More than just a bunch of chemicals…

The Mirriam Webster’s dictionary amongst its definitions of the word resource has the phrase “computable wealth”.

There is a common practice today of referring to people as resources. This sounds like a lovely professional term but what are we implying here? In business I often hear the phrases “We need more resources”, or “We are under resourced”, or “Resource allocation”. When I first heard the term I was rather confused because I had always thought of a “resource” as a consumable or disposable and variable commodity. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that the business was referring to people in this way.

Over the years the English speaking peoples have hijacked a number of words and altered or narrowed their use such that they have been lost to general conversation. Such words as Chauvinist, nigger and gay spring to mind. Use the word Chauvinist in general conversation and people stare at you blankly with no idea what you mean. In this instance however the opposite has happened. That which is being defined has altered and a word chosen to match that altered definition.

When the industrial revolution began one of the major commodities was the people. As long as the factory owners had a sufficient supply of people and power they could continue to accumulate their fortune. People were just another disposable input to their business.

Fast forward to the post war economy where business began to thrive with most white collar employers looking on their employees as a valuable part of their organization with benefits and conditions indicative of the esteem in which the employees were held. Generous superannuation schemes, generous bonuses, and incentives for company loyalty. The relationship was almost paternalistic where employees were encouraged to see their relationship with the company as being life long. There was still an unsettled relationship between many blue collar workers and their employers such there was the whole gamut of managerial approaches from the commodity view through to the familial type relationship.

In the 80s this was all about to change. The world wide recession enabled the Keynesian’s and those advocating micro economic reform to rule the shop. Do not get me wrong, we do need to change our approach to cater for technological and economic change but the problem is we tend to throw out the baby with the bath water. One of the most socially destructive changes is to take the most de-humanising aspects of the industrial revolution and apply it to modern business practice.

Business practicioners  have been trying to “deregulate the labour market” for a long time. What they mean is convert their employees to a disposable resource, hence the “resource” monika.

Just for the record I resent the term “resource” when applied to people. I think it is an indication of a morally vacuous business model that treats their employees like pens or writing pads that can be cast aside when they are no longer useful. I find it hypocritical to say that “people are our most precious resource”. As son as the term resource is applied to people it makes them no more important any any other consumable that that business requires.

People are more than an offset against the bottom line, a tax deductible commodity that can be cast aside like yesterday’s pencil shavings. It is an indication of moral bankruptcy that we not only allow this concept to flourish but build a business infrastructure on this evil concept.