Friend: Every company claims to have the best culture and work-life balance over others in the market, luring candidates to join them. Do you have any protips to identifying a company that respects people, and understand that they have emotions and personal life beyond office?
Me: Not a foolproof one, but you can easily filter most of them with one simple trick.
Friend: That sure is exciting. I can't wait to hear. What is it?
Me: Look for their usage of terms like "HR", "HRBP", "Human Resources", "Resources" in their advertisements, job description, etc. referring to people.
Friend: (Confused) How is that a red flag? Isn't it a common practice?
Me: Let's get it straight and right. Repeat after me: "HUMANS ARE NOT RESOURCES". If you were to shrug off the term, "Human Resource" as common practice, be prepared to be treated as disposable resource. After all the company just demonstrated it in writing that they would treat you so in their advertised works or artifacts. Knowingly or unknowingly they have put it out. Take it or leave it at your own risk.
Friend: I think that makes sense. Thank you! I don't want to be fooled and feel cheated. I will now look out for these terms to classify a company as good/bad. (Scrambling his mobile for sometime..) Hey is it okay if they use any of those taboo terms as hashtags?
Me: (Smiling) Doesn't that sound like an excuse for marketing from the company's end? To them, I would quote George Washington, "It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.". What they did was marketing that their company has a bad culture (apparently unintentional) and that they would compromise on their value systems for benefits.
Friend: (Hugging) I'm enlightened. I'll take that and will spread this message in my circle, for a better tomorrow. Cheers mate!
Me: Cheers!
P.S: In good hopes that this conversation enlightened you as well. And if you do share the spirit that humans are not resources and that they are to be respected, I'm pretty confident you will share this post in your circle for a better tomorrow. Cheers to you!
I don't know if the word Human Resource can be called an oxymoron. But I sure do know that the person using that term should at the very least be a moron.