The department that turned firing into a growth opportunity.
The strategic effort to create workplaces that welcome and support people from different backgrounds. Easy to talk about; genuinely difficult to implement without tokenism.
The fixed annual wage before bonuses and benefits, the number HR and employees sometimes interpret as meaning different things.
The process of officially signing someone up to participate in a program, class, or organization—the bureaucratic moment when you become a statistic. It's the headcount that justifies the program's existence in spreadsheets everywhere.
The art of convincing talented people that your company is better than it actually is, using promises of growth, culture, and work-life balance that may or may not materialize. The corporate equivalent of dating, except with background checks and non-disclosure agreements.
A numerical rating of employee satisfaction and commitment, derived from surveys that employees fill out while muttering about their workload.
The annual period where employees frantically read health plan documents they don't understand while HR assures them everyone will eventually understand the deductibles.
Compensation offered to terminated employees, typically designed to be just generous enough to avoid lawsuits while leaving people financially strained.
The legal obligation employers have to maintain a safe workplace and protect employees from foreseeable harm, often honored more in breach than in observance.
When salary differences between experience levels become too small, creating frustration among senior employees earning barely more than new hires.
Legal claim by employees who were fired illegally, the phrase that suddenly makes HR departments extremely cautious about documentation.
US federal law prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities and requiring workplace accommodations, whose spirit is frequently circumvented through creative interpretation.
A humorous reference guide outlining the complete job description of staying home to raise children, including responsibilities, job security, career advancement, and benefits packages. Spoiler: the benefits are 'love' and 'eternal exhaustion.'
A standardized unit of measurement representing one full-time employee's work capacity, used to calculate staffing levels when you have a delightful mix of full-time and part-time workers.
An annual or semi-annual evaluation where managers document what they forgot about your work since last review, often contradicting the praise they gave in real-time.
Educational programs designed to reduce prejudice in hiring and management decisions, with questionable efficacy but excellent optics.
Legal contract preventing employees from discussing company secrets, salaries, or workplace abuse, essentially buying silence with legal threats.
Legal limitation preventing employees from competing with the employer after leaving, though courts evaluate whether the restriction is actually necessary.
The bureaucratic obstacle course of background checks, reference calls, and invasive questioning designed to ensure you're 'safe' before they commit. It's HR's way of covering their liability while pretending to protect organizational integrity.