• Columnists

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.

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”

– Albert Einstein

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

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

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

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

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

– Leo Jozef Suenens

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.”

– Edgar W. Howe

The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”

– William James

The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

By your stumbling the world is perfected.”

– Sri Aurobindo

They who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing.”

– Hindu Proverb

The gem cannot be polished without friction; nor man perfected without trials.”

– Chinese proverb

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

– Leon Joseph Suenens

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

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

– Charles Dickens

Let us seize the day and the opportunity and strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois

Women once had the goal of being Superwoman; I think most of us now simply strive to have a super day.”

– Author, Activist Lee Woodruff

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

– Zig Ziglar

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

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

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

– Martha Beck

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

– Charles Dickens

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

– William Butler Yeats

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

– Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.”

– Gandi

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
 If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”

– Oprah Winfrey

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”

– Joseph Addison

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

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

– Frederic Nietzsche

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

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

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

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

– Lewis Carroll

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

We never know how high we are
 till we are called to rise;
 And then, if we are true to plan,
 Our statures touch the skies.”

– Emily Dickinson

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

– Robert Frost

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

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

Never never never never give up.”

– Winston Churchill

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

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

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

If you would create something,
 you must be something.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Are you willing to help other people succeed even when it’s not a requirement of your job to be of assistance?”

– Steven Schussler