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Sharon Armstrong, Owner, Sharon Armstrong and Associates

COLUMN = HUMAN RESOURCES

Sharon Armstrong has more than 20 years of experience as the owner of Sharon Armstrong and Associates. She is a human resources consultant, trainer, and career counselor who consults with many large corporations and small businesses. She has facilitated training, completed HR projects, and provided career transition services for a wide variety of clients in the profit and nonprofit sectors. She is also the co-author of the The Essential HR Handbook.

Sharon received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern Maine and her master’s degree in Counseling from The George Washington University. She is a certified Professional in Human Resources (PHR).

Sharon is the co-author of a humor book, published by Random House entitled “Heeling the Canine Within: The Dog’s Self-Help Companion” in 1998. Career Press published her first business book, “Stress-Free Performance Appraisals: Turn Your Most Painful Management Duty Into a Powerful Motivational Tool” in July 2003. “The Essential HR Handbook: A Quick and Handy Resource for Any Manager or HR Professional” was published in August 2008. Her latest book is “The Essential Performance Review Handbook,” which was published in the spring of 2010.

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 Barbara Mitchell and 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.

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

– Chinese proverb

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

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

My job is my hobby. I come to work to play.”

– Uli Becker, president, Reebok International

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

– Jesse Jackson

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.
 Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

– Ella Fitzgerald

A diamond is a lump of coal that stuck with it.”

– Norwegian proverb

No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth.”

– Martha Beck, from "Leaving the Saints"

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

– Jalaluddin Rumi

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

Do you have the desire to create something new; the strength of conviction to believe your creation will be successful, and the reservoir of energy necessary to thrust it into the marketplace?”

– Steven Schussler

We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.”

– Douglas Coupland

If you want to be busy, keep trying to be perfect. If you want to be happy, focus on making a difference.”

– Lisa Earle McLeod

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

– Charles R. Swindoll

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

– Carl Rogers

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

– Robert Frost

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

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”

– E.B. White

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing.”

– Maya Angelou

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

– William Blake

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

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

Do one thing every day that scares you.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

– Thomas Dunn

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

– Leon Joseph Suenens

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

If you were independently wealthy and never had to work a day in your life, would you still choose to spend your time attempting to become a successful entrepreneur?”

– Steven Schussler

Success is about finding a livelihood that brings joy, self-sufficiency, and a sense of contributing.”

– Anita Roddick

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

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

– Martha Beck

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

– T.S. Eliot

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

– Eckhart Tolle

Passion makes perfect.”

– Eugene Biro

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

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

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"

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

– William Shakespeare

If it isn’t good, let it die. If it doesn’t die, make it good.”

– Ajahn Chah

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

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

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

– Annie Dillard

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

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

– William James

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

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

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.”

– Henry David Thoreau

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

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

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

– Eve Ensler