Navigating HR Jargon: A Guide to Understanding the Language of Employment

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February 2, 2024

HR English words List of essential English terms for Human Resources

human resource language

After conducting an AR, the Human Resources department discovered that most of the company’s employees would like to see increased opportunities for career growth. In the AAR, the Human Resources team will guide Sally’s department in analyzing the outcome of their project and identifying ways to improve customer experience in the future. Job openings also fell around 20% in March 2023 compared to March 2022, according to an ADP Research Institute report. Around one in five global employees are disengaged or loud quitting, according to a Gallup report. Loud quitting is different than quiet quitting because employees aren’t afraid to show their unhappiness at work and are directly acting out by taking actions that can harm the organization. Now, these workers are choosing to return to the workforce and “unretire.” Reasons for unretirement include the costs of inflation, finding a new sense of purpose and numerous employment choices.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, assess and manage one’s own emotions, as well as others’ emotions. High emotional intelligence is a must-have skill for those working in human resources. Behavioral competency is essentially an evaluation of the behavior qualities and character traits of an employee. How these competencies are defined can vary by employer, but fundamentally they revolve around people skills, managerial skills and achievement skills. An interview scorecard is something that employers use during the hiring process.

If you’re still feeling a little out of your depth but looking to learn business English and break into the English-speaking business world, why not try corporate English training or the Preply business English courses? We offer Human Resources business English courses specifically adapted for HR professionals. Especially if you are working a job that involves high risk, it’s important to understand your company’s WC policy, which explains the benefits you will receive if you become injured as a direct result of your job. Following a merger, the organization eliminated five of its permanent positions, resulting in a RIF.

This includes skills such as communication, admin, HR strategy, coaching, being data-driven, and having a command of technology. “In a work setting, empathy is the ability to see situations from the perspective of all stakeholders. This includes internal employees, shareholders, the communities in which they operate and even the geopolitical environment,” says leadership development and career coach Diane Gallo. In such a role, proactivity can help you in spotting potential problems before they happen or escalate. Proactive and strategic HRM helps to plan and align the core HR tasks in a way that offers the most value to the business. Since the HR department is in charge of TM, they often take extra time to identify and recruit individuals with high potential, training these employees to take on executive roles in the future.

EOB – Explanation of Benefits

Of course, the way you implement translation support in your HR department and company will depend on your particular business needs. Nevertheless, by investing in language services, you’ll promote a more diverse, inclusive workforce — and contribute to the bottom line in the process. A headhunter refers to an individual or a company that provides recruitment services to employers and sources the perfect candidates. Skills related to data-driven working and analytics have emerged rapidly in the last five years. 92% of HR professionals are planning to use people analytics to drive their HR strategy.

If an employee quits on their own, the manager would not have to fill out this documentation. Social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Twitter and TikTok, are giving employees platforms to discuss workplace buzzwords, get others’ opinions and share their personal thoughts and stories. Fostering a multilingual work environment also contributes to better customer service, especially if your company is targeting a culturally diverse customer base. With enough staff on hand to support customers of different languages, nationalities, and cultural backgrounds, you’ll be able to grow the company’s reach and enter markets that would otherwise be inaccessible. Nepotism is preferential hiring of relatives and friends, even though others might be more qualified for those positions.

PM – Performance Management

In turn, employees that speak another language will be more likely to stay with the company, resulting in less turnover. This piece of ad content was created by Rasmussen University to support its educational programs. Rasmussen University may not prepare students for all positions featured within this content. Rasmussen University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, an institutional accreditation agency recognized by the U.S. This is the process of identifying long-range needs and cultivating a supply of internal talent to meet those future needs. It assists in finding, assessing and developing the individuals necessary to the strategy of the organization.

Previous work experience or educational background in Human Resource Management or Industrial and Organizational Psychology are very helpful in an HR professional role. It helps in understanding recruitment, selection, absence procedures, data reporting, and more. These duties include handling employee leave, absence, absence files, the in and outflow of employees, payroll, benefits, and more. Therefore, being an administrative expert can be a huge benefit for any ambitious HR professional. Communicating with stakeholders, the CEO, managers, and employees, at different levels of authority and influence, requires different language and tone.

human resource language

Sick guilt is when an employee feels obligated to go to work even when they are sick. The employee may even feel remorse when they are sick because they can’t perform their best or come to work. Sick guilt is tied to a toxic work environment because employees feel their managers do not trust them. However, some companies may use this tactic to keep employees instead of letting them go. A new viral trend suggests reducing Monday performance pressure to alleviate anxiety for the start of a new work week.

