Stupid HR Words

September 20, 2006 · Filed Under Adventures in (Mis)Management, Stupid Employee Tricks 

Human resources has a tendancy to make up new words or combine two or three words to make a word. One of my favorites that I use tongue in cheek is “on-boarding” (the process of getting a person started at the new company and getting them familiar enough to start training).

One of the words I recently heard was “over-titling” and I read about it on CNN…

“Over-titling” was a common practice in the tough financial climate of the past few years when, Coleman says, “many people were offered trumped-up job titles in lieu of salary increases. As a result, their actual experience level and value to the company may not be on a par with the salary they expect based on their title.”

Which relays some of my most basic thoughts in HR. One that I’ll share with you right here:

Your job title doesn’t matter

It is a life philosophy. It isn’t what your title is, it is what you do and what you accomplish that matters.  That’s not even to address the level of “under-titling” where a person has one title but takes on multiple roles within a company. You can’t price that out using some simplistic online salary tool.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Stupid HR Words”

  1. Mari Lou on September 22nd, 2006 7:57 am

    I agree with your comments on a job title doesn’t matter. As I said before I am in a steel foundry, and I went to the weekend shift so that I would keep my job–which was my choice. But I have a number of things that I have to do, which is the same or almost the same as a group leader, which pay wise I don’t get. I am a jack of all trades, I like what I do but if the salary matched it it would be alot easier to do.

    [Reply]

  2. Feeling locked into your current role? at Your HR Guy’s Blog on September 25th, 2006 9:30 pm

    [...] Stupid HR Words [...]

  3. Colin Kingsbury on September 29th, 2006 12:46 pm

    HRGuy, I agree that this is true 99% of the time, but that other 1% is a bear. In a company with stable management and good communication, titles play a secondary or tertiary role. But bring in a new CxO who doesn’t know how things really work, and suddenly those titles will come back to bite you in the ass. It goes both ways–if you’re under-titled (as many of the best individual contributors outside of sales are), you run the risk of getting left at the kids table while others decide where you end up. On the flip side, being over-titled in those situations can also lead to you getting knifed as a matter of principle.

    Likewise, if you’re in an industry where everyone at a certain responsibility level has a VP or Director title, do you want to be the only guy whose resume just says “Manager?”

    [Reply]

  4. Internet Marketing and Advertising on November 8th, 2007 11:25 am

    Internet Marketing and Advertising

    I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting

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