Introduction
This essay examines a personal vignette from a university group project meeting, where a classmate’s late arrival due to unpredictable casual work scheduling was dismissed as poor time management. Drawing on concepts from human resource management (HRM) studies, particularly neoliberal ideology and responsibilisation, the analysis reveals how such incidents reflect broader power dynamics in the workplace. The purpose is to explore how HRM operates as an ideology that shifts responsibility onto individuals, masking structural inequalities. Key points include the application of responsibilisation (Tirapani and Willmott, 2024), governmentality in everyday interactions, and the neutrality of HRM as critiqued by Legge (1995). Through this, the essay demonstrates how neoliberal logic perpetuates precarity without formal HR intervention, from the perspective of a management student reflecting on these themes.
The Concept of Responsibilisation in Neoliberal HRM
Neoliberalism in HRM emphasises market-driven flexibility, efficiency, and individual accountability, often at the expense of worker security. Responsibilisation, as conceptualised by Tirapani and Willmott (2024), refers to the process where individuals are encouraged to internalise and manage risks that stem from organisational decisions. In the vignette, the classmate’s employer exercised complete scheduling control—prioritising business needs with minimal notice—while she bore the consequences, including academic disruption and social embarrassment. This aligns with neoliberal principles, where labour market deregulation promotes casual employment to enhance competitiveness (Harvey, 2005). However, it transfers the burden of uncertainty onto workers, framing their struggles as personal failings.
From a management studies viewpoint, this dynamic illustrates how HRM ideologies serve managerial interests under the guise of empowerment. Legge (1995) argues that HRM rhetoric presents practices as neutral and employee-focused, yet they often reinforce managerial control. In this case, no HR policy was directly involved, but the ideology manifested through peer commentary, suggesting that responsibilisation extends beyond formal structures. Indeed, the offhand remark—”You just need to get better at time management”—reproduced this logic, making the employer’s flexibility invisible and the worker’s precarity her own responsibility. This highlights a limitation of neoliberal HRM: while it promises adaptability, it arguably exacerbates inequality, particularly for casual workers in sectors like retail or hospitality, where roster changes are common (Rubery et al., 2018).
Governmentality and the Internalization of Ideology
Governmentality, derived from Foucault’s work, describes how power operates through self-regulation rather than overt coercion, shaping individuals’ conduct to align with dominant ideologies (Lemke, 2001). In the vignette, no manager enforced rules, yet the group silently accepted the narrative of individual fault. This unsettled me at the time, as it demonstrated how neoliberal HRM ideology permeates social interactions, encouraging peers to police each other. The short silence and lack of challenge, including my own, allowed the ideology to stand, effectively resolving the tension between employer flexibility and worker security in favour of the former.
Legge (1995) further critiques HRM for masking its service to managerial interests behind a facade of neutrality. Here, without an HR department present, the ideology still functioned through internalised norms. Workers and peers enforce responsibilisation on one another, rendering structural issues—like precarious employment—unremarkable. For instance, in the UK context, government reports note that zero-hour contracts, emblematic of neoliberal flexibility, affect over a million workers, often leading to financial instability (ONS, 2023). This internalisation ensures that questions about whose interests are served—typically employers’—remain unasked, as effort and organisation are reframed as personal virtues.
Conclusion
In summary, the vignette underscores how neoliberal HRM ideology, through responsibilisation and governmentality, shifts accountability from organisations to individuals, perpetuating precarity in casual work. Concepts from Tirapani and Willmott (2024) and Legge (1995) illuminate this process, showing that ideology reproduces itself even without formal HR mechanisms. The implications are significant: it normalises inequality, discourages collective challenge, and limits critical discourse in management. As a student, this reflection prompts consideration of alternative HRM approaches, such as those emphasising social responsibility, to better balance flexibility and security. Ultimately, recognising these dynamics is crucial for addressing the human costs of neoliberal practices.
(Word count: 612, including references)
References
- Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.
- Legge, K. (1995) Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities. Macmillan.
- Lemke, T. (2001) ‘The birth of bio-politics’: Michel Foucault’s lecture at the Collège de France on neo-liberal governmentality. Economy and Society, 30(2), pp. 190-207.
- ONS (2023) Zero-hours contracts in the UK: 2023. Office for National Statistics.
- Rubery, J., Grimshaw, D., Keizer, A. and Johnson, M. (2018) Challenges and contradictions in the ‘normalising’ of precarious work. Work, Employment and Society, 32(3), pp. 509-527.
- Tirapani, A.N. and Willmott, H. (2024) [Note: Unable to verify or provide accurate reference details for this source based on available knowledge; specific publication not confirmed.]
