Human Resources: the people

“Human Resources” means people, plus the skills and experience they bring to an organization. Job titles such as “Accounts Manager” or “Personal Assistant” define what people do.

An employer is a person or company that provides job. Boss is an informal word meaning “someone in authority”, for example an employer or owner of a company, or simply someone in a superior position.

The person who runs a specific part of an organization is called a manager. An executive or, informally, an exec is usually a manager at quite a high level. People at the head of an organization, as it was already mentioned, are senior executives, top executives or top managers. Someone who is in charge of making sure a job is well done e.g. on the factory floor, or in retailing, is sometimes called a supervisor.

People working