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Edited By: Andrew Gonzales

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Corporate America wants to dehumanize you and turn you into a human resource… but… that’s actually a good thing…

The most expensive and difficult part of running any business is managing the workers. Companies can achieve great success just by hiring the right talent even if their product offering is below the standard of competitors. Companies can also fail if they hire bad employees even if the rest of the business out-classes their competitors.

The success of any business hinges on a group with diametrically opposed motivations to the owners. As an employee you want to be paid a lot of money, but your company wants to pay you as little as it can. As an employee you want to work flexible hours, but your company wants you to be available at all times just in case something comes up. As an employee you want a comfortable working environment, but your company wants everybody to give up working from home to come in to open plan offices that are cheaper than giving people space and privacy.

Back before the World War One the opposition between employers and employees was not kept a secret. The new industrialists demanded long hours in dangerous factories and the workers pushed back through organized and often violent strikes. The industrialists still had the upper hand because they could easily hire able bodied men from farm work that paid less.

After the war skills became more important and just being able bodied was not enough to work in the more mechanized factories of the early twentieth century. Skilled labor unions were gaining the upper hand. The industrialists needed a new approach to ensure they could keep getting the most out of their workers and so Human Resources was born.

The first HR department was formed in 1901 by the National Cash Register Company, they called it the Personnel Management Department and it was formed in response to several organized staff walkouts and strikes over working conditions and pay.

The National Cash Register Company employed workers skilled in arithmetic to keep books for regional banks before electronic computers. The people working on the floor of this business were actually called computers, that was their job title, the automated adding machines that came later would be named after them, but that’s a story for How History Works.

The new Personnel Management Department was established to do three things. One, train management on new workplace laws and policies, two, handle hiring and firing of workers, and three, mediate workplace grievances between employees and managers. What the company had done was privatize a labor union and bring it directly under their control while making it appear as if they were doing this all for the good of their employees.

Because the National Cash Register Company employed skilled workers that were hard to train and replace their new Personnel Management Department made sense to be the prototype HR department, but one hundred and twenty years later nothing has changed. When Starbucks, Amazon and Walmart fight against worker unionization they say that a union will just get in the way of working directly with the company to resolve worker grievances.

No matter how they present themselves human resources works for the company, they want to turn you into a resource that’s cheap, hardworking and doesn’t complain but the best part is this can easily be used to your Advantage.

So it’s time to learn How Money Works to find out why corporate America trying to dehumanize you is actually a good thing.

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