The only vital value an enterprise has is the experience, skills, innovativeness and insights of its people

Leif Edvinsson, Swedish Intellectual Capital guru in Corporate Longitude (2002)

The soft stuff is always harder than the hard stuff

Roger Enrico, Vice Chairman of PepsiCo, referring to areas like HRM as opposed to quantitative factors in Fortune,
November 27th, 1995

I believe in the adage: Hire people smarter than you and get out of their way
Howard Schultze, CEO of coffee chain Starbucks (1994)

Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the
world?
Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, inviting John Scully, then President of PepsiCo, to join Apple in Fortune, September
14th, 1987

The Baring family lost its bank because the management overempowered one individual, Nick Leeson
John Micklethwait in The Witch Doctors (1996)

Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell you that Microsoft would become an unimportant company
Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft in Fortune, November 25th, 1996

True motivation comes from achievement, personal development, job satisfaction, and recognition
Frederick Herzberg 1923-2000, US psychologist

If an institution wants to be adaptive, it has to let go of some control and trust that people will work on the
right things in the right way
Robert B. Shapiro, CEO of chemical company Monsanto in Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 1997

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end
Immanuel Kant 1724-1804, German philosopher

Whether your company produces cars or cosmetics, hiring great people for a business is
always the most important task. After all a company is only as good as the people it keeps,
and as a Recruiting & HR professional you have this responsibility on your shoulders.

With that in mind here are 17 insightful hiring quotes to inspire you to build great teams and
help you make better hiring decisions -

1. “Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”

- Jim Collins, Good to Great

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2. “Human Resources isn’t a thing we do. It’s the thing that runs our business.”

– Steve Wynn, Wynn Las Vegas

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3. “You need to have a collaborative hiring process.”

– Steve Jobs, Apple

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4. “You can’t teach employees to smile. They have to smile before you hire them.”

– Arte Nathan, Wynn Las Vegas

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5. “Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he’s hired to do.”

– Malcolm Forbes, Forbes

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6. “When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgement and
taste. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard.”

- John W. Gardner

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7. “Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost
the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want
somebody to hire his experience?”

– Thomas John Watson Sr., IBM

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8. “It’s more than just selling pizzas. It’s being a good fit for the community. We hire based
on the betterment of the community as much as anything.”

– Mark Starr, David’s Pizza.

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9. “You can have the best strategy and the best building in the world, but if you don’t have
the hearts and minds of the people who work with you, none of it comes to life.”

– Renee West, Luxor and Excalibur Hotel

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10. “I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing
people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.”

– Lawrence Bossidy, GE

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11. “Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for the love of
it.”

– Henry David Thoreau, Life without Principle

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12. “If you think hiring professionals is expensive, try hiring amateurs”

- Anonymous

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13. “The key for us, number one, has always been hiring very smart people.”

– Bill Gates, Microsoft

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14. “Time spent on hiring is time well spent.”

– Robert Half

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15. “I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way”

– Lee Iacocca, ford

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16. “You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb.”

- Andrew Carnegie

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17. “Management is nothing more than motivating other people.”

– Lee Iacocca, ford

Some HR Jargons any HR Professional should know

360 Degree Feedback: In human resources, 360-degree feedback is employee

development feedback that comes from all around the employee. The feedback
would come from subordinates, peers and super ordinates in the organizational
hierarchy, as well as a self-assessment.
Ambiguity Tolerance: Extent to which individual are threatened by or have difficulty
coping with situations that are ambiguous; changing rapidly or unpredictably;
information is inadequate; or where complexity exits.

Assessment Centers: A set of performance simulation tests designed to evaluate a

candidate’s managerial potential.

Attrition: The gradual reduction of the size of a work force that occurs when
personnel lost through retirement or resignation are not replaced

Baby Boomers: A baby boomer is someone who was born during the period of
increased birth rates when economic prosperity arose in many countries following
World War II. In the United States, the term is commonly used to refer to the
generation which demographic popularizers have identified with birth years from
the span 1946 to 1964.

Balanced Business Score Cards: A method of measuring and managing business

performance, presenting a balanced view of financial and operational perspectives
to accelerate the management process.

