If your company is so big and impersonal that you call the people you have assets, resources, bodies, or any of the many other degrading terms available, you’re doing it wrong.
When you talk about people, it’s clear that they’re neither interchangeable or mechanic. When you talk about people, you’re almost bound to care. Who cares about an asset or a resource? Everyone cares about Peter or Amanda.
This language of impersonality usually comes from visions of growth for its own sake. Not because Eric needs some help and Lindsey might be a good choice. It comes because you’re envisioning a project so big and complicated that keeping names in your head would just make it pop. That’s a bad way to hire.
Instead, push hiring down to the people who will actually care about names. So you might be building a 200-man mega project, but the team responsible for the design of the turbines are the ones in need of a few more hands. Not The Project.
Bryan Sebastian
on 21 Dec 09I really like how 37 Signals calls their people… “Signals”... i.e. welcoming your 17th “Signal” to the team.
pell
on 21 Dec 09My target was always working with people I like. Of course I can’t be friends with anyone but there should be some kind of tension that makes it possible to use real names. Titles like those are just signs of hierarchies and their methods of creating authorities. I’ve never liked calling any guy “boss” and it makes me sick seeing people running around with their “I’m a ceo” or “I’m an entrepreneur” attitude.
I still like that anecdote of Kennedy asking a janitor at a NASA HQ what his job was and him answering “Mr. President, I’m helping to put a man on the moon”. I’m totally aware of the fact that it’s primary sense might have been patriotic but if people are involved in your business you always should try to let them feel the same kind of spirit you have. I’m sure they then will also be much happier.
JF
on 21 Dec 09Bryan: Signal is a term of endearment.
gmclark
on 21 Dec 09pell: I completely agree. I try to work with people that I like. We don’t have to be beer buddies but their should be some mutual respect and appreciate for our respective jobs.
Just recently had a conversation with someone on the PTA. Just because we’re on the same committee, doesn’t mean that we have to be friends, it just means that we have the same interests.
devolute
on 21 Dec 09I work in a company of 7 people and I’ve heard my boss refer to people as ‘assets’ and ‘resources’. What gives?
jp
on 21 Dec 09“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” Edward Abbey (The Journey Home, 1977)
Matt
on 21 Dec 09How about “Human Capital Management”? Has a nice ring to it.
David
on 21 Dec 09Matt, way to finger Goldman, haha
Sandeep Sood
on 21 Dec 09David – I really appreciate the kick in the ass that this post gave me.
I used to be very disciplined about referring to our people as people in proposals and during planning meetings.
Somehow, I’ve lost that – thanks for reminding me (again) that words are important.
Phaethon
on 21 Dec 09I’m very close to my staff. Some would say “too close.” shifty eyes But yes, while I doubt our enterprise will ever reach that level of having human assets and resources, I’d like to imagine that our website is a giant robot. One that we each pilot a portion of for the good of all the internet.
Dustin
on 21 Dec 09I often refer to my wife as an asset and my children as long term investments.
Jason
on 21 Dec 09My favorite, back from my consulting days. People were “resources” or “FTEs” (full-time equivalents). And, when managers shifted people around between projects, it was called “horse trading”. That one made my skin crawl.
Jagath
on 21 Dec 09My favorite is the term “bodies”. I know a manager who regularly used the phrase “Let us throw more bodies at that project”. Nightmarish image!
Suyog Mody
on 21 Dec 09How about calling people “people”? I catch myself every time I am about to use the word “resources” and end up saying people. It sounds a bit weird a few times but once you get used to it, it’s all good!
Jake
on 22 Dec 09Felix Dennis (publisher of The Week, Maxim, etc) likes to say that “overhead walks on two legs.” That’s another great term for people in the workplace—overhead!
Mathew Patterson
on 22 Dec 09I’ve upset a few “human resources” managers in my time making this exact point. Labelling people as if they are a slightly elevated form of desks and machinery.
I am not (even) an animal, I’m a resource!
Talent
on 22 Dec 09I know of one (titan) company that calls them talents, because they think of themselves as the best in the world. Unfortunately for them, nobody else thinks the same. So it’s all just a big joke really.
CRC
on 22 Dec 09Amen.
Referring to people as “resources” is rampant where I work to there where I must forcibly stop myself from falling into the habit of referring to people as “resources.” Furthermore there are times when I struggle to stifle the voice inside me that wants to shout “THEY’RE PEOPLE DAMMIT!”
