HR Glossary
A plain-English guide to HR terms, acronyms, and concepts. Whether you’re new to HR or a seasoned pro, this glossary has you covered.
ATS (Applicant Tracking System)
Software that manages the hiring process from job posting through offer. Tracks candidates, stores resumes, and manages recruiter and hiring manager workflows.
At-Will Employment
An employment arrangement (common in the US) where either party can end the relationship at any time, for any legal reason, without notice.
Benchmarking
Comparing your company's compensation, benefits, or HR metrics to industry standards or competitors to determine how competitive you are.
CHRO (Chief Human Resources Officer)
The senior executive responsible for HR strategy, people operations, culture, and talent across the organisation.
Compensation & Benefits
The total package offered to employees including salary, bonuses, equity, health insurance, retirement plans, and non-cash perks.
DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion)
Organisational practices and policies that promote fair treatment, representation, and belonging for people of all backgrounds.
eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score)
A metric measuring employee loyalty by asking: 'How likely are you to recommend this company as a place to work?' Scores range from -100 to +100.
FLSA (Fair Labour Standards Act)
US federal law establishing minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards for most private and public sector employers.
FTE (Full-Time Equivalent)
A unit measuring employee workload. One FTE equals one full-time employee working a standard workweek. Used in headcount planning and budgeting.
Headcount Planning
The process of forecasting future staffing needs and budgeting for talent acquisition to meet business goals.
HRBP (HR Business Partner)
An HR professional who works closely with specific business units, aligning people strategy with organisational goals rather than managing admin tasks.
HRIS (Human Resources Information System)
Software that centralises employee data, automates HR processes, and generates reports. BambooHR is an HRIS built for small and mid-sized businesses.
I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification)
A US federal form required for all new employees to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States.
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
Measurable values used to evaluate how effectively a company or individual is meeting objectives. HR KPIs include turnover rate, time-to-fill, and eNPS.
Offboarding
The formal process of managing an employee's departure - including system access revocation, exit interviews, final pay, and knowledge transfer.
Onboarding
The process of integrating a new employee into the organisation - completing paperwork, setting up systems, introducing the team, and getting them productive quickly.
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)
A goal-setting framework where teams set ambitious objectives and define measurable key results to track progress. Popularized by Google and Intel.
Pay Equity
The principle that employees should be paid equally for equal work regardless of gender, race, or other protected characteristics. A legal and ethical HR priority.
People Analytics
The use of HR data - turnover, engagement, performance - to make evidence-based decisions about workforce strategy and management.
Performance Management
The ongoing process of setting goals, providing feedback, conducting reviews, and developing employees to achieve their potential and business objectives.
PTO (Paid Time Off)
A bank of leave (often combining vacation, sick, and personal days) that employees accrue and can use for any purpose.
Succession Planning
The process of identifying and developing internal talent to fill key leadership roles when they become vacant.
Time-to-Fill
The number of days between opening a job requisition and accepting a candidate's offer. A key recruiting efficiency metric.
Total Rewards
Everything an employer offers in exchange for work - salary, equity, benefits, learning opportunities, flexibility, and culture.
Turnover Rate
The percentage of employees who leave an organisation in a given period. High turnover signals engagement or compensation issues; low turnover can indicate a healthy culture.
W-4 (Employee's Withholding Certificate)
A US tax form new employees complete to specify how much federal income tax should be withheld from their paychecks.
Workforce Planning
The strategic process of aligning an organisation's talent needs with business goals - including headcount, skills gaps, and succession planning.
“The ideal is what we have now with Grouper.”
“I was new to HR and kept nodding along in meetings while having no idea what ATS or FLSA meant. The BambooHR glossary was my secret weapon for the first six months.”
What our customers say
The ideal is what we have now with Grouper.
With our rate of hiring, you don't have time to go googling or looking at a video tutorial. The fact that we have somebody to talk to and give us practical solutions really quickly is invaluable. Their customer service is second to none.
The working relationship with Grouper has been fantastic. Our account manager is friendly, accommodating, and approachable. Their knowledge and expertise has been great and there is great reassurance that I can let the system do what it's meant to do. It's taken a lot of pressure off our team.
The implementation all went well. Grouper was always responsive and our account manager is diligent and on the ball, and flexible in terms of the time and help they've provided us. Even now that the system is established, any time we send an email or have a query, they'll more than likely be back within the hour.
It would be difficult to find a replacement system of the quality and accessibility that we found, for the price and the ease of implementation. Grouper is absolutely an upgrade on what we had before. Interactions are as frequent as we need them, and our contact is typically flexible to have quick calls to discuss. That availability is helpful.
In a lot of transactions, the seller isn't involved in the transformation. Moji is quite unique in his field because he gets into the mind of the HR practitioners but he also understands the business, and he's also very technical. He can dial it up to where he needs to be. It was the best in class package.
Systems come and go and people can work through handovers but there's something very unique about how passionate and capable Moji is. He's been in the office and he's met and trained everybody. That level of consulting, you don't find everywhere.