Bargaining Zone: In any negotiation, the maximum amount that a buyer will pay
for a good, service, or other legal entitlement is called his "reservation point" or, if
the deal being negotiated is a monetary transaction, his "reservation price" (RP).
The minimum amount that a seller would accept for that item is her RP If the
buyer's RP is higher than the seller's, the distance between the two points is called
the "bargaining zone.

Barriers of Communication : (1) Wrong choice of medium, (2) Physical barriers: (a)
noise,(b) time and distance, (3) Semantic barriers: (a) Interpretation of words,(b)
Bypassed instructions,(c) denotations and connotations, (4) Different
comprehension of reality: (a) abstracting,(b) slanting,(c)inferring,(5) Socio-
Psychological barriers: (a) attitudes and opinions,(b) emotions,(c) closed mind, (d)
status-consciousness,(e) the source of communication,(f) inattentiveness,(g) faulty
transmission,(h) poor retention,(i) unsolicited communication.

BARS : (Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale)An appraisal method that aims at

combining the benefits of narrative critical incidents and quantified ratings by
anchoring a quantified scale with specific narrative examples of good and poor
performance.

Behavior Modeling : A training technique in which trainees are first shown good
management techniques in a film and then asked to play roles in a simulated
situation, and are then given feedback and praise by their supervisor.

Behavior Modification: The change in the knowledge, skills, or attitude of an

individual which occurs as the result of a planned set and schedule of
reinforcements

Bench Marking: A job that is used to anchor the employer’s pay scale and around
which other jobs are arranged in order of relative worth.

Big 5 Personality Dimensions: (a) Extroversion (b) Agreeableness (c)

Conscientiousness (d) Emotional stability (e) Openness to experience.

Blue Mooning: The term blue mooning is defined as having an alternative for your
job when you are working in the current organisation

Brain Storming: An idea generation process that specifically encourages any and all
alternatives, while withholding any criticism of those alternatives.

Business Excellence Models: The Business Excellence Model is a nine-box model,

originally developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM).
Its purpose is to "support the management of Western European organizations in
accelerating the process of making quality a decisive influence for achieving global
competitive advantage

Career Anchors: Pivots around which a person’s career swings; require self-
awareness of talents and abilities, motives and needs, and attitudes and values. A
concern or value that you will not give up if a (career) choice has to be made.

Carrot & Stick Approach: Reward or punishment offered in order to get people to do
a certain task

Competency Based Management: Competency-based management refers to the

functional knowledge and behavioral skills essential for sound managerial
performance. Competency-based management appeals to a wide variety of people
including: organizational members assuming greater work responsibilities,
supervisors advancing to higher managerial positions, team leaders dealing with a
broader range of leadership roles and responsibilities, and professionals who want
to become more proficient in supervising and managing functions and processes.

Conflict Resolution Strategies: There are 5 strategies to resolving conflict. The

appropriate style may fall somewhere in between any of these extremes such as
assertiveness and cooperation and can actually change at different moments in the
process. Strategies such as competing, accommodating, avoiding, compromising
and collaborating are used to solve

Corporate Governance: Corporate governance is a field in economics that

investigates how to secure/motivate efficient management of corporations by the
use of incentive mechanisms, such as contracts, organizational designs and
legislation. This is often limited to the question of improving financial performance,
for example, how the corporate owners can secure/motivate that the corporate
managers will deliver a competitive rate of return.

Delphi Technique: Delphi technique is to elicit information and judgments from

participants to facilitate problem-solving, planning, and decision-making. It does so
without physically assembling the contributors.

Eustress: Eustress can be defined as a pleasant or curative stress. Eustress is the

amount of positive energy that motivates, excites and moves you to achieve
something. It's the opposite of distress.

Empowerment: Putting employees in charge of what they do.

EEO: (Equal Employment Opportunity) Where all personnel activities are conducted
so as to assure equal access in all phases of the employment process. Employment
decisions are based solely on the individual merit and fitness of applicants and
employees related to specific jobs, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age,
national origin, handicapping conditions, marital status or criminal record

Expertise Power: Influence based on special skills or knowledge

Exit Management: The term exit management is defined as anticipating the needs
of people in the organisation

Flexi – Time working : Employees work during a common core time period each day
but have discretion in forming their total workday from a flexible set of hours
outside the core.

