Welcome to The Debate. Today, we are opening
the black box of the corporate world. We're stepping
inside the department that defines the parameters
of your professional existence, arguably more
than any other. We are talking about human resource
management. Right. It's the function everyone
interacts with, yet almost no one really analyzes
structurally. It's the department that hires
you, trains you, determines your pay, and if
things go wrong, is the one escorting you out
of the building with a cardboard box. Exactly.
And the question we're tackling today isn't just
about bureaucracy or, you know, paperwork. It's
about the soul of the modern workplace. Is human
resource management, or HRM, a strategic partner
that aligns employee well -being with business
success? Is it the engine of fairness that makes
work bearable? Or is it a sophisticated system
of control? a direct descendant of scientific
management designed to commodify human beings,
extract maximum value, and frankly, manage liability
rather than actually caring for people? I'll
be taking the position that HRM is a vital value
-adding discipline. I think it's a function rooted
in the human relations movement and is absolutely
essential for organizational cohesion. Without
it, the modern workplace is just chaos. And I'll
be taking the view that HRM is an evolution of
control systems, linking back to Taylorism and
even state bureaucracy that prioritizes efficiency
and risk mitigation really over the human interest.
All right, let's dive in. So to understand where
we are, we have to look at where we started.
There is this cynical view, which I know you
hold, that HR was invented just to police workers,
but that it just ignores the history of the industrial
betterment movement. If you go back to the 19th
century during the height of the Industrial Revolution,
you had pioneers like Robert Owen and Charles
Babbage. These weren't just ruthless industrialists.
They were systems thinkers. They realized that
you simply cannot build a sustainable industry
on the backs of broken people. Broken people
is a very telling phrase, isn't it? It implies
they were already being broken by the system
these men created. Well, it acknowledges the
reality of industrial labor at the time. But
their conclusion was radical. The idea that perfect
work requires healthy workers. This is the seed
of what we now call Unitarianism in HR theory.
It's the perspective that the organization is
a cohesive whole, a family you could say, where
the employer and employee share a common destiny.
Modern HR strives for this. It has moved way
beyond just filing pinwheel forms or personnel
administration. I mean, today we're talking about
talent management, succession planning, diversity
initiatives. It's about securing a long -term
partnership based on mutual benefit. I think
unitarianism sounds lovely in a textbook, but
let's look at the actual language that defines
the field. You mentioned human resource management.
The term human resource, you know, it was coined
by the economist John R. Commons way back in
1893. Words matter. The moment you categorize
a human being as a resource, you've made a fundamental
shift in how you view that person. You're categorizing
them as an input. I think that's a semantic argument
that ignores the actual practice on the ground.
But it isn't just semantics. It's the operating
system of the discipline. A resource is something
you use. You optimize it. You deplete it. Conceptually,
in this framework, a human is really no different
than a seam of coal or a stack of lumber. And
this didn't come from a desire to nurture. It
came straight from Frederick Winslow Taylor and
scientific management in the early 20th century.
Taylorism is the DNA of HR. You're really equating
modern HR with all its focus on culture and belonging,
with the guy who stood over workers with a stopwatch?
Structurally, yes. Taylorism was about separating
the planning of work from the doing of work.
He viewed labor purely as a principal input to
be maximized for economic efficiency. The goal
wasn't perfect work for the worker's sake. It
was output for the owner's sake. And we see this
today. We've softened the language. We call it
human capital management now. But the logic is
identical. It's about extracting value from an
asset. Okay, but you are stopping the history
lesson right before the most important pivot.
I mean, you're completely ignoring the human
relations movement of the 1920s and 30s. This
was the moment the science of efficiency collided
with the reality of psychology. This is where
the field actually found its humanity. The realization
that people have feelings? Well, yes, but it's
more than that. It's the realization that treating
people like machines... it actually breaks the
machine. Look at the work of C .S. Myers and
the National Institute of Industrial Psychology.
But specifically, look at the Hawthorne Studies
by Elton Mayo. This is HR 101, I know, but the
takeaway is profound. They changed the lighting
in a factory to see if workers would be more
productive. Productivity went up. They dimmed
the lights. Productivity went up again. The famous
Hawthorne effect. Right. It wasn't the lights.
It was the fact that someone was paying attention
to them. It proved that social stimuli, attention,
group dynamics, working conditions mattered more
than just the physical environment or even the
financial compensation. This is what paved the
way for Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Hertzberg's
motivation theories. It shifted the paradigm
from control to motivation. And this is where
modern HR lives, trying to unlock potential,
not just enforce rules. I read the history of
the 1920s and I see a parallel track developing
that is much, much darker and frankly, much more
influential on how corporations actually run.
While Mayo was playing with light bulbs, other
institutions were perfecting mass control. We
have to talk about the Soviet connection. Wait,
you are seriously comparing a corporate HR department
to the Soviet Union? I'm comparing the administrative
structures, yes. Look at the Orangeboro. the
organizational bureau established in the USSR
in 1919. Its specific function was the selection,
assignment, and distribution of cadre, personnel.
It was a proto -HR department. It was the first
time we saw a massive bureaucratic machine dedicated
solely to managing the human element of an organization.
That is a massive stretch. You're conflating
a totalitarian state with a business department.
Is it? Stalin famously said, The most precious
and the most decisive capital is people. Which
sounds like a validation of the human -centric
view, if you take it at face value. But context
is everything. When he said that, he was talking
about the mass deployment of human bodies for
the five -year plans and the Gulag system. It
was the ultimate expression of the human -as
-a -resource ideology. The Org Bureau demonstrated
that you can use personnel files, promotion lists,
and ideological alignment to consolidate power
and manage a massive workforce. My argument is
that modern HR is functionally a descendant of
these control systems. It monitors, it categorizes,
and it enforces the ideology of the firm. It
manages the cadres. I just think that comparison
completely collapses when you look at the objective.
The Soviet system was about state coercion and
political survival. In a democratic society,
within a business, HR serves as an ethical guardian.
An ethical guardian? Absolutely. Look at the
code of ethics for the profession. Look at the
actual day -to -day work of an HR professional.
They are the ones tasked with advancing dignity
and safety. Who ensures compliance with the Fair
Labor Standards Act? Who makes sure you get paid
a minimum wage and overtime? Who enforces the
Equal Employment Opportunity Act so that a hiring
manager can't discriminate based on race, sex,
or religion? Lawyers. Lawyers ensure that. HR
just fills out the paperwork to keep the lawyers
away. That's cynical and just incorrect. HR operationalizes
those rights. If a mother needs to take leave
under the Family and Medical Leave Act, FMLA?
She goes to HR. They protect that right against
a manager who might just want her back at her
desk immediately. They are the buffer that enforces
the law within the corporate hierarchy. They're
often the only thing standing between an employee
and an abusive manager. You call it guardianship.
I call it liability management. This is the core
tension. HR ensures compliance, yes, but why?
Is it because the company has a deep moral soul,
or is it because a violation of the Equal Employment
Opportunity Act could cost the firm millions
in a lawsuit? Does the motivation matter if the
outcome is protection for the employee? If the
system forces the company to behave ethically
just to save money, the employee still benefits.
It matters when the interests diverge. If there's
a harassment claim, HR steps in, but their primary
client is the firm, not the victim. They manage
the risk. And look at the broader structural
role regarding unions. There's a concept called
the substitution hypothesis. I'm familiar with
it. It's the idea that HR replaces the need for
unions. Exactly. As private sector union membership
plummeted in the U .S., I mean dropping significantly
in the late 20th century, HR departments exploded
in size and influence. That's not a coincidence.
HR became the substitute for collective bargaining.
They manage the relationship to keep it individual.
They offer just enough grievance resolution to
make a union seem unnecessary, effectively declawing
the workforce. They atomize the employees so
they can't negotiate collectively. I'd argue
the causality is backwards there. The rise of
sophisticated HR made the blunt instrument of
old -school unionism less necessary, especially
for knowledge workers. In the 50s and 60s, companies
realized that one size fits all contracts just
didn't work for talent development. They needed
coaching. They needed succession planning. You
can't negotiate individual career growth through
a collective bargaining agreement. HR stepped
in to treat people as individuals, not just as
labor. It allowed for meritocracy rather than
just seniority. And yet, despite all this individual
focus and meritocracy, the cultural perception
of HR isn't career coach. It's police officer.
Oh. Pop culture exaggerates for effect. It's
low -hanging fruit. But caricatures reveal truth,
don't they? Look at Toby Flenderson from the
U .S. version of The Office. He is the archetype.
He's a nice guy, mild -mannered, but he is portrayed
as a soul -sucking nag. Why? Because his structural
role is to stop the fun. Because fun is a liability
risk. He represents no. He represents the corporate
dampener on human spontaneity. Toby is a comedy
bit about administrative burden. He's not an
indictment of the entire field. Then take a darker
example, Up in the Air, George Clooney's character.
There, we see HR as a purely data -driven function
where people are reduced to metrics to be downsized
when the math doesn't work. That film captures
the terrifying reality of at -will employment
managed by professionals who are experts in decoupling
people from their livelihoods. The strategic
partner there isn't partnering with the employee.
