HR Glossary: 32 Terms Defined

Adverse action is any unfavorable employment decision, such as refusing to hire, denying a promotion, reassigning, or terminating, taken because of information in a background check or consumer report.

Adverse impact is when a hiring, promotion or other employment step selects people of one race, sex or ethnic group at a substantially lower rate than others, to their disadvantage.

An applicable large employer (ALE) is an employer that averaged at least 50 full-time employees, including full-time equivalents, in the prior calendar year.

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that helps employers manage hiring from job posting through offer.

COBRA is a federal law that lets employees and their families keep the employer's group health plan for a limited time after that coverage would end, for example after a job loss, fewer hours, a divorce or a death.

E-Verify is a free online service that checks the details a new hire gives on Form I-9 against records held by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to confirm the person may work in the United States.

Earned wage access is a benefit that lets employees withdraw a portion of wages they have already earned before the regular payday.

The EEO-1 report is a mandatory annual workforce demographic data collection filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a single-question loyalty metric that asks employees how likely they are to recommend their employer as a place to work, on a 0 to 10 scale.

Employee onboarding is the process of integrating a new hire into an organization, from accepted offer through the first weeks or months of work.

Employee self-service is a feature of HR and payroll systems that lets employees view and update their own information, such as personal details, pay stubs, time off, and benefits, without contacting HR.

An employer of record (EOR) is a company that legally employs a worker for another business.

Form I-9 is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security form employers use to verify the identity and work authorization of every person they hire.

The four-fifths rule is a federal screening test for adverse impact in hiring and promotion.

Human capital management (HCM) is a category of software and practices that manage the full employee lifecycle, from recruiting and onboarding through payroll, performance, development, and offboarding.

A human resource information system (HRIS) is software that stores and manages core employee data, such as job details, compensation, time off, and benefits enrollment, in one system of record.

A human resource management system (HRMS) is software that combines core employee records with payroll, time tracking, benefits, and talent functions in one platform.

An independent contractor is a self-employed worker who provides services to a business under a contract and controls how the work is done, rather than being an employee.

A learning management system (LMS) is software that hosts, delivers, assigns, and tracks training for employees.

A nine-box grid is a talent-review matrix that plots employees on two axes, usually current performance and future potential, producing nine cells.

Objectives and Key Results (OKR) is a goal-setting framework that pairs a qualitative objective with a small set of measurable key results.

Off-cycle payroll is a payroll run processed outside an employer's regular pay schedule.

Pay transparency is the practice, and in some places a legal requirement, of openly sharing compensation information, such as salary ranges in job postings or the freedom for employees to discuss their pay.

Payroll tax is the set of taxes an employer withholds from employee wages or pays on top of them: federal income tax withholding, Social Security and Medicare taxes, and unemployment taxes.

A professional employer organization (PEO) is a company that enters a co-employment relationship with a business, taking over payroll, tax filing, benefits, and HR compliance tasks for the client's workers.

The regular rate of pay is the hourly rate used to calculate overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) is a standard HTTP protocol for managing user accounts across systems.

Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication process in which one account and its authenticators give access to several applications without signing in to each one, generally implemented with a federation protocol.

SOC 2 is a report from an independent CPA on a service organization's system-level controls, developed by the AICPA.

Time to hire is the number of days between a candidate entering the hiring pipeline, usually at application or first contact, and accepting a job offer.

Total rewards is everything an employer gives people in exchange for their work: base pay, bonuses, benefits, paid time off, flexibility, learning and recognition.

Workers' compensation is a form of insurance that pays wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured or made ill by their jobs.