Gain sharing Plans: An incentive plan that engages employees in a common effort
to achieve productivity objectives and share the gains.

Generation X: The term Generation X is now popularly associated with the people
born between the early to mid-1960s and the early 1980s, although this is
disputed. Generation X has also been described as a generation consisting of those
people whose teen years were touched by the 1980s, although many who are
considered part of this genration had their teenage years stretching into the 1990s.

Generation Y: Generation Y is generally considered to be the last generation of

Americans wholly born in the 20th century, whose birth years have now concluded.
Using the broadest definition commonly cited, Generation Y currently includes

Americans in their mid and early 20s, teenagers, and children over the age of 5

Glass Ceiling Effect: Glass ceiling effects implies that gender (or other)
disadvantages are stronger at the top of the hierarchy than at lower levels and that
these disadvantages become worse later in a person's career

Golden Offering:

Grapevine: The organization’s informal communication network.

Graphology Test: Testing a person’s personality trait by analyzing his handwriting.

Grievance : A complaint of one or more workers with respect to wages and

allowances, conditions of work and interpretations of service stipulations, covering
such areas as overtime, leave, transfer, promotion, seniority, job assignment and
termination of services.

Halo Effect: Drawing a general impression about an individual on the basis of a

single characteristics

Hiring Freeze: Freezing all classified, administrative and bargaining units refers to
employment actions. All current openings are frozen except those where an offer
has been tendered.

In basket: The term in basket can be defined as the decision making technique in
which the real time situations are given to analyse, the ability to take decisions
according to the given situation

Informal Organisation: The term informal organization refers to the unplanned,

informal set of groups, friendships, and attachments that inevitably develop when
people are placed in regular proximity to one other. These relationships, which
grow out of the personal needs of members, are not fully accounted for by the
formal organization; in fact, they are sometimes designed to protect the members
from the demands of the formal organizations. The behaviors and sentiments that
constitute the informal aspects of organization have no place in the formal plan
Intrinsic Motivation: This can be described as a motivation to engage in activities
that enhance or maintain a person’s self-concept. Intrinsic motivation is when a
person is motivated by internal factors, as opposed to the external drivers of
extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation drives a person to do things just for the
fun of it or because he believes it is good or right thing to do.

Job Enrichment: Redesigning jobs in a way that increases the opportunities for the
worker to experience feelings of responsibility, achievement, growth, and
recognition.

Knowledge Management: A process of organizing and distributing an organization’s

collective wisdom so the right information gets to the right people at the right time.

Layoff: A situation in which there is a temporary shortage of work and employees

are told there is no work for them but that management intends to recall them but
when work is again available.

Learning Organisation: An Organisation that has developed the continuous capacity

to adapt and change.

Lockout: A refusal by the employer to provide opportunities to work.

Macro Manpower Planning: Manpower Planning- a conceptual Framework; Macro

and Micro Manpower Planning; Method of Measuring General and Special Abilities
and Aptitude; Evaluating Transfer of Learning to the job; Follow up of Evaluation
Corporate Planning and Manpower Planning; Technological changes and Manpower
Planning; Redeployment; Manpower Planning Practices; Manpower Planning Models;
Career and succession Planning; Personal Inventory and Audit; Controlling
Manpower Costs; Manpower Information System; Use of computer in Manpower
Planning; Linking training with Manpower Planning; Competency Mapping;
Manpower Redeployment

Managerial Grid: A nine-by-nine matrix outlining 81 different leadership styles.

MBWA: (Management By Walking Around) Managers getting away from their desks
and starting to talk to individual employees. The idea is that they should learn
about problems and concerns at first hand. At the same time they should teach
employees new methods to manage particular problems. The communication goes
both ways.

McGregor’s Hot Stove Approach: McGregor’s rule for corrective action. Corrective
action should be immediate, impartial, and consistent with a warn¬ing like the
results of touching a red hot stove.

