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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.

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

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

– Charles Darwin

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

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

– Helen Keller

By your stumbling the world is perfected.”

– Sri Aurobindo

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

– Albert Schweitzer

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

He who wants to tear down a house must be prepared to rebuild it.”

– African Proverb

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

– Nelson Mandela

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

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

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

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

– Zig Ziglar

“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.

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

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

– Charles Dickens

‎Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

– Booker T. Washington

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

– Basil King

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

Do not say, ‘why were the former days better than these,’ for it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”

– Ecclesiastes, 7:10

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

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

– Goldie Hawn

Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.”

– Anthony Trollope

This is the age when magical technologies make more and more radically fun ideas plausible, even easy. You’re only limited by your creativity.”

– Martha Beck

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

– Thomas Carlyle

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.”

– Voltaire

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

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

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

– Gandi

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

– T.S. Eliot

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

– Guy Kawasaki

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

– Mary Jean Irion

If you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”

– Oprah Winfrey

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker

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"

Passion makes perfect.”

– Eugene Biro

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

Never never never never give up.”

– Winston Churchill

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

– Eleanor Roosevelt

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

– Martin Luther King Jr.

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

– Corita Kent

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

– Lewis Carroll

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

– Benjamin Disraeli

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”

– Steve Jobs

A people who mean to be their Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

– James Madison

You don’t love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

– L.J. Smith

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

As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad