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.

Group Discussions

1. Graphology is a valid selection tool

2. Polygraphs help interviewers

3. 360 Degree appraisals are error free

4. Balance Score Cards Provide a Comprehensive Evaluation

5. Quid Pro Quo harassment- who is responsible?

6. Whistle blowers are social misfits

7. Women employees are hindrances in the work place

8. Who is more stressed? Generation X or Y?

9. Performance Appraisals are not reliable

10. Jobs to people with disabilities is not a social responsibility

11. Bargaining Impasse- who is responsible

12. Providing employment to the sons of the soil

13. ESOP is not a motivator

14. How effective is training effectiveness

15. Workers participation in management is a humbug

16. Trade Union Leader- should be an insider or outsider

17. Labour legislations are not amended to tackle present day crisis.

18. EEO is impossible

19. HRD is the same old wine in a new bottle

20. It’s CRS not VRS

21. Strikes are unwanted

22. The Acts are obsolete

23. Pink slips affect the Self Esteem of an employee

24. Industrial Relations is the sole responsibility of HR Dept

25. Employees can effect organizational change

26. Small changes are easy to implement

27. What can be the new agenda for organizational development?

28. Third Wave has influenced HR practices