The department that turned firing into a growth opportunity.
The ability to hold onto something like a clingy ex, whether it's information, employees, or magnetic fields after the power's turned off. In physics, it's the measure of how long a material stays magnetized; in HR, it's the metric that determines whether your company culture is a revolving door or a roach motel. Either way, it's all about not letting go.
A temporary role or project designed to build specific skills or experiences needed for career advancement. It's like a stretch assignment, but with more corporate jargon.
Short for comparative ratio, measuring how an employee's pay compares to the market midpoint for their role. The metric that confirms your suspicions about being underpaid weren't just paranoia.
Workers classified as exempt from overtime requirements under FLSA, typically salaried professionals who can work 60 hours and get paid for 40. The 'promotion' that actually decreases your hourly wage.
A benefits program allowing employees to choose from various options like a cafeteria line, allocating dollars across health insurance, retirement, and other perks. Provides choice while ensuring everyone complains about different things.
Employees who embody and propagate company values, serving as living examples of organizational culture for new hires. They're the people who unironically love the mission statement and won't shut up about core values.
The unique set of benefits and experiences an employer offers in return for the skills and experience an employee brings. It's a marketing pitch, but for jobs instead of products.
The reputation and image a company cultivates as a place to work, usually involving glossy marketing that bears little resemblance to actual employee experience. It's catfishing for recruitment.
The structured approach to transitioning individuals and organizations from the current state to a desired future state. In practice, it's PowerPoints about change curves while employees panic about their jobs.
Fair Labor Standards Act—the 1938 federal law establishing minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor standards. It's the reason you get paid extra for working more than 40 hours, assuming your employer classifies you correctly.
A presentation outlining company values, expectations, and working principles, famously popularized by Netflix. It's essentially a manifesto explaining why the company is different and special, though most sound identical.
The act of stepping into the middle of a conflict to resolve differences, ideally before lawyers get involved or someone updates their LinkedIn status to "It's complicated." Professional mediators facilitate settlements by getting both sides to actually listen to each other—a skill apparently so rare it requires certification. It's diplomacy with a process, and yes, someone's getting paid for it.
In HR contexts, the state of emotional and mental disconnection employees experience from their work, colleagues, or organization. It's what happens when people show up physically but checked out mentally months ago, doing the bare minimum while updating their LinkedIn profiles. Companies spend millions trying to measure and reverse it, usually by adding more meetings about engagement.
A flat organizational structure minimizing management layers and hierarchical levels, theoretically empowering employees and speeding decisions. In reality, it often just means unclear accountability and decision paralysis.
Corporate-speak for when employees have collectively stopped pretending to care, manifesting as decreased loyalty, subtle rebellion, and suspiciously high LinkedIn activity. It's the organizational equivalent of your teenager saying "fine" in that particular tone. Usually caused by poor leadership, broken promises, or one too many mandatory fun activities.
The anthropological term for when cultures collide and one (usually the smaller or newer one) starts adopting the customs, values, and Starbucks preferences of the other. It's the process immigrants and minority groups experience when adapting to a dominant culture, or what happens when your startup gets absorbed by a corporate giant. Think cultural osmosis, but with power dynamics.
Any employment decision that negatively affects a candidate or employee based on background check information, requiring specific legal notifications under the FCRA. It's when your past catches up with you in triplicate forms.
An elaborate plan to convince employees they actually want to stay, usually involving ping-pong tables and the promise of 'unlimited PTO' that nobody actually uses.
A corporate death sentence disguised as a helpful document, essentially telling an employee 'we're giving you 90 days to be someone else, or you're fired.'
The field dedicated to making organizations function better, with a success rate roughly equivalent to therapy for your company's dysfunction.
When employees read honest company reviews on Glassdoor and suddenly realize they're getting paid less for more work than competitors, leading to immediate job searching.
The process of assigning 'levels' to positions (Junior, Senior, Principal, Distinguished, Supreme Overlord) which have virtually no correlation to actual responsibility or pay.
The practice of having permanent employees and contract workers doing nearly identical jobs at vastly different rates and benefits, which is economically genius if morality isn't a factor.
An organizational policy allowing flexible work arrangements—words on a document that managers interpret however they wish.