Articles
Milestones in the military background of HR
Tuesday, October 28th 2008
Author: Irina Ivan
When Henry Ford wondered why people bring their heads at work if all he really needed is their hands and feet, he expressed the core of the 19th century business mentality. Back then, the work itself and not the people behind it counted. A turning in this way of thinking took place in 1920's when psychologists and work experts in the US started the Human Relations movement, which viewed workers in terms of their psychology and fit with their companies. From that point, HR started to grow into a much deeper professional field, with focus not only on recruitment, but also on motivation, loyalty, leadership and group cohesion. Over the years, HR pilled new practices and branches, but recruitment remained at the heart of the field as the effectiveness of all the HR activity depends on the quality of the new employees.
Recruitment is the oldest HR activity, but also one of the oldest professional activities in the world. As its name shows, the recruitment activity is basically related to the military enlistment, which means that recruitment practices can be found back in the ancient history. Otherwise, HR field in general seems to have taken over many of the military practices.
The Roman Empire can be considered the first organization that had a coherent recruitment strategy. "War of Talent", "personnel deficit" are often mentioned as challenges on the HR market, these days. Taking into account the powerful employee-referral program developed about 2 millenniums ago by the Roman army, we might think that they were facing these challenges, too. In the collections of the British Museum, there is a decree signed by Julius Caesar in 55 B.C., promising a reward of 300 sestertii to any soldier who brought another to join the Roman army. The amount represented a third of a soldier's annual payment. Today, similar employee-referral programs are a common practice in industries where mass-recruitment is needed.
Temporary hiring is another current HR practice that may seem to have been recently discovered, but the history of the Ancient Rome proves the contrary. Confronted with a manpower shortage, the Roman Army decided to hire mercenaries. These were Germans, Arabs, Armenians, Persians and Moors and, often, they were hired in so high numbers that they exceeded the Roman legions. The non-Roman manpower hired to cover the needs of the Roman army on short-term were called auxilia, but as the Roman Empire was constantly at war, they soon began to be considered regular soldiers. The reward offered to the mercenaries fighting in the Roman army was the Roman citizenship.
The Ancient Greek army faced even more serious personnel deficit taking into account the small size of the Greek states and the low number of inhabitants and used to hire mercenaries through recruiting agents or through diplomatic channels and interstate treaties. But unlike Romans who integrated mercenaries into their army and treated them as one of them, Greeks limited their staying to nine or ten months to avoid investing in training them on the "organizational culture".
The Roman Empire is also a pioneer in the retention and motivation strategies, as it came up with bright solutions in attracting and retaining the soldiers as long as it was needed. Until the end of the 2nd century BC, when Marius Gaius was elected Consul and assigned with running the Empire's army, the Roman army consisted of landowners and farmers who were forced to serve for six years and longer if they wished. Back that time, the Roman army was loosing people during the repeated attacks of the German tribes. As the category of landowners and farmers (the only eligible for the Army) was decreasing, Marius Gaius came up with a series of solutions that raised the professionalism of the Empire's Army. First of all, he allowed all the social categories to enroll in the Army. His next measures aimed at retaining the recruited people and at gaining their loyalty. That's why he ensured payment and wages for the recruited people, war spoils and retirement bonuses. But, most important, he provided them with a career opportunity. Before Gaius had been named Consul, the landowners and farmers were forced to serve the Army for six years or more, if they wished. If, for them, Army was a transitory stage, the poor, jobless and landless people who were entering the reformed Army were given the chance of a 20-25 years long career. The Roman Army's motivation strategy included, besides incentives and career development opportunities, creating the feeling of belonging to an elite class. The Romans aggressively promoted its symbols, in particular a golden eagle above the letters SPQR, the abbreviation for "the Senate and the Roman People," signifying that soldiers served these two groups. When he was joining the army, a soldier was tattooed with these symbols of the Roman honor. As barbarian as it may seem, the practice of pointing out the belonging to a certain work group was not totally lost. For instance, for Nike employees is not unusual to get a tattoo representing the swoosh symbol (most often below the knee on the left leg - the lead leg for runners at the start of a race). The group of Nike employees who set the trend of tattooing the Nike logo are called EKINS (Nike spelled backwards).
Recruitment activities existed also in the Ancient Egypt, during the time known as the Old Kingdom and were also linked to military forces. Back then, Egyptians had a system for recruiting the Militia, a structure assigned with the supervision of the tribes. Egyptians seem to have associated recruitment with training, having officials responsible with the instruction of the Militia members and with the logistics.
By 1550 B.C, in the period known as the New Kingdom, recruiting had become part of the formal duties of the king. An inscription from the reign of Amenemhat II from Memphis proved that the king was responsible for recruiting manpower for the kingdom's needs. According to this inscription, the Pharaoh was required to ensure that there were enough men of appropriate talent for an expedition to destroy Syria and other enemies.
The Chinese contribution to the Recruitment process consists in the development of formal testing programs. Introduced in the 7th century AD, the tests were taken only by those coming from aristocracy and seeking to enter the civil service. Starting with the 10th century, during the Sung dynasty, the testing system was expanded to all vacant positions. The tests taken back then were very difficult and long, including a regional and a metropolitan stage. The candidates had to memorize the Five Confucian Classics, interpret passages, master their literary style and use Confucian philosophy to interpret the Classics and construct political advice. Only 15-20 % of the candidates, meaning around 200 per year, passed the exams.
Nowadays, we hear so often companies claiming that their number one priority is their people or that they match the right people with the right company. But how many of them developed a recruiting process as complex and reliable as the one developed by the Chinese thousands of years ago? How many organizations manage to correctly identify their needs in terms of personnel and come up with a plan perfectly linked to it, as Romans and Greeks did?
In the HR as in many other fields, great innovations seem to have happened a long time ago. We tend to think that, during time, we come a long way in all areas of activity. But when we take a closer look to the way our predecessors managed situations similar to the ones we are facing, we surprisingly discover that not only we did not come a long way, but that there are lessons to be learned from the past.
Resources:
John R. Hilde, The Imperial Army in the Roman Empire, http://ezinearticles.com
Josh Feit, The Nike Psyche, http://wweek.com
Michael Losey, HR comes of age - history of human resource management, http://findarticles.com
Raghav Singh, History of Recruiting: Part 1, http://www.ere.net
Raghav Singh, History of Recruiting: Part 2, http://www.ere.net
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