HR

What it means

HR stands for 'human resources' — the department that handles hiring, pay, benefits, training, and workplace issues. People also say 'HR' to mean the team or person you'd go to with an employment problem.

Words like “HR” are exactly the kind of vocabulary our English vocabulary size test measures — find out how many English words you know.

Examples

• Talk to HR if you have questions about your benefits.
• HR is reviewing the new hire's paperwork.
• She works in HR at a tech company.
• Any complaint like that should be reported to HR.

Where it comes from

An initialism that replaced the older term 'personnel department' as the field rebranded around the idea of managing people as an organizational resource.

Related abbreviations