In the shadow of ‘International HR Day’, gone past yesterday, let us contemplate the profound implications of a term that has long outlived its relevance.
The acronym ‘HR’—once a beacon of organizational structure and efficiency—now stands as a stark reminder of an era that viewed humans as mere cogs in the industrial machine.
It is a term that encapsulates the reduction of human potential to a quantifiable resource, akin to any other asset to be optimized and expended.
➡The Perversity of ‘Human Resource’
The term ‘human resource’ is an anachronism, a vestige of the industrial age when assembly lines and standardization reigned supreme.
It evokes a time when humans were valued for their ability to perform repetitive tasks with machine-like precision.
But as we stand in the 21st century, amidst the knowledge workforce era, the term becomes not just obsolete but perverse.
It is a misnomer that fails to capture the essence of what it means to be human—the creativity, the critical thinking, the emotional intelligence, and the capacity for innovation that machines cannot replicate.
➡A Call for Human Dignity
The celebration of ‘Human Resource Day’ is, therefore, a celebration of this outdated and dehumanizing view.
It is a day that inadvertently glorifies the commodification of human beings, reducing their worth to their productivity and utility.
Instead, we must shift our perspective and our language to recognize the inherent dignity and potential of every individual.
We must replace ‘human resource’ with a term that acknowledges humans not as resources but as beings—complex, multifaceted, and irreplaceable.
➡Embracing the Human Element
The knowledge era demands a new lexicon, one that embraces the human element in all its richness and complexity, reflecting our capacity for ‘exploring the unknown,’ for adapting to the exponentially changing world we inhabit.
To see beyond the ‘just in time’ efficiency that machines excel at and to value the ‘just in case’ scenarios where human insight and adaptability shine.
➡The Demise of ‘HR’ and the Rise of Humanity
As we celebrate the demise of ‘HR,’ we celebrate the rise of humanity.
We celebrate the transition from seeing people as resources to be managed to seeing them as human beings to be nurtured—not as merely a matter of semantics, but as a paradigm shift that alters our intellectual and emotional constructs.
#humanresource #HR