Micro Manpower Planning:

OSHA: (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) the agency created within
the department of labor to set safety and health standards for almost all workers in
the country (United States).

Outplacement Counseling: A systematic process by which a terminated person is

trained and counseled in the techniques of self-appraisal and securing a new
position.

Performance management: Managing all elements of the organizational process

that affect how well employees perform.

Pooled Interdependence: Interdependence that results when organizational

subunits operate independently of each other in fulfilling their usual work ...

Presenteeism: Employees, who are at the worksite regularly, but for a variety of
reasons, are not producing as they should.

P-CMM: The People Capability Maturity Model (People CMM) is a framework that
helps organizations successfully address their critical people issues.

The People CMM helps organizations characterize the maturity of their workforce
practices, establish a program of continuous workforce development, set priorities
for improvement actions, integrate workforce development with process
improvement, and establish a culture of excellence

Quality of Work Life (QWL): is a comprehensive, department-wide program

designed to enhance HHS' service to the public by improving employee satisfaction,
strengthening workplace learning and helping employees better manage change
and transition. For more information on the history of the QWL Initiative

Reality shock: Results of a period that may occur at the initial career entry when
the new employee’s high job expectations confront the reality of a boring,
unchallenging job.

Rogerian Counseling: Rogerian" or "non-directive" counseling, known as "client-

centered therapy", is a therapeutic method of interviewing that begins with a
client's (patient's) own verbal constructions
Role play: A training technique in which trainees act out parts in a realistic
management situation.

Sabbatical: Leave granted to an employee (university teacher) for study and travel.

Sexual Harassment: Unwelcome advances, requests for sexual favors, and other
verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.

Shorter/ Compressed Work Week: Compressed Work Weeks allows employees to

shorten their work week by one or more days. Employees work their "regular"
number of hours in a shorter-than-normal number of days per week or per pay
period. For instance, 40 hours in four days (4/40) or 80 hours in 9 days (9/80).

Situational Leadership: A contingency theory that focuses on followers’ readiness.

Social Security : Federal program that provides three types of benefits: retirement
income at the age of 62 and thereafter; survivor’s or death benefits payable to the
employee’s dependents regardless of age at time of death; and disability benefits
payable to disabled employees and their dependents. These benefits are payable
only if the employee is insured under the Social Security Act.

Sons of the Soil:

Stereotype: Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to

which that person belongs.

Succession Planning: The process through which senior-level openings are planned
for and eventually filled.

Theory X: The assumption that employees dislike work, are lazy, dislike
responsibility, and must be corrected to perform.

Theory Y: The assumption that employees like work, are creative, seek
responsibility, and can exercise self-direction.

Type A behavior: Aggressive involvement in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve

more and more in less and less time and, if necessary, against the opposing efforts
of other things or other people.

Type B behavior: Rarely harried by the desire to obtain a wildly increasing number
of things or participate in endless growing series of events in an ever-decreasing
amount of time.

Whistle Blowing: Individuals who report unethical practices by their employer to

outsiders.

Wild Cat Strike: An unauthorized strike occurring during the term of a contact.

The top 10 most irritating office jargon in full:

1. Social notworking - messing around on Facebook and Twitter to avoid doing work - 26%
2. Deja brew - offering to make someone a cup of tea when you know for a fact they've just had one in the hope
they will decline - 21%
3. Blue sky drinking - an unlimited free bar at a work party - 18%
4. Drainstorm - a poorly organised workshop, where everyone leaves feeling deflated - 15%
5. Human desourcing - sacking people - 12%
6. Jambivalence - ignoring a printer blockage in the hope that someone else will fix it - 12%
7. Google naps - using Google to work out what time colleagues in the US will be sleeping, to avoid them replying to
emails - 11%
8. WTF?! - the realisation that it is only Tuesday, and you have 'Wednesday, Thursday, Friday?!' still to do - 9%
9. Stock home syndrome - pinching stuff from the office - 7%
10. Shout-of-office - Someone who wants every single person in the building to know they are off on holiday - 6%