Why Humans are Considered as a Resource?


Our earth has a large variety of natural resources like land, water, soil, forests, animals and minerals. Human beings so can discover, exploit, develop, and convert these natural resources into useful articles. (Oxford dictionaries, n.d). Human beings are the greatest resource and the most important asset on earth because of being a human being — able to think, strategize, rationalize, decide what is the best action, compassionate etc… (Lifesitenews.com, 2013)

Source means medium (barring any positive or negative trait), and resource means a positive medium. Whenever a term “resource” is suffixed with humans, it simply means wheresoever the human beings are involved, there exists the involvement of their positive traits in the form of their physical & mental labor, their decision-making skills, their financial planning skills, their dedication towards the job performance, their group cohesiveness & teamwork, and many as such direct or indirect traits that adds to the asset value and success to any big small organization with which they are associated. (Pediaa.com, 2015)

In my understanding of ‘Humans’ as ‘Resources’ is based on concepts of business and capitalism.

Humans have the following qualities:-
  •     Intelligence
  •     Analytical skill
  •     Physical Capabilities
  •     communication
  •     persuasion
  •     Intellectual
  •     Sense
These above-mentioned qualities makes a human more resourceful for development and expansion for economic advancement.

With the advancement of the technology, one can argue the value of the human resource is decreasing due to improvements of AI, robotics, etc., however, we can argue the fact that due to the modern technological advancements, humans are more valued as a resource for their brains than their physical capabilities. When these technological advancements offer solutions to replace human activities, humans will have more demand in the areas of creativity resulting the humans to continue as useful resource for organizations and for the overall development of the civilization. (EY.com, 2018)

References

Oxford Disctionaries. (n.d) natural resources. [Online] Available from: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/natural_resources. [Accessed 20th December 2019].

Joe Carter. (2013) Secular economist discovers: Human beings are our greatest natural resource. [Online] Available from: https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/secular-economist-discovers-human-beings-are-our-greatest-natural-resource. [Accessed 20th December 2019].

Pediaa.com. (2015) Difference Between Source and Resource. [Online] Available from: https://pediaa.com/difference-between-source-and-resource/. [Accessed 20th December 2019].

EY.com. (2018) artificial intelligence for human resource opportunities and functions. The new age. [Online] 4. Available from: https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-the-new-age-artificial-intelligence-for-human-resource-opportunities-and-functions/$FILE/EY-the-new-age-artificial-intelligence-for-human-resource-opportunities-and-functions.pdf [Accessed 20th December 2019].

Comments

  1. Managing People In An OrganizationDecember 20, 2019 at 1:15 AM

    Really helpful and well detailed

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 21, 2019 at 7:13 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Asanka BandularatneDecember 21, 2019 at 11:23 PM

    Yes agree with you. Ancient pass, many entities thought that people factor is liability. But after many decades managers found that people can use for achieve companies strategic and primary goals and it will directly link with the performance also. In here you clearly said that people can use in many ways with their competencies. Good one.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nanda TDecember 24, 2019 at 3:58 AM

    Very interesting article. As you clearly mentioned human resource will be more useful with technological advancement as human resource is needed to use technology.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anjanika PothuheraDecember 24, 2019 at 8:34 AM

    As you said in your words " Humans are more valued as a resource for their brains than their physical capabilities."
    So true. With the technological movement even though the organizations focuses on the digital equipment no one can match them with the capabilities , sense and skills of humans.

    ReplyDelete
  6. chamalkaJanuary 9, 2020 at 10:58 PM

    interesting topic ...mainly you have given the priority to human resource that's really good but according to my view in the future AI will be the most demanding resource that the employer or owners can have .coz this concept developing very aggressively.sooner AI will take away many jobs ......

    ReplyDelete
  7. chamilaJanuary 12, 2020 at 8:20 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. chamilaFebruary 5, 2020 at 12:03 AM

    Positive argument about the humans analytical skills, critical thinking, sense,communication compare to other life forms. ‘Humans’ as ‘Resources’ is based on concepts of business and capitalism conclude above argument is true in several research work projects.

    ReplyDelete
  9. sanjeewaniFebruary 19, 2020 at 6:22 PM

    and also they are part of value creation in a particular sector of the economy.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ChathuriFebruary 21, 2020 at 1:42 AM

    Well said.Humans are the foundation of all the sources and the link to everything. Without humans, nothing will operate and nothing will be done.

    ReplyDelete
  11. shelton wijesundaraFebruary 21, 2020 at 7:29 AM

    No matter how advanced the technology, AI becomes. we can never forget that they are also a creation of the greatest resource in the world, namely humans. Great topic!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Shankari DhivyaFebruary 21, 2020 at 11:13 PM

    you have described this in a beautiful way which i got understand very clearly

    ReplyDelete
  13. Malaka JayawardenaFebruary 23, 2020 at 6:30 AM

    exactly, managers need to consider human as the capital

    ReplyDelete
  14. thusithafernandoFebruary 23, 2020 at 10:04 AM

    Good one .

    ReplyDelete
  15. VirajtFebruary 23, 2020 at 10:06 PM

    thanks for your intervention. Humans should not be considerd as crude materials, even if they are used as resources in some countries and industries.

    ReplyDelete
  16. thusitha86.blogspot.comFebruary 24, 2020 at 10:18 AM


    Human resource management deals with manpower planning and development related activities in an organization. Arguably it is that branch of management where ethics really matter, since it concerns human issues specially those of compensation, development, industrial relations and health and safety issues.

    ReplyDelete

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