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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.

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”

– Francesca Reigle

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained individuals quitting their day jobs.”

– Bill Rancic, "The Apprentice"

My goal was to tell the life side of the story. We have become a nation of voyeurs that expect sensationalism, and that offends me.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”

– Bruce Lee

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

– Chinese proverb

You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

– Goldie Hawn

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

– Christopher Robin to Pooh

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

– Napoleon

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

It is to no purpose to turn away from the real nature of the affair because the honor of its elements excites repugnance.

– Carl von Clausewitz, On War

When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

– Audre Lorde

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas Edison

Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.”

– J.K. Rowling

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

The best hobbies are the ones that take us furthest from our primary occupation.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

Don’t follow your dreams. Chase them.”

– Richard Dumb

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

Passion makes perfect.”

– Eugene Biro

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”

– Ray Bradbury

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

– Eckhart Tolle

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

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

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

– Jimi Hendrix

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

– Albert Schweitzer

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott

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

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

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

– Charles Darwin

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

– William Butler Yeats

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

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

– Basil King

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

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

– Zig Ziglar

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

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

– Charles Dickens

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

– Steven Schussler

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

– Avenida Margarita

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

– Albert Einstein

Remove those ‘I want you to like me’ stickers from your forehead
and, instead, place them where they truly will do the most good—on your mirror.”

– Susan Jeffers

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

– Buddha

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court justice

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

– Eleanor Roosevelt

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