Human Resources - What a confusing appellation!

As an HR professional, I frequently feel that HR, as a profession and as a business function, has become extraordinarily complex. If we are an HR professional we are confronted with:

- Treating people as a resource and being called "offensive" or are considered "callus".

- Treating people as individuals, we run the risk of discriminatory outcomes.

- We know people are not objects yet we seek to be objective in evaluations and processes.

- Government regulations (ala FMLA) has forced us to become more and more transactional and less strategic

- As for recruiters, do we embrace them as partners or shun them as a nuisance?

Finally, for those of us working as recruiters, have we tried to understand the HR function and the pressures it is experiencing or have we run to the hiring managers in hopes of avoiding the dreaded HR obstacle? No easy answers but what's your opinion?