Changing Personnel to Human Resources was definitely the start of that process.
It was an attempt to "professionalize" the work that Personnel departments did and make it sound more important.
It meant that you could have "Vice President of Human Resources" which sounds as "impressive" as "Vice President for Manufacturing".
It also leads towards today's stupidities where these same people are called things like "Leader for People and Culture" or some other BS touchy-feely title.
Employers do what they can to commoditize and standardize their use of workers. Anything to make them more fungible makes them more replaceable and therefore easier to a) lower costs (ie wages) and b) automate.
Re:Restaurant workers quit at record rate
by DubiousPusher on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @03:02AM
(#27903170)
At eery restaurant job I worked and every restaurant job anyone in my family worked, the management was poor. Their worst sin was writing the schedule last minute every damn week and wielding it like a weapon. Get on the wrong side of the boss and you get the worst shifts posted at the last possible notice.
Re:Restaurant workers quit at record rate
by acituan on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @04:29PM
(#27911718)
I must say, as much as I agree with the contents of your argument, and I am not saying this was intentional, I resent the fact that you've co-opted the reply-space to plug back in managerial or organizational culture issues, which was already being discussed in the rest of the thread extensively.
I wish you would have stayed on topic with the idea of customer culture issues, or lack thereof.
Like, There was a cultural shift some decades ago, and as corny as it sounds, the shift in culture began when we went from having a "Personnel Department" to "Human Resources" - resources are something you often extract and use up, to the point we have a special way to call out resources that are renewable.
As much as I hate the "words matter" phrase, I think here they clearly do, as they've clearly subtly altered peoples thinking about people who work for them, and their disposability.