AI | When employees become 'lower-value human capital', HR should worry

When Standard Chartered boss Bill Winters described employees at risk of redundancy as “lower-value human capital”, it’s no surprise the comments caused a big stir.

Especially when the chief executive of the global bank was referring to thousands of job cuts that were tied to artificial intelligence implementation.

A charitable reading of what Winters might have meant is that perhaps he was trying to distinguish between routine admin work and higher-skilled roles. Perhaps he was simply speaking the language of investors.

But his intentions matter less than his impact. Because when leaders describe people as “lower-value human capital”, they risk reducing years of contribution, loyalty and expertise into a spreadsheet reading. These are people with mortgages, families, responsibilities and careers.