The department that turned firing into a growth opportunity.
The clinical, robotic word for firing someone that makes it sound like deactivating a piece of equipment. HR uses it because saying "we ended a human's livelihood" doesn't fit neatly in a dropdown menu.
The process of identifying who will take over key roles when current leaders leave, retire, or ascend to a higher plane of executive retreat. In practice, it means everyone secretly knows who the backup is except the backup, who finds out the day their predecessor quits.
Full-Time Equivalent, a unit of measurement that reduces human beings to fractions. You might be 1.0 FTE, 0.5 FTE, or, if you're on three cross-functional committees, approximately 3.7 FTE squeezed into one salaried body.
A notice period where departing employees remain on payroll but are barred from working or accessing company resources, preventing them from sharing secrets with competitors. Paid time off for being too dangerous to keep around.
The formal judgment of someone's value or performance, usually delivered in a conference room that smells like stale coffee and broken dreams. In HR contexts, it's that annual ritual where your boss tells you that your 'growth opportunities' are really just code for 'things you're bad at.' In real estate, it's the number that determines whether your refinance dreams live or die.
Paid time off that's definitely not a vacation, given while the company investigates whether you did something fireable. It's the corporate equivalent of "go to your room while we decide your punishment."
Employees whose skills, knowledge, or roles are essential to business success and difficult to replace. They're the people who get retention bonuses while everyone else gets 'market adjustments' that don't match inflation.
The corporate world's way of saying 'here's some extra cash for specific things' without calling it a raise. This could be travel allowances, housing allowances, or that sweet per diem that employees definitely use exactly as intended. In accounting, it's also shorthand for 'money we've set aside because we know something will probably go wrong.'
Illegally treating employees as independent contractors to avoid taxes, benefits, and labor protections. It's wage theft with extra steps and a business model for the gig economy.
A structured program where you learn a trade by actually doing it under an expert's guidance, as opposed to modern education where you rack up debt reading about it. The original learn-while-you-earn model that combines hands-on training with getting paid, proving our ancestors understood work-life balance before it was a buzzword. Historically how people became blacksmiths; today, how people become electricians without student loans.
A structured model defining the skills, knowledge, and behaviors required for success in various roles. It's HR's attempt to reduce the art of doing a job well into a checklist.
The art of making an employee's job so unpleasant they quit voluntarily, avoiding the legal and financial costs of termination. It's constructive dismissal with a euphemistic name and plausible deniability.
Compensation components included in base salary calculations, as opposed to 'below-the-line' benefits and perks. It's the money that counts for calculating everything from bonuses to retirement contributions—the stuff that actually matters.
Software that manages job applications, resumes, and candidate communications throughout the hiring process. It's the black hole where your carefully crafted resume goes to die because it didn't contain the right keywords.
A manager who swoops in unexpectedly, makes a lot of noise, dumps on everything, and flies away leaving others to clean up the mess. They're absent until there's a crisis, then arrive to criticize without context or solutions.
A performance management system requiring managers to rank employees against each other and place them into predetermined categories, typically firing the bottom performers. Jack Welch's gift to corporate culture, also known as 'rank and yank.'
HR's favorite buzzword for processes that supposedly work across large employee populations without breaking down. In reality, it means copying whatever worked for 50 people to 5,000 and hoping for the best.
The state of not being present where you're expected to be, meticulously tracked by HR departments with the enthusiasm of bounty hunters. In corporate settings, unplanned absences are treated like minor felonies, while planned ones require filling out forms in triplicate six months in advance. The number one cause of passive-aggressive emails from managers who 'just wanted to check in' about your whereabouts.
A contract provision requiring disputes be resolved through arbitration rather than court—basically, the company's get-out-of-lawsuit card.
A performance evaluation process where employees receive confidential, anonymous feedback from everyone around them—supervisors, peers, subordinates, and sometimes clients. It's like being roasted from all directions, but professionally.
The initial introduction of new employees to company policies, culture, and logistics—where the bathrooms are, how to submit timesheets, and why Carol from accounting gets territorial about the microwave. It's everything you need to know to not embarrass yourself on day one.
Making an employee's job so miserable they quit voluntarily, thereby avoiding severance obligations and unemployment claims. It's constructive discharge with better PR, often involving workload manipulation, exclusion, or denial of opportunities.
Unofficial reference checks conducted through personal networks rather than provided references, because everyone knows candidates only list people who'll say nice things. It's employment due diligence meets LinkedIn stalking.
Corporate doublespeak for reassigning employees to different roles when their current positions are eliminated, often against their will or abilities. It's like musical chairs, except when the music stops, you're now doing someone else's job.