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This article traces the evolution of Human Resources from its origins in the 1933 Hawthorne experiment—which suggested workers were motivated by feeling valued rather than material incentives—through its explosive growth beginning in the 1960s. The author argues that HR departments expanded primarily by positioning themselves as essential for navigating civil rights and anti-discrimination laws, despite lacking empirical evidence that their practices (diversity training, harassment prevention programs, grievance procedures) actually work. The piece characterizes HR as fundamentally feminine in its approach—prioritizing feelings over material conditions, consensus over conflict, and subjective perceptions over objective standards—and contrasts this with the masculine model of unions that openly acknowledge worker-management conflicts. The author contends that HR’s rise coincided with increased female workforce participation and displaced unions as the primary intermediary between workers and management, ultimately making workplaces more capricious rather than orderly, governed by vague standards of what’s “not a good look” rather than clear rules. The article concludes provocatively by suggesting that HR represents a problematic overlap between too many women having jobs and too many of those jobs being unnecessary.

https://thelampmagazine.com/issues/issue-21/against-human-resources