They are partnering with the balance sheet. And
that brings us to the modern era. And I think
this is where the control argument really loses
steam against the reality of efficiency and opportunity.
You're talking about downsizing, but let's talk
about access. Technology has transformed HRM
into a mechanism of empowerment. Technology usually
empowers the system, not the individual. Not
in this case. Look at e -recruiting. 20 years
ago, if you wanted a job, you were limited by
geography and who you knew. It was an old boys
club. Now, HR platforms connect talent to opportunities
globally. It democratizes the job market. And
once you're in, we have virtual management and
human resources information systems, or HRIS.
Which are essentially surveillance tools. No,
they're flexibility tools. You can't have remote
work without these systems. You can't have a
digital nomad lifestyle without an HR infrastructure
that handles virtual onboarding, digital payroll,
performance tracking across time zones. These
systems allow HR to predict turnover risk, not
to fire people, but to intervene and retain them.
It allows companies to say, hey, John is at risk
of burning out. Let's adjust his load. That is
efficiency serving the human need. I see. Digital
Taylorism. We are right back to the stopwatch,
but now the stopwatch is a keystroke logger.
We're analyzing sentiment in Slack messages.
And regarding these systems, we have to talk
about algorithmic bias. Bias is a human problem
that code can inherit, sure. But we can fix code.
It is often easier to fix an algorithm than to
fix a biased manager's heart. It's harder than
that, though. If you feed an algorithm 10 years
of hiring data from a firm that subconsciously
preferred white men, the algorithm learns that
white male equals good candidate. It automates
discrimination at a scale no human could ever
match. But beyond bias, there's a question of
validity. There was a systematic review, a major
meta -analysis, that found the effect size of
HRM decreases when you correct for past performance.
Okay, break that down. What does that actually
mean for the listener? It means HR often takes
credit for talent that was already there. They
hire high performers. Those people continue to
perform high. And HR says, look at our brilliant
management strategy. But the data suggests that
the management added very little. The talent
was the variable. It suggests this whole strategic
partner narrative is a lot of smoke and mirrors
to justify a large administrative overhead. They
are riding the coattails of the employees they
claim to manage. But that ignores the concept
of human capital. You can have raw talent. That's
potential. But human capital is talent plus investment.
It's knowledge. It's training. It's the network.
We distinguish between human resources and human
capital for a reason. Capital implies an asset
you grow. It implies that the knowledge individuals
embody is something we nurture. And that word,
capital, is exactly my point. It is the ultimate
commodification. In finance, capital is an asset
you own. When an asset becomes too expensive
to maintain or when it depreciates, you liquidate
it. When you use the term human capital, you
are explicitly stating that people are items
on a balance sheet. And with the rise of HR analytics,
we are getting dangerously close to a world where
employment is decided by a black box algorithm
that determines your depreciation rate. But we
must measure to improve. If we don't have the
data, we're operating on gut feeling and nepotism.
The data allows us to be objective. Data is never
neutral. It's a tool of the institution. And
when you treat people as data points, you lose
the nuance of the human condition. I want to
summarize my position here. Because I think we're
circling a fundamental reality. Organizations
are collections of people. You cannot just wish
away the complexity of thousands of people trying
to work together. Without the structure of HRM,
without staffing, training, conflict resolution,
ethics compliance, organizations fail. And when
organizations fail, people lose their livelihoods.
Chaos is not a pro -human state. The goal of
HR, as articulated by experts like Dave Ulrich,
is to align strategy with people. Yes, it serves
the business, but it ensures the organization
achieves success through people, not in spite
of them. It fosters development, it protects
rights through compliance, and it builds culture.
That's the ideal. And I don't doubt the good
intentions of many HR professionals, but the
reality is structural. My position remains that
despite the ethical codes and the strategic rebranding,
HR serves the employer's strategic objectives
first, last, and always. The history, I think,
stretches back to the control of Taylorism and
the bureaucracy of state management like the
org bureau. It acts as a buffer against collective
power by substituting for unions. And my fear
is that as we move into the fourth industrial
revolution, we are perfecting the resource management,
the analytics, the surveillance, the efficiency.
while forgetting the human. It's a discipline
that is continuously evolving. We aren't in the
1920s anymore, and we certainly aren't in the
Soviet Union. And the question listeners should
ask themselves when they walk into work tomorrow
is this. Does this department view me as a partner
to be developed or a risk to be managed? A complex
question for a complex field. And we leave it
to you to decide. Can a department designed to
manage resources? Ever fully honor the human?
Or is that tension simply the price of doing
business? Thank you for joining us on The Debate.
Goodbye.