Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include manpower, labor, labor-power, or personnel.
In United States labor law, a hostile work environment exists when one's behavior within a workplace creates an environment that is difficult or uncomfortable for another person to work in, due to illegal discrimination. However, a working environment that is unpleasant and frightening for the victim due to sexual advances that have been denied by the victim, is what constitutes hostile work environment sexual harassment. Common complaints in sexual harassment lawsuits include fondling, suggestive remarks, sexually-suggestive photos displayed in the workplace, use of sexual language, or off-color jokes. Small matters, annoyances, and isolated incidents are usually not considered to be statutory violations of the discrimination laws. For a violation to impose liability, the conduct must create a work environment that would be intimidating, hostile, or offensive to a reasonable person. An employer can be held liable for failing to prevent these workplace conditions, unless it can prove that it attempted to prevent the harassment and that the employee failed to take advantage of existing harassment counter-measures or tools provided by the employer.
Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any other entity, pays the other, the employee, in return for carrying out assigned work. Employees work in return for wages, which can be paid on the basis of an hourly rate, by piecework or an annual salary, depending on the type of work an employee does, the prevailing conditions of the sector and the bargaining power between the parties. Employees in some sectors may receive gratuities, bonus payments or stock options. In some types of employment, employees may receive benefits in addition to payment. Benefits may include health insurance, housing, disability insurance. Employment is typically governed by employment laws, organisation or legal contracts.
A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing an organization. Originally, layoff referred exclusively to a temporary interruption in work, or employment but this has evolved to a permanent elimination of a position in both British and US English, requiring the addition of "temporary" to specify the original meaning of the word. A layoff is not to be confused with wrongful termination. Laid off workers or displaced workers are workers who have lost or left their jobs because their employer has closed or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their position or shift was abolished. Downsizing in a company is defined to involve the reduction of employees in a workforce. Downsizing in companies became a popular practice in the 1980s and early 1990s as it was seen as a way to deliver better shareholder value as it helps to reduce the costs of employers. Research on downsizing in the US, UK, and Japan suggests that downsizing is being regarded by management as one of the preferred routes to help declining organizations, cutting unnecessary costs, and improve organizational performance. Usually a layoff occurs as a cost-cutting measure. A study of 391 downsizing announcements of the S&P 100 firms for the period 1990-2006 found, that layoff announcements resulted in substantial increase in the companies’ stock prices, and that the gain was larger, when the company had prior layoffs. The authors suggested, that the stock price manipulation alone creates a sufficient motivation for publicly-traded corporations to adopt the practice of regular layoffs.
The New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University (ILR) is an industrial relations school and one of Cornell University's four statutory colleges. The School has five academic departments which include: Labor Economics, Human Resource Management, Global Labor and Work, Organizational Behavior, and Statistics & Data Science.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, genetic information, and retaliation for participating in a discrimination complaint proceeding and/or opposing a discriminatory practice.
Recruitment is the overall process of identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, and interviewing candidates for jobs within an organization. Recruitment also is the process involved in choosing people for unpaid roles. Managers, human resource generalists, and recruitment specialists may be tasked with carrying out recruitment, but in some cases, public-sector employment, commercial recruitment agencies, or specialist search consultancies such as Executive search in the case of more senior roles, are used to undertake parts of the process. Internet-based recruitment is now widespread, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Human resource management is the strategic and coherent approach to the effective and efficient management of people in a company or organization such that they help their business gain a competitive advantage. It is designed to maximize employee performance in service of an employer's strategic objectives. Human resource management is primarily concerned with the management of people within organizations, focusing on policies and systems. HR departments are responsible for overseeing employee-benefits design, employee recruitment, training and development, performance appraisal, and reward management, such as managing pay and employee benefits systems. HR also concerns itself with organizational change and industrial relations, or the balancing of organizational practices with requirements arising from collective bargaining and governmental laws.
Professional in Human Resources (PHR) is a certification in the human resource management profession. The certification, awarded by the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI), signifies that individuals possess the theoretical knowledge and practical experience in human resource management necessary to pass an examination demonstrating a mastery of the body of knowledge in the field. The Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) is the senior-most human resources certification for those who have also demonstrated a strategic mastery of the HR body of knowledge.
The human resource consulting industry has emerged from management consulting and addresses human resource management tasks and decisions.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is an association for human resource management professionals. Its headquarters are in Wimbledon, London, England. The organisation was founded in 1913—it is the world's oldest association in its field and has over 160,000 members internationally working across private, public and voluntary sectors. Peter Cheese was announced in June 2012 as CIPD's new CEO from July 2012.
The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) is a service provided by the United States Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). JAN is one of several ODEP technical assistance centers. JAN facilitates the employment and retention of workers with disabilities by providing employers, employment providers, people with disabilities, their family members, and other interested parties with information on job accommodations, entrepreneurship, and related subjects. JAN's efforts are in support of the employment, including self-employment and small business ownership, of people with disabilities.
Human resource planning is a process that identifies current and future human resources needs for an organization to achieve its goals. Human resource planning should serve as a link between human resource management and the overall strategic plan of an organization. Ageing workers population in most western countries and growing demands for qualified workers in developing economies have underscored the importance of effective human resource planning.
A “toxic workplace” is a colloquial metaphor used to describe a place of work, usually an office environment, that is marked by significant personal conflicts between those who work there. A toxic work environment has a negative impact on an organization's productivity and viability. This type of environment can be detrimental to both the effectiveness of the workplace and the well-being of its employees.
The Employment Law Alliance(ELA) is an international law firm composed of management-side labor, employment and immigration lawyers, focused on employment law and immigration law related matters. Headquartered in San Francisco, ELA counts more than 3,000 lawyers in more than 100 nations, and all 50 U.S. states among its members.
UKG is an American multinational technology company with dual headquarters in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Weston, Florida. It provides workforce management and human resource management services.
Alexandra Levit is an American writer, consultant, speaker, workplace expert, and futurist. She has written ten business and workplace books and is currently a nationally syndicated columnist for the Wall Street Journal. In 2019, she was named to "The Thinkers 50 Radar" List. In 2021, she received a certification in strategic foresight from the University of Houston.
Johnny Clayton Taylor Jr. is an American lawyer, author, board member and public speaker who is the president and chief executive officer of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). He was previously president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), which represents the 47 publicly-supported historically Black colleges and universities in the United States. In February 2018, President Donald Trump appointed Taylor chair of the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He is vice chair of the University of Miami, and trustee of Jobs for America’s Graduates. Taylor sits on the corporate boards of Guild Education, Internet Collaborative Information Management Systems (ICIMS), and XPO Logistics.
Ellen Ernst Kossek is an American academic and social scientist who is known for research on work, family, and personal life. She is the Basil S. Turner Distinguished Professor at Purdue University’s Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business. She previously served as the Research Director of the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence for Purdue University’s Provost’s Office and as a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University’s School of Human Resources and Labor Relations. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Mount Holyoke College, her Master of Business Administration from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and her Ph.D from Yale University. She has work experience in international and strategic human resource management working in Asia, Europe and the U.S. for Hitachi, IBM & GTE. Dr. Kossek works globally to advance knowledge on gender and diversity, employment practices to support work and family, and the development of leader and positive workplace cultures to support well-being and productivity. Her research has been featured in national and international media such as the Financial Times, National Public Radio, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine, Time magazine, Marketplace, and the Washington Post.
Absence management, also known as leave management, is a combination of employer policies, procedures, or programs designed to handle employee leaves of absence and minimize the impact of those absences on the employer. Absence management programs aim to maximize productivity by supporting an employee from initial absence through return-to-work and stay-at-work plans.