Workers are not afraid to leave their current role for a new job if they are fed up. Nearly 75% of survey respondents from a Lattice Survey study said they were either open to new opportunities or actively looking in the next 6-12 months. Side gigs grew in popularity when the cost of living increased and wages did not keep up with the rising inflation. With the rise of work flexibility, some people can complete these side jobs from home. The pandemic changed the way companies think about layoffs, according to a survey by Employ and Jobvite.

This way of thinking maximizes productivity by eliminating all distractions and focusing on a single job and going into a deep state of labor. It is a useful strategy for preventing burnout from handling too many tasks and projects simultaneously. Well-being washing refers to the practice where companies prioritize projecting an image of being focused on employee well-being for external public relations benefits, while internally neglecting their staff. The outer appearance often contrasts with the reality of the workplace environment where toxic practices persist, and well-being resources are limited. A person doesn’t work strictly for moving up in a company or improving the bottom line, but instead working toward personal dreams and fulfillment.

Moreover, 54% of companies with over 500 employees are increasing HR technology spending by 24% on average. HR professionals with employee experience expertise are able to use human-centric design thinking to put the employee at the center of the workplace design process. Over 80% of employers believe that positive employee experience drives employee engagement, wellbeing, productivity, and talent attraction and retention. A substantial part of recruitment and selection is interviewing candidates, so active listening is also indispensable. What’s more, you also need to ensure that the recruitment and selection process is fair and does not discriminate based on age, gender, ethnicity, or anything else.

UCI – Unemployment Compensation Insurance

The risky practice leaves a digital footprint and can be found on the internet for years to come, which may affect the person’s future employment. As laid-off employees started posting about their job loss on social media, others began questioning whether their employers are as supportive as they claim. The Great Resignation has led to a new trending term – the Great Regret or Great Remorse. During the Great Resignation, 50.5 million people quit their jobs in 2022 and 47.8 million in 2021 for better pay, work environment and work-life balance, according to the U.S. However, a recent study of people who quit their jobs during the Great Resignation shows that one in four people now regrets it and has resignation remorse, according to Joblist. The difference between the skills employers want in a candidate and the experience the candidate has is called the skills gap.

Employees that buy into this culture may think about work during their time off. Employers often test emotional intelligence to ensure employees can handle stressful situations in leadership. The COVID-19 pandemic was a time of change for the way people worked, and millions of people began quitting their jobs in 2021, starting what is now known as the Great Resignation. Forty-eight million people voluntarily left their jobs in 2021, according to the U.S. In addition to this, without translation support you could be cutting yourself off from a large pool of untapped managerial talent among non-English speaking workers. The American workforce has become increasingly diversified in terms of bilingual, multilingual, and LEP (limited English proficiency) employees.

Work is constantly changing due to emerging technologies, such as machine learning, AI and automation, which change the skills employers need. Premium payment and reconciliation involve a monthly review of premium invoices against a company’s payroll deductions. This process ensures that there are no discrepancies and that the correct amounts are being deducted from employees’ paychecks to cover health insurance premiums. Having translation and interpreting support in place can help both managers and employees to communicate effectively, leading to a more harmonious, productive workplace.

Recruitment and selection

This is a three-step process that starts with HRM activities, followed by HRM outcomes and organizational objectives. It reveals how HR activities lead to organizational goals, such as making a profit. Commercial awareness is the ability to understand how the business makes money. Only when you understand your organization’s commercial priorities can you properly support these with tailored HR strategies and tactics, ensuring that HR adds demonstrable value to the organization. HR professionals with strong HR reporting skills are not only able to understand and interpret data, they are able to turn it into compelling messages using storytelling and demonstrate business impact.

Behavioral competency refers to the personality traits or attributes of an individual. An assessment center is a selection process where individuals are assessed using a wide range of selection practices and exercises. An appointment letter is an official document given out by the company to the candidate who has been selected for the job.

As of February 2023, the U.S. unemployment rate of 3.4% is at its lowest since May 1969, according to the U.S. For example, Leonard da Vinci was an amazing artist, mathematician, engineer and inventor. Not only are polymaths knowledgeable on topics, but they also have abundant skills like da Vinci. A modern-day polymath may be athletic and artistic with extensive knowledge of subjects such as history, law, science and literature. A polymath is different from a generalist who knows a little bit about various subjects because the polymath has greater knowledge. The gaslighter forces a person to question their own version of events, causing self-doubt.

