It was pretty characteristic of industrial age methods to view labour as an economic commodity. This is absolutely distinctive of the age with its mechanical infatuation and Newtonian outlook. There is however good reason to interrogate this understanding of labour.
So what do we mean when we say that labour is an economic commodity and why do we often think of labour in this way? Well in the first instance to view labour as an economic commodity to be of the opinion that the sole variable at issue between employer and employee is the price of the commodity which we call labour. The employee has something which he wants to sell, namely his services, energy and input and the employer buys these from the employee by paying the employee a salary.
There is an intuitive pull to this idea. If you ask most people why they go to work they will tell you that they go to work in order earn a living. They are in the working environment because they need material sustenance and employers are in the labour market because they need the services of the employees. Given this surely it is right to think of labour solely in terms of a economic transaction. Why not assert then that the relationship between employer and employee is exhaustively defined as an economic transaction?
The reason we cannot assert this is that it just fails to capture the fact that there is a whole bunch of stuff involved in the employer employee relationship that is not at all part of the economic transaction. What should be immediately apparent is that the employer does not only get the persons labour when they pay the salary, they get the whole person. Every single person has their own baggage. Their own distinctive ways of doing things, their own biography and aspirations, strengths and weaknesses.
It cant be denied that the need for fiscal reward is what brings people into the labour market. Once the salary has been agreed however the economic negotiation stops and the human relationship begins. The relationship is no longer a relationship between employer and employee, it is in fact the relationship between leader and subordinate. This is not an economic transaction, this is an organic relationship between sentient beings.
This is actually the true nature of every single labour transaction. Once all has been said and done leader and subordinate have to work with each other to accomplish certain goals. This relationship is a whole new ball game and requires a lot more from the leader than simply paying a salary. The salary gets the employees through the door. Once they are through the door however the real job of leadership begins and this job requires true skill and quality of character. Paying a salary does not get commitment from employees. You want your people to throw themselves heart and soul at achieving company goals? Then lead them properly.