Arash Zafarnia
on 22 Dec 09“Resources” always felt a bit robotic to me, yet I said it, a lot. Looking back, I used it more with clients than internally which is a bad sign too. Thanks for calling it out. A return to People, a return to humanity!
David Andersen
on 22 Dec 09I think the suits resort to referring to the serfs as ‘resources’ or ‘FTEs’ because it’s a subtle way to project power and position, both by conveying their relative position in the hierarchy and by using insider lingo. I agree that’s it complete and utter bullshit.
Victor Amuso
on 22 Dec 09More people in the business really need to pickup PeopleSoft and digest it. It’s incredible that a book written in 1987 still maintains so much truth today.
I wonder what percentage of companies which refer to their people as resources also enforce a strict dress code. Go one level deeper and see if they also work in cubicles.
Neal
on 22 Dec 09everyone cares about peter or amanda… but nobody cares about them both!
Chad Sakonchick
on 22 Dec 09Semantics…
Till
on 22 Dec 09I like being a person, and I like it if people know my name (without looking it up in their HR database). Because that makes things personal.
But in business live, I think some distance is ok. Even in a small company you sometimes have to cut a salary, or a bonus, or have to convey other bad news. Doing this to you buddy is harsh, and some people are not up to it (which is not a flaw, it’s simply human). So they come up with two solutions: a) Don’t tell you, let someone else bring you the message, or b) keep some distance, so they won’t get emotionally involved. I strongly prefer b).
It works the other way around, too: If your bonus is cut by your buddy, you might not say “hey, that’s not fair, I deserve it!”, even if you should have done so. But if you boss cuts your bonus, its perfectly right to say “Well, that’s not what the contract said”.
Finally, if you are the boss, the brass, the upper crust, you’re no longer entitled to hang out with the cool guys on the company parties, because you can order them around, and that’s not cool. Doesn’t matter if you pay for the party personally. Sad, but true.
Robert
on 22 Dec 09I hang around lots with say polit-people. These are often much worse. In fact the most extreme form of this technocrat rulership originated in the “communist” movements: Stalinism. While many of the early socialists concept went more after a 37signals-style way of production(and “adventure”): Fourier, Marx. “Free people in free association.”
It’s a funny thing that a corporation like 37s has more sensibility for this kind of things than all german leftists calling themselves “emanzipating”. Marx would have called that “capitalist communism”.
Jamie Stephens
on 22 Dec 09I worked at a company once that kept all its employees and vendors in the same list. There was no real distinction. That’s when I knew I might need to find something else.
Amy Thorne
on 22 Dec 09I think Victor might mean Peopleware by DeMarco and Lister rather than PeopleSoft.
If so, I agree with the recommendation. I recently reread the second (1999) edition and found most of it still super-relevant.
Victor Amuso
on 22 Dec 09@Amy,
Yes thanks I meant PeopleWare. I must have had something else on the brain when I was writing that.
mikhailov
on 22 Dec 09We have a kindly rails community, 5 ruby developers and one flex developer. I used to be a dreamed about friendly community, and it’s really great for now. Calling people by name more important even than growth salary
Bruno
on 22 Dec 09at Nec if you ask to someone : What’s your job. he will answer “i am a Nec employee”
gorbster
on 23 Dec 09I recently joined a global company of about 6700. Biggest company I’ve worked for by a factor of about 100. They refer to the HR department as ‘People Success’. Kind of cheeky, but refreshing to see how they emphasize that the company is about its ‘people’ rather than resources, assets, drones, etc.
Don Schenck
on 23 Dec 09@Amy: Peopleware should be required reading in college … hell, high school, even.
Corporate life is, mostly, Hell with a paycheck.
Sanat Gersappa
on 23 Dec 09Amen.
Peter
on 23 Dec 09When you call the department (and even the whole profession) “Human Resources”, what do you expect people are going to call employees?
nanuni kokoritu
on 23 Dec 09amen(2)
(another) Bob
on 24 Dec 09A recent move of people to a new building was called “restacking”. Seriously – we had a restacking plan, with numbered cubicles, of course.
Karla Porter
on 25 Dec 09I work in human resources and I this is a fascinating thread of comments. I personally never cared for the term but mostly for the word human rather than resources. It has always made me wonder who else was supposed to do the work, animals? But I also understand where it comes from, the choice of human, capital and natural resources. Those are the 3 that drive commerce. That comes straight from the 4th grade Junior Achievement lesson. So if you want to change it you know where to start; with children.
This discussion is closed.