By taking the time to learn the language of business, HR professionals can elevate their role and contribute significantly to the organization’s overall success. There are several reasons why it is important for HR professionals to speak the language of business. When HR professionals can speak the same language as business leaders, they are more likely to be seen as trusted advisors and partners. Second, it helps to ensure that HR initiatives are aligned with business goals.

Our human resources professional, Trisha, will take you through the EOB as the hiring process is finalized, but the EOB is also written out in your contract for reference at any point. However, while acronyms are useful for efficiently compressing lengthy contracts or quickly conveying information to large organizations, human resources terminology abbreviations can be quite confusing. Quiet cutting is a passive move by employers to reassign employees to new roles in the organization. However, these new roles are typically less prestigious, pay less and are more demanding.

When in doubt, HR professional Ria advised the employees in her company to refer to the PPM. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. That way, any challenges could be addressed in a uniform and efficient manner across the organization. Since José is NE, he is entitled to minimum wage and overtime pay if he works more than 40 hours per week, unlike exempt employees, who must work until their tasks are completed.

  • This can involve the use of complex predictive analytics on HR data, or the much simpler use of data, for example, by an Excel analysis.
  • People may find it hard to relate to or understand someone going through a certain emotion for a circumstance they have not personally experienced.
  • Inclusive language technology for Human Resources helps educate employees about the power of inclusive language as they write content.
  • A training designed to help employees in an organization accept and respond to attitudes and behaviors that may unintentionally cause offense to others.
  • Companies offered these benefits when competing for talent, but with financial cutbacks, they may not be hiring or feel losing these perks could save money.

Therefore, a strong command of technology is essential for Human Resources professionals. While you do not need to be an IT or data expert, being aware of and skilled in the use of the array of tools and systems available will help you work more effectively and efficiently. This is particularly relevant in organizations with international or remote/hybrid teams.

Hard skills are specific to the job, such as understanding coding for a developer, while soft skills apply to all jobs, such as problem-solving. Eighty-seven percent of companies worldwide said they are already facing a skills gap or will in the near future, according to a survey from McKinsey. To manage this skills gaps, companies are reskilling and training existing employees, shifting workers to new roles, hiring freelancers or contractors, hiring talent and acquiring other firms. Employee experience, or EX, refers to how employees feel about an organization and how they were treated throughout their employment. The employee experience refers to all touchpoints with the company, including the hiring process, employment and employment exit. It is different than employee engagement, which focuses solely on current employment.

In most cases, expecting mothers are granted LWP close to their due date; indeed, refusing to grant LWP for pregnant women would reflect poorly on the company’s investment in the well-being of its employees. Because FT is considered 40 hours a week, a company that has eight employees who each work 10 hours weekly has 2.0 FTE. As a FT employee, you are not required to log your hours in a timekeeping system since you will be paid an annual salary.

human resource language

Although RIFs can greatly impact morale, they are sometimes necessary for the company’s health and viability. In the twenty-first century, it is essential to understand the importance of DEI when hiring, as a collaboration between employees from various backgrounds often increases innovation and enriches the workplace. To clarify what HR abbreviations and acronym meanings are, we’ve compiled a list of the 50 most relevant human resources abbreviations for your reference. Employee burnout is a problem in the workplace caused by a mismatch between job resources and job demands. Symptoms of burnout include severe exhaustion, mental detachment and a feeling of loss of control.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, immigrants comprised 18.1% of the civilian workforce in 2022, and the largest share, at almost 36%, worked in management or professional jobs. With this diversity comes the significance of translation, particularly in human resources materials, and the need for language learning throughout every organization. The other part of the language strategy should focus on language learning to expand an organization globally. The existing linguistic and cultural competency skills should first be assessed in order to identify gaps. Organizational goals, including geographic or demographic markets, should be documented to highlight any gaps in the necessary language and cultural communication skills. Finally, global communication skill development should be supported to allow employees to develop critical skills to connect with business partners or customers.

An interview scorecard helps in standardizing the recruitment process by evaluating candidates on certain standards. A lump sum is provided to an employee when they leave the organization for the services provided by them during the period of employment by their employer. The total cost of recruiting a new employee for the company, including the cost Chat PG of recruitment, equipment, travel costs, administrative costs, and benefits. One field of expertise with its own vocabulary is the division of human resources (HR). There are hundreds of HR words and HR terminology that professionals in this sector use to communicate effectively with their colleagues and successfully perform their work duties.

