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Open-minded HR (europe.pub)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/funny@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 54 points 1 month ago* (11 children)

My career started in the late 70s, when "Human Resources" was replacing "Personnel Department". I've always thought the term "human resource" was terribly degrading, and I still don't understand how it caught on and never left.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    A lot of places also stopped calling their employees “employees” and started calling them “associates”. What’s up with that?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    It's a dimn effort to make employees feel part of the gang in a vain effort to keep them from quitting.

    They could actually pay them properly and treat them like humans, but it costs money to do so.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Really? I have always considered “associate” to sound like you aren’t a member of the organization. You’re just loosely associated with the organization.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    I always figured it's to de-emphasize the fact that you have bosses and owners. Employee implies that clearly, while associate makes it seem more like you're working with colleagues of your own volition. All in the service of making you infinitesimally more pliable.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    That "associate" thing has been around for decades, and varies by region. In the US it was mostly used for retail employees back in the day, not as much as corporate workers. But it goes in and out of style. When an employer adopts it or drops it, it's probably because some executive is trying to make a "splash".

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    Yeah I hate it, it sounds exactly like the worm-tongued bureaucrat-speak that it is. Orwell wrote about exactly this kind on nonsense in Politics and the English Language and it is as true as ever today.

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