A Glossary of HR Terms
If you are dealing with Human Resource and HR concerns, it’s important that you walk down a little to understand the most common HR acronyms used in the industry. This blog amalgamates the most common HR terms and their definitions that you will encounter when you take aisle in Human Resource Management.
Have a look:
Applicant Tracking System(ATS)
The word may sound unpleasant in the prime fascia. But as you dig in deep you will end up understanding the role and necessity of this HR acronym. The applicant tracking system is nothing but a software tool that helps the business organization with their recruitment needs. In other words, it is called as the recruitment management tool or recruitment management software offering a different set of functions like parsing resumes, posting job boards, tracking applications, navigating recruitment workflows, automating communication, in short streamlining the entire recruitment processes incorporating the artificial intelligence.
Affordable Care Act (ACA)
ACA stands as the abbreviation of Affordable Care Act commonly known as Obamacare. The name came in as a result of law getting enforced through former American President Barack Obama. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) envisions in extending the proportion of health care services to more American citizens. It triggers laws in protecting patients from arbitrary rules and regulations proclaimed by the insurance companies. With ACA, every health compliance is easily looked into and strictly monitored.
At-Will Employment
Under At-will, the employer resides with the authority to terminate his employment any time for any reason. Under At-Will Employment, there lies the least right with the employee to legally battle against his termination process. Likewise, an employee is also free to leave his job position whenever he feels with or without any reason. However, there will not be any legal consequences over the employee’s act of leaving, unlike conventional employee rules.
Background check
The background check is always initiated when you are recruiting fresh talent to the organization. It is an investigation carried from the side of the business organization in checking the credibility and reliability of new employee before his board. It includes detailed analysis over employees previous work history, employee education background, criminal records, earn credits and more. Background check helps in onboarding the right talents and maintaining a healthy employee- management bond for the long run.
Employee Benefits
Employee benefits play a significant role in employee retention. If your organization look for a strategic long run employee engagement, it is very important that you inculcate the habit of introducing various employee benefit strategies. Depending on the organizational policies and structure, employee benefits can vary in shapes and sizes. Employee benefits in an organization include employee health insurance, employee provident funds, pension plans, employee vacation management, asset management and more.
COBRA
Well COBRA is expanded like Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. The mission of COBRA is to facilitate the continuation coverage of health benefits to the employee and their selected family members. It protects the right of workers and their family members in continuing with their existing /prevalent health benefits that are provided by their group health plan. However, the health benefits are for limited time frame depending on circumstances laid like job loss, job transitions, death, and other life events. Thus COBRA outlines the continuation coverage of health benefits programmed for employees and their selected family members.
Department of Labor (DOL)
The Department of Labor (DOL) envisions in promoting the welfare of employee, no matter whether they are job seekers, earners or retired professionals. The United States has trigged rules and regulations for constantly improving the working conditions of employees, looking after employee safety, employee discrimination, advancing for better and profitable employment opportunities, protecting employee retirement life, employee health benefits and monitoring other employee economic measurements.
Employee Database
When it comes to HR, Employee database has a crucial role to play in storing and real-time disseminating of employee information. Employee database acts as a unified platform in giving insight to every employee information like employee name, employee job position, employee salary scale, and employee personal details like birth date, address, contact information and more. The significant benefit of having an employee database management system is that it can curb the increasing chance of risks involved with identity theft and other fraud activities, thus enhancing more security to the business operations.
Employee onboarding
Employee Onboarding equally important like effective recruitment management. After acquiring new talent, it is the chief responsibility of the organization to disseminate necessary knowledge, skill and training to the employee, to make him perfect for the job cast. An efficient employee onboarding helps the employee to soon get adjusted to the work culture. The onboarding acts a vital segment in employee retention.
Employee Net Promoter Score
Employee Net Promoter Score system plays the role of a gauge in measuring your customer loyalty and employee satisfaction. The algorithm set in the mechanism help in drawing the intuitive reports on the employee, their level of commitment and quality of deliverables. Employee Net promoter score thus helps in marking changes in the employee processes in order to trigger more sincerity and adaptability in workplaces.
Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC)
The EEOC is destined with the power of enforcing federal laws against discrimination of job applicants citing varied reasons like applicant’s race, his religion, sex, originality or any personal characteristics. The body makes sure that every individual gets equal right to employment without bias.
HR Business Partner
An HR business partners play the role of a consultant in terms of HR matters. An HR Business Partner has a direct impact on the organization as they trigger strategic decision at the seniority level. An HR business partner responsible for designing the business objectives keeping in supreme both employees and management in mind. While conventional HR professional look after the daily chores of employees, an HR Business Partner acts as a catalyst in boosting the image of the organization via playing the role of a consultant propagating HR efficiencies. If executed properly, they can be the change agent in HR pathways.
HRIS/HRMS/HCM
Human Resource Information System, Human Resource Management System and Human Capital Management System, all three are different acronyms of employee management software helping the business organization with smooth management of employees right from recruitment to their post-retirement events. All three software tools imply different functionalities like gathering, processing, filtering, monitoring and tracking of employee activities. With the enhanced database, it triggers all necessary functions like employee recruitment, employee onboarding, employee payroll, employee benefits administration, compliance monitoring, compensation, and rewards. Also, it comes with third-party integrations further expanding the software extensiveness.
Performance Management
Performance management revolves around employee management, employee review, and feedback. Performance management is initiated within an organization to keep alive the employee goal, their real-time tracking and performance analysis. Performance management includes all those strategies that ensure company goals are consistently met that too in real-time. The prime concern of performance management strategies is ensuring effective organizational performance, efficient departmental run, employee credits and more.
Paid Time Off(PTO)
PTO stands as the abbreviation for paid time off. Paid time off (PTO) offers employees with bankable hours that can be later used for multiple purposes like the vacation, personal or family illness, doctor appointments and other. Paid Time Off is also known as personal time off where the employee gets paid even while they are on leave. PTO is often mistaken for vacation time. However, it is compensatory off of an employee that may get divided in names of different segments like sick leave, vacation or other personal time.
The terms are a lot more, the article tried to summarize the most common used HR acronym.