The article is devoted to the theoretical aspects of personnel risks systematization in the organization. The article investigates the etymology of the concept “personnel risk”. Besides, the article offers the results of the comparative analysis of different approaches to defining a risk and identifies their drawbacks. The concepts “personnel risks”, “risks of the personnel”, “risks of personnel management” are differentiated in the article. The author offers her own definition of a personnel risk and shows its basic differences and advantages. The basic characteristics of personnel risk are considered to be as follows: the situation, the source and the object of risk (or risk bearer).

personnel risks, human resource management, sphere of risk emergence, object of risk, source of risk, damage of risk