How to help foreign-born employees improve their English skills? Ask HR – USA TODAY

How to help foreign-born employees improve their English skills? Ask HR.

Posted: Tue, 19 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

The passage of the federal Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act will advance the clean energy workforce, the same report states. Companies do this to gauge the talent pool, and ghost jobs are a way of looking for talent. Recruiters may also use ghost jobs to keep resumes of qualified candidates so they have contacts if an employee leaves or a new position opens. As U.S. workers get comfortable leaving their jobs, quick quitting has gained popularity with people leaving their jobs after working there for less than a year. People are feeling more comfortable finding a new job if they are unhappy versus sticking it out for a longer period.

human resource language

As data plays an increasingly important role in all aspects of the business, HR professionals must be able to translate data into clear, compelling, and impactful stories tailored to different stakeholder audiences. Communicating effectively is essential in Human Resource Management because the HR professional is the link between the business and the employee, representing both parties. Explore the top 6 business French classes and online courses designed to boost your team’s business language proficiency and elevate workplace communication. If you are terminated due to external circumstances—such as company budget cuts—you will likely receive UCI, which will help you pay immediate expenses while searching for a new job or other forms of assistance. Charlie is SNE, meaning that he won’t be able to take New Year’s Eve off without sacrificing his pay. On the other hand, if he chooses to work, he’ll get paid 150% percent of his hourly wage, according to state overtime pay laws for SNE employees.

Explore the challenges and benefits, and discover some best practices for hiring international talent. Working together internally by actively aligning HR activities benefits both the organization and HR. Being a team player also leads to more collaboration, innovation, morale, and satisfaction in the organization and encourages others to work together. As an HR professional, you’re expected to work alongside your colleagues in the HR department, with managers and leaders, and also employees in the organization. Without strong active listening skills, navigating potentially sensitive matters relating to DEI&B will be more challenging, and it will be harder to effectively coach employees and fellow HR professionals.

However, to stay relevant and effective, HR practitioners must proactively enhance their skill sets for the future. Essential HR skills include role-specific and soft skills, as well as business acumen and digital and data literacy. These skills will help HR professionals develop in their careers and contribute to organizational success.

Bare minimum Mondays encourage workers to do the least amount of work possible to start the week. It helps employees feel less anxious over the weekend and less overwhelmed on Monday mornings and Sunday evenings. After the mass exodus of employees during the Great Resignation, more employees are sticking with their jobs in 2023. Coined “The Big Stay,” the next phase of the employee landscape started in 2023. Some actions include bad mouthing superiors, completing tasks incorrectly and leaving online negative comments about the company on sites such as Glassdoor and LinkedIn.

Employee turnover refers to the number of employees that leave the company and are replaced by new employees. A team of people from different operational areas comes together to implement process improvements or to solve problems. Fill out the form to get further information from our team about the Preply language training for companies. Not only are there specialized words and phrases to memorize, but there are also HR acronyms and abbreviations to learn. Exploring an HR terms glossary and other online resources is a great place to begin, but there’s more you can do. For example, practices for managing and retaining people can differ tremendously between cultures.

As a result, individuals often place value more on how they feel.[14] For example, a rewarding system in Human resource management, applied effectively, can further encourage employees to achieve their best performance. One major concern about considering people as assets or resources is that they will be commoditized, objectified, and abused. Critics of the term human resources would argue that human beings are not “commodities” or “resources”, but are creative and social beings in a productive enterprise.

People are quitting for better pay and work-life balance, so they keep looking for better opportunities. A nuanced understanding of HR terminology facilitates clear and precise communication between employers and employees, fostering transparency and reducing the likelihood of misunderstandings. Benchmarking is a process of measuring the performance of an organization or team through a variety of metrics—for example, customer satisfaction rate, sales and retention—for future comparison. Benchmarking can be used to compare internal performance and the external performance of competitors to measure if improvement has occurred. Turnover rate refers to the percentage of employees that leave a company in a given period of time. An interview with potential employees to identify specific skills, wherein a set of questions are asked in a specific order.

Companies are scaling back on some of their fun benefits or perks – known as the perk-cession. Companies are doing these to prepare for a potential recession because benefits and perks tend to coincide with the strength of the economy. Tech shame can keep employees from engaging in meetings or speaking up when there is a problem. https://chat.openai.com/ Younger employees are more likely than older employees to experience tech shame according to a recent HP survey of 10,000 office workers worldwide. One in five younger workers felt shame, whereas only one in 25 older workers did. Hustle culture encourages employees to work longer hours and get work done at a more rapid pace.

