality of work – what it feels like to be an employee here, in this organization, on any given day. But when the work environment is toxic or when trust has eroded or when a reduction in force is unfolding and people are scared – “Head of Employee Experience” can feel less like a mandate and more like a hostage situation. The title raises expectations it can’t always single-handedly meet.
What the Name Can and Cannot Do
None of these titles, of course, change the work itself. No matter what appears on the org chart or the email signature, the fundamental responsibilities of HR – developing people, building the infrastructure for performance, aligning talent strategy with business direction, navigating the gorgeous and occasionally maddening complexity of human beings at work – those remain. They evolve in how they’re done, as technology shifts and organizational models mature and the expectations of employees continue to outpace our ability to keep up. But they don’t evaporate because we’ve found a better word for the role.
What a title can do is signal intent. It can tell the organization, and the people in it, something about how this function sees its own purpose. It can attract or repel candidates who are reading between the lines. It can open or foreclose certain conversations before they begin. And perhaps most importantly, it shapes how the person holding the title internalizes the work – which is not a small thing.
Whether you’re an HR Generalist (a title I’ve grown less fond of as the years accumulate, largely because “generalist” has come to sound like a euphemism for “handles everything nobody else wants to deal with”) or a Chief People Officer or a Head of Workforce Experience, the professional imperative remains identical: expand your skill set, get fluent in the language and logic of the business, embrace the technology that moves the work of HR forward, and think strategically even when the day is demanding that you think tactically.
The name may matter to some degree. But the identity underneath it matters more.
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check out where I’ve landed: BelleSage Partners
