Can anyone say when, and more importantly why the good English word 'personnel' was altered to 'human resources'?
I heard it last year, and now every company uses it instead.

Welcome, satguru...
Here in Canada I began noticing "Human Resources" quite a number of years ago!
I dunno why, either....
Seems to me, though, "personnel" sounds like hiring/firing/benefits/

"Human Resources", when it was introduced here, also included other things, such as arranging for the "counselling" programs which were free to employees, and dealing with legal matters and union issues! Just a little more involved, I suppose. Or they arranged it different. That's all I can think of!

Around 15 years ageo I was studying at night school and one of the subjects was called Human resourses.
At the company I worked for the personnel department became the human resources department (HR) about the same time. (A real buzz term for the 1980's)
I believe it was changed as there was a change in thinking in businesses, in general, to see the people who work at a company are assets to the business, and not just employees. So to look after this asset a department was created, just like the Finance department looks after the finacial assets.

Personnel belonged to an era when companies took an interest in their employees. In the 1990s a new ethos was introduced where employees were viewed as work units, hence the term human resources. Under this new regime staffing levels were reduced, personal service to the customer almost vanished, and the remaining staff were expected to work longer hours (unpaid) to cover their increased workload.

This is demonstrated by Call Centres, where the customer rings a number, presses various buttons on the phone before listening to 15 minutes of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Finally a human answers the call who clearly has no knowledge of the problem or a possible solution. Newspapers have carried many stories of the high turnover of staff in these centres and the stress and poor wages involved.

I can only echo Jeeves comments with regard to the UK, When looking for cut-backs in the 70's/80's companies reduced their outgoings by reducing their "Human resources" IE sacking the staff! It soiunded better in the press than reducing the workforce.