“Hi Josh, I need a resource for a job in late April – are
you available?”, read the email. My first instinct was to check my calendar.
Then it occurred to me that I’ve never before been referred to as a resource.
In the past, companies would have a personnel department.
The term is now ‘human resources’, and by extension employees are viewed as
resources. Similar to natural resources, these humans need to be discovered,
obtained, and refined. Sometimes they
need to be transformed, and other times discarded. There is resource wastage.
And, as resources, they are interchangeable.
The military employ a similar re-classification. Individual
soldiers are formed into units such as squadrons and platoons. This is
necessary for organisation, but is also expedient. It is emotionally easier to
send a ‘unit’ to defend a position than it is to send a group of individual
men. This de-humanising is necessary for a military commander.
A still grosser example is the Nazi classification of Jews,
Gypsies and others as untermenschen – sub-humans. It is difficult to torture
and kill a fellow human: morality gets in the way. Easier to deal with a
sub-human and treat them as an animal.
But in industry there is no benefit from treating people as
‘resources’.
Anybody who works for a large organisation will have sensed
a loss of individuality. Irrelevant emails beginning, “Dear All”; fighting with
a distant payroll department to rectify mistakes; team-building exercises that
are nothing but a way to make you a more obedient employee; a boss that is
never seen but must be obeyed; an us-versus-them mentality between teams; your
request being shunted from department to department because nobody wants to
take personal responsibility for an issue.
How valued do you feel as an individual?
Try the opposite of de-humanising. Not jargon such as
“bringing a human touch”, but simply bearing in mind that everybody you work
with is an individual. Make them feel
recognised for their individuality – remembering their name is a start. They
will be happier. And perform better, if the bottom line’s your thing.
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