[rjbwork]

Yes. Same way they call their employees "associates". I don't quite understand the rationale, but if I had to guess, "customer" and "employee" are a bit too on the nose, and they wish to cultivate a more human-feeling relationship between the customers, employees, and corporation in the minds of the former two groups.

[numbsafari]

Not just in the minds of the former two groups, but in the minds of their staff and leadership as well.

If you refer to your team members or employees as "associates" you're much more likely to treat them as equals.

Similarly, if you refer to your customers as "guests", you are much more likely to treat them as such rather than simply treating them as people in your store looking to spend money. It gets to the whole sense of trying to create an experience. As a store that sells a significant amount of home goods and goods for the home, referring to customers as guests instills the sense that employees are creating a home like experience for the customer.

Neurolinguistic programming isn't just for hippies. It's a very popular pseudoscience in corporate America.

[sokoloff]

It is for this reason that I doggedly push back on the use of "resources" when talking specifically about people; I semi-frequently correct this mis-use (IMO) of language.

If you ask "do we have enough resources to compete in segment X?" and you mean resources of all types [including people], that's fine. If you ask "could I have two additional resources on this project" and you mean exactly people, I'll speak up every time.

[drjasonharrison]

Not all associates are at the same level. Some people unfamiliar with this American Business Vocabulary might jump to conclusions.

Some associates are the customers of the systems that you are responsible for and you are the customer for services other associates maintain.

Unfortunately rather than talk about the importance of respect and what happens when respect between members of groups within the organization is violated, these sorts of neurolinguistic fashions are used.

[formerkrogemp]

Ugh, some retailers still call their employees "partners." Kroger would write that every check was 'brought to you by customers' on every paper and digital pay stub. The rosy language is always used to obfuscate the exploitation going on. It's fascinating to see Target slightly improve security over the years after multiple hacks and problems with register security.

[SilasX]

I'm not necessarily against that in general, but if it's a technical article for a technical audience, which this looks to be intended as, they really need to drop the marketing jargon.

[jaywalk]

Anything published by a corporation of Target's size is, at some level, marketing.

[Avshalom]

Walmart has associates, Target has team members.

[Avshalom]

Some real fun horseshit is that the stockers are "designated business owners" and cashier's are "guest advocates"

[spelunker]

I'll have you know, back at my high school job at Subway, employees were known as sandwich artists. So fancy!

[marcosdumay]

I always assumed that "associates" was created to encode the idea that people's salary was mostly commission based. But with you talking about those giant corporations that call everybody by that name, this is either anachronistic or plain wrong.