I hate the term human resources.

I know we've got to call it something, but while human beings are an organization's greatest resource, the term resource dehumanizes the living, breathing human beings who comprise that resource.

If I had my way, HR would just be called the People Department. This is not just some lame attempt to find a politically correct euphemism for the HR department. It's quite the opposite.

Words have power and meaning, and the word resource is a blatantly objectifying term. The term human resources and its evil cousin, human capital, reduce rather than represent the true value people have in your credit union.

You manage resources and capital. You lead people.

My business is not systems or process. My business is people. My argument is that no system or process operates effectively or efficiently without focused, engaged, healthy and relatively happy people at the helm.

It's time to rediscover the human part of human resources.

Don't get me wrong – systems and processes are important. You can manage systems and processes to higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness.

You can only manage people to some degree. Management defines a baseline of performance – leadership pushes through the envelope.

One of the key problems with treating people as resources or capital is the efficiency conundrum. One of the primary goals of process is to identify and improve efficiencies. Engaging, developing and retaining good credit union people is not always an efficient process.

If you want to talk in terms of resources, people are your most complex resource. Their thoughts, feelings, needs and desires do not fit neatly into a regular maintenance schedule. People are not interchangeable parts – even in what might seemingly be the most mundane roles.

If you want to manage a culture of interchangeable people, then treating them as you would any other resource might not be a problem. If you're looking for efficiency, however, factor in the cost of constantly training new hires and the loss of experience and intellectual capital, which you'll endure if you treat people as parts.

An inherent inefficiency is that human beings, unlike other resources, have emotions. Unlike machines and IT infrastructure, people often have personal problems and issues.

Even the best credit union people struggle with personal development challenges that affect performance including discipline, focus and self-confidence. They struggle with personal issues such as addiction, health and family problems.

Fixing these problems is not like replacing parts in a worn out piece of equipment. If a machine is broken, you just replace it.

Fixing a good person often means investing time and energy in the healing process. It means ignoring efficiency in the short term in order to preserve the real human value of a person's experience, domain knowledge, wisdom and leadership.

Leadership is developed through a sometimes painful and inefficient process of introducing challenges, accepting reasonable failures, assessing those failures and integrating that experience.

As I said, you can easily replace a worn out machine. When you replace a person who is struggling, you may lose a promising leader.

I'll finish with a word to current leaders. If you want your people to be engaged – engage them. This means personal human contact with the people you serve. It means mentoring and coaching.

It means showing people that you care. Countless studies show that one of the most motivating factors for employees is simply knowing that the people they work for appreciate them and care about them.

The worst excuse I hear from leaders whenever I talk about personal involvement is that they just don't have the time. Find it.

Your most important role as a leader is to inspire the people you serve and develop the talents, skills and abilities of the people in your care.

Process is important – you manage processes to maximize efficiency. You lead people to expand effectiveness. If you want to make your credit union better, make your people better. They'll make your organization better.

Jim Bouchard is a corporate speaker with Black Belt Mindset Productions. He can be reached at 207-751-4317 or [email protected].