Leaders, stop treating people as a resource!

Great leaders don’t treat their team members as "human resources."

They fully respect them as human beings, with their unique talents and potential, their strengths and extraordinariness, their shortcomings and flaws, their desires and needs. They “growth-challenge” them so they get more opportunities to explore and use the different assets in their potential. They inspire them to expand.

Why don’t I like the word “human resource?”

See, if you as a leader see your people as a resource, you deny their humanness. You are treating them as if they were material, or instruments, or tools. The problem with that is that materials, instruments or tools lack human consciousness. Materials have value, but they don’t have needs, feelings or aspirations; they don’t have talents or skills or personalities. They don’t have a heart. Humans do (well, at least most do). And that’s what makes them different to a resource.

See, words have power. Thoughts create words, and words create thoughts… and eventually beliefs. Language has many functions and applications. Language, for example, is used for conditioning. So, whether the term “human resources” was intentionally created for negative conditioning or not (note: there are very few “coincidences” in business language), I do believe that it’s not helpful. Again, words have power, and we see the power of the term “human resource” implemented in too many organizations, where people are considered replaceable objects.

What if we just exchanged it for “people?” Could that work?

Most importantly, for right now, let’s move away from treating people as a resource and treat them as human beings instead. Humans have aspirations, desires, and needs. They experience pain, emotions and challenges.

But there are more words that I’m not particularly fond of…

Why don’t I love the word “employee?

According to Merriam-Webster, “to employ” means a) to make use of (someone or something inactive), b) to use (something, such as time) advantageously, c) to use or engage the services of, and d) to provide with a job that pays wages or a salary. I find it interesting that “to employ” and “to use” are synonyms… So the employer would be the one that uses someone, and the employee would be the one used. Hmmm… “Employer” in German is “Arbeitgeber” (the one who gives work), and “employee” is “Arbeitnehmer” (the one who takes the work).

The word “staff” is also an interesting one, but I’ll leave it at this hint for now…

No worries, I agree with many of you that we have other priorities when it comes to changing the way organizations treat their people; not saying job-related language reform is top on my list. But I do think a lot about language (because I speak five and a half languages, language just intrigues me, and I’m naturally curious). And I think it’s worth reflecting on what the words we use really mean… and potentially adapting them over time. One positive result of such adaptation is that we hardly hear the word “subordinate” anymore these days… because it just doesn’t make any sense for modern leaders to consider their team members subordinates… or at least it shouldn’t.

Now I have to admit that I don’t have the perfect solution to replace these words, and I also may not be the one to decide over what words to use going forward. My main intention with this article is to inspire reflecting on the language we use day-in, day-out, and how it conditions us or how much sense it makes.

So, I have a question for you: If you had to come up with a different or new word for “human resources” or for “employee,” what would it be?

Thoughts?