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Barbara Mitchell, "The Essential HR Handbook"

COLUMN = HIRING + HUMAN RESOURCES

Barbara Mitchell is a human resources and organization development consultant who is an expert in the areas of recruitment and retention. She has experience in both for-profit and not-for-profit sectors and has consulted to a variety of organizations around the world.

She served in senior human resources leadership positions with Marriott International and several technology firms in the Washington, DC, area before co-founding the Millennium Group International, LLC (TMG) in 1998, which she sold in 2008.

She recently served on the Society of Human Resource Management’s Special Expert Panel on Consulting and Outsourcing in recognition of her expertise and long service to the HR profession. Barbara is a graduate of North Park University, Chicago, IL, with a degree in History and Political Science and has taken graduate-level courses at UCLA. Contact Barbara by email.

ABOUT THE ESSENTIAL HR HANDBOOK

This 250-page reference guide, published in the fall of 2008 by Career Press, is a must-have for everyone who deals with employees on a daily basis, believe Mitchell and Sharon Armstrong, who wrote the book to shed light on the issues that keep managers up at night.

With this easy-to-read paperback, you’ll learn how to effectively and efficiently:
• Individually manage each employee, starting on his or her first day.
• Manage a multi-generational workforce.
• Appraise job performance.
• Coach and counsel.
• Provide equitable pay, benefits, and total-rewards strategies.
• Minimize legal risk.

WHAT CRITICS ARE SAYING

“Finally, a complete, clear, and concise book that covers every essential element of that mix of art and science we call HR. It’s 100% applicable to the real-world challenges faced by today’s HR manager or business owner.” — Joe Calloway, author of Work Like You’re Showing Off.

“This should be required reading for all owners of growing businesses and new managers launching their careers. Seasoned HR professionals will also find value in this quick guide to the essentials of managing people.” — Stephen J. O’Connor, senior director of staffing, ESPN Inc.

“This book is easy to use, and full of solid advice and information from diversity to interviews to legal issues. If you are an HR professional, you should have this book at the ready every day.” — Chester Elton, co-author of The Carrot Principle.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

– Charles Dickens

I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that a blank sheet of paper is the greatest opportunity in the world, and not frightening at all.”

– Marty Skler, executive vp, Walt Disney Imagineering

The journey is the reward.”

– Greg Norman

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

Do not be afraid of mistakes, providing you do not make the same one twice.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

The good ideas are all hammered out in agony by individuals, not spewed out by groups.”

– Charles Brower, Advertising Hall of Fame

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”

– Thomas Carlyle

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance.”

– Benjamin Franklin

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”

– Woodrow Wilson

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

– Lao Tzu

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller

If people like you they’ll listen to you; if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

– Zig Ziglar

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

– William Shakespeare

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

A lot of people have ideas, but few decide to do something about them now. Not next week. But today.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari

Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you’re stumped, because sometimes you really can’t be expected to handle everything alone.”

– Martha Beck

To find what you seek in the road of life, leave no stone unturned.”

– Edward Bulwer Lytton

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leon Joseph Suenens

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

Education is an admirable thing to have, but it is well to remember that nothing worth knowing can be taught.”

– Oscar Wilde

We are not meant to resolve all contradictions, but to live with them and rise above them.”

– William Blake

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

– Eckhart Tolle

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

4oz tequila + 1oz TripleSec + 2oz lime juice + 1oz simple syrup (sugar=water), 1 cup crushed ice. Shake + dance around the kitchen.

– Avenida Margarita

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

Whosoever knows how to fight well is not angry. Whosoever knows how to conquer enemies does not fight them.”

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

Many people prefer to play it safe when it comes to business matters. Are you willing to take risks in the pursuit of entrepreneurial success?”

– Steven Schussler

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

Treat the attainment of happiness in the same way an entrepreneur would approach building a business — with a vision, plan, goals, and a systematic approach.”

– Ted Leonsis

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

Some things are destined to be—it just takes us a couple of tries
to get there.”

– J.R. Ward, Lover Mine

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

– Annie Dillard