Modernização sem mudanças: da contagem de cabeças à gestão estratégica de pessoas

Abstract

The major objective of this work was to study how human resources policies contributed to increase productivity in the manual cut of sugarcane in the last two decades. The sucroalccohol sector has undergone deep changes, accelerated after its deregulation, after the extinction of the Sugar and Alcohol Institute - IAA, in 1990. Competitive pressures forced the search for new business strategies in this sector and Human Management was also affected by this new logic in search of competitive advantage. The most significant results of this research reveal that the Human Resources Departments of the productive units in the sucroalccohol sector have gained new configurations and technological sophistication, assuming a more strategic role. The new human management technologies spread through all the areas, including the rural area and, therefore, the sugarcane cutters. However, it should be highlighted that, despite the incorporated technological sophistication diffused in the human appreciation discourse, the human resources policy did not lead to the abolishment of human management practices based on the well known binomium: prize/punishment; on the contrary, these practices are witnessed throughout all the processes of the sugarcane cutters management, starting at their hire, as well as during their training period, payment and dismissal. What establishes the difference between the modern mode from the traditional one is the logic that justifies the prize and the punishment: logic based upon assessment metrics, often praised as being modern and not subject to protectionism. In practice, these human management actions consist of powerful instruments of control and adequation of the sugarcane cutter to meet the requirements of the productive process, aiming at increasing work productivity through mechanisms which cause the cutter work to be more straining and precarious.