The owner, John Henry Patterson, organized a personnel department to deal with grievances, discharges and safety, and information for supervisors on new laws and practices after several strikes and employee lockouts. The pivotal role that HR terminology plays for both employers and employees, highlights its impact on workforce management, communication, compliance, and overall workplace effectiveness. Human Resource and People professionals play a critical role in organizations, ensuring the success of their people and aligning People initiatives with business objectives. However, HR can sometimes be perceived as operating in a silo, detached from the core functions of the business. To overcome this perception and effectively communicate the value of HR, professionals need to speak the language of business.

If you’re interested in taking a step further to learn business English, consider registering your work team for corporate English training with Preply Business or take a business English course. That’s why developing recruiting skills like relationship building, negotiation, and collaboration is vital for HR professionals. Coaching skills are most often developed on the job or in external coaching training, and they are also among the key leadership competencies.

Organizational development refers to the process of building different strategies, policies that help the organization in growing and achieving its goals. This refers to the activities and training used to improve the skills, abilities, and confidence of leaders in an organization. Downsizing of an organization’s workforce by suspension or permanent termination of a worker or group of workers by the employer.

These differences will impact how you try to hire, retain, and promote people, and navigate employee relations. Although the form of administration is changing as technology and HR automation are harnessed, administrative tasks remain a major part of the HR role. Communicating both formally and informally in different ways (such as verbal and written, both in-person and online) is critical. But which skills and competencies are most critical, and what do they entail? In this article, we’ve curated an overview of the most sought-after skills in HR (in no particular order), the impact of these skills, and how to develop them. Learn how to prepare for business negotiations in English, and some key phrases to use.

People are working remotely from various destinations to take advantage of leisure activities after work. In a typical recession, organizations reduce their workforce and consumers slow down spending, which causes the economy to shrink. In a soft-landing recession, the economy slows down to a steady pace with limited labor market cuts while waiting for inflation to decrease. A side gig — or side hustle — is a job that a person works in addition to their primary job to provide supplemental income.

An employee who fits smoothly within the company’s organizational culture, the value systems, leadership structure, and practices of an organization. A bonus wage and other direct or indirect benefits are provided by a company to its employees. You can take an online training course, gain a professional certification, join professional networks, get a mentor or coach, read blogs and industry magazines, and look for on-the-job training opportunities. But of those who work at companies that support wellbeing initiatives, 89% are likely to recommend their organization as a good place to work.

This refers to the hiring of people freshly graduated college students or people with no working experience. Employee satisfaction refers to how satisfied the employees are with their job. It is a measure of the level of satisfaction and content that the employees feel with their job. Employee engagement refers human resource language to the level of dedication and commitment the employees have towards their job. Deferred compensation refers to a part of an employee’s salary which is saved and paid at a later date. A method and manner that describes and implements changes within a company in both its internal and external processes.

As the impact of employee wellbeing becomes clearer, employee wellbeing is growing in importance for organizations. HR professionals have a crucial role to play in ensuring that employees remain happy, healthy, and productive. As people analytics grows in importance, demand for HR reporting skills is increasing too. These skills include the ability to create, read, and interpret HR reports using data from different HRIS. The competencies of an HR practitioner include the ability to understand key HR metrics, such as employee turnover, absenteeism, engagement and retention. This can involve the use of complex predictive analytics on HR data, or the much simpler use of data, for example, by an Excel analysis.

The same survey found people are also looking for higher-paying careers with more flexibility. A manager may quiet fire an employee by giving them the worst tasks and criticizing small mistakes. Quiet firing is a method of getting rid of an employee that a manager may not care for without the possibility of lawsuits, as firing requires documentation leading to the termination.

Because Marisa had already used all of her vacation time and sick leave but was unable to return to work before Thursday, her last three days out of the office were considered LWOP. On page 3 of your contract, you’ll see your HRLY rate increases after you’ve worked your first 50 hours for the company. After the FY ends in June, Allison’s company will be conducting an internal review to determine the best way to allocate bonuses. With our ESO, you’ll be able to buy shares in five different companies at the prices listed in our handbook during your first three months of employment. The following list of HR abbreviations and acronyms presents the acronym, what each term stands for, and an example sentence to help you understand where you might see the HR acronym in context.

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