Quantifying Human Resources

3How are Quantified HR Management Tools Appropriated by Different Agents?

The quantification tools used in HR can be considered as management tools (Chiapello and Gilbert 2013). Yet, the dissemination and appropriation by the various actors of a management tool is not necessarily immediate. Thus, Vaujany (2005) recommends looking from different angles to understand the appropriation of a management tool: designers, on the one hand, and users, on the other hand. He shows that there may be a gap between the vision of designers and that of users, and that the use of a management tool always constitutes a gap compared to what was expected by designers. In this case, the designers of HR quantification tools are extremely diverse, from the HR actors themselves to data experts, consulting firms or researchers, for example.

In this chapter, dedicated to the appropriation of quantification tools, beyond this dichotomy between designers and users, it seems important to me to distinguish, albeit roughly, between management actors (management and HR function), on the one hand, who may have an interest in disseminating quantification tools, and employees and their representatives, on the other hand, who may sometimes be reluctant. Indeed, historically, the management or HR function has regularly used quantification as a rationalization tool (section 3.1). Conversely, employees may show a certain distrust of these tools. This mistrust may relate to data collection and processing (section ...