Up to 85% of our working week was taken up with handling recruitment, contracts and offer letters. Now, I would say our admin burden is down by 40% because we're not hunting through email after email.
We didn't have a HR system before; it was all manual and on spreadsheets. Grouper made everything so easy and it's been a real change, not just for me but for our managers. They're not emailing me asking for information. I'd say it's reduced the admin side by around 40%.
It's the customer service that they've excelled in. I was surprised that you could email a specific individual with an issue. The minute we have any query, he's back the quickest I've ever seen. And it's always solved. There's none of what you see with many other providers where the provider emails you with a generic response or there's no flexibility.
At the very beginning, the service level was very high. We had the chance to work together with our account manager, who was brilliant. He's so service oriented, and he wants to understand our needs and our issues. He's so quick: when I have a request he always responds immediately, and we are really happy.
With many vendors, reaching out for support often means receiving automated replies and waiting a week for a response. Even then, the replies can feel scripted. With Grouper, however, the support feels more personalised, and solutions are handled efficiently.
It's hugely valuable. Our account manager is a good friend at this stage. He'll happily jump on a call to show a particular feature of the system or explain it step by step. I send an email in the morning and he is back in a couple of hours. It's great to have someone on a personal level you can interact with.
Speed of response. They always tackle things very quickly. We're a large team, and we dream of making things a bit easier. Sometimes we come up with ideas that we think are achievable, so we always reach out to Grouper. I have all the information accessible, I don't have to go for a physical file or folder: everything is there on the platform. Priceless!
With some outsourced providers, you don't know who's going to reply or how long you're going to wait. Whereas I just always email Grouper and they get straight back and will always try to find a solution.
We've been with Grouper since 2019 and see them as a very close partner. We would also recognise that they understand our business.
Grouper were so supportive: anything we needed, they helped us with. They gave us demos for features like managing annual leave quotas, so it was just a matter of clicking a few buttons.
That's the beauty of dealing with a company like Grouper. We're a small SME and the kind of support that we need is exactly what we're getting.
Grouper is very responsive and our account manager has great knowledge, and is able to give us ideas and show us how to utilise the system even more. The service has been very smooth: it's a big change, but the team has been very responsive and also good at sharing information.
Grouper are based in Ireland so, from our perspective, it was a lot easier in terms of communication and the support we needed. They're very effective, they answer all our emails in a timely manner. They follow up and, if we need, they organise meetings to discuss issues, and they resolve them effectively.
Our account manager was on the ball and really responsive. It's not a small task to move software systems so we were in contact quite a lot. He made sure I got what I needed back in time. I was kept in the loop, and the communication was very transparent so I always knew what was happening.
At the start, Grouper were very helpful. I remember I compiled a list of questions over the first few weeks and we set up a call. The support has always been very helpful, they can come into our system, share the screen and show us live how to use the system.
I would say the service is very user friendly, supportive, with quick response times. The customer experience is good. And having had the same account manager to build that relationship with, I know that I can jump on a call, and there's flexibility in terms of how that support can be provided. This consistency we get with Grouper is very valuable.
Grouper helped us to navigate a difficult time in the best possible way, as a kind of translator for the system.
What's unique about Grouper? I would say they are very responsive, reliable and supportive. When we tried to set up performance reviews automatically to the system, we had a couple of calls where they shared a screen to show me how to set it up properly. Thanks to Grouper.
Our account manager is very, very helpful and will always jump on a call. It could just be a couple of minutes but it's so much easier to talk to someone and share the screen. Recently, I wanted to amend a field and change the job tab. He did that really quickly. On other systems, I have spent time trying to work something out and perhaps eventually getting there, but it took an hour.
Grouper's way is very helpful and personally I find that really useful because it saves time and at the end of the day, that's saving the company money because I'm not wasting time searching for information.
I feel like if I need to reach out and speak to our Account Manager, he'll try his best to find a solution. He knows the system really well so his technical knowledge is really good. I feel that, by going to him, I get technical expertise and he tries to sort out other problems with the solution. Knowing that I've got Grouper to support us as a customer, makes me feel more reassured.
What makes Grouper stand out to me is, we jump on a call and we have the chance to overcome that barrier in communication you can get with emails, or sending tickets to be resolved.
I just needed something that would make my life easier instead of having manual records everywhere. Grouper were so helpful, they did all the setup as per what I'd asked and that made it easier for me to navigate around the system with the information already there.
I found Grouper really helpful. We had a few training sessions and they tailored them to the individual or to the questions I had.
We implemented in a matter of weeks whereas if it was left to me, it probably would have delayed the rollout, at a time when I am time poor. It meant the team could look after their own records and I just had to look after the approvals.
We've always dealt with a personal point of contact at Grouper, who was very hands-on, especially in the early stages.
Because of the industry we're in, we probably pay more attention to the customer service aspects and that responsiveness is hugely important to us. That's assisted me in being so satisfied with the support. Our account manager is always good at getting back and I've enjoyed how it's a personal touch: having that single point of reference is really helpful, just as our clients like having a familiar face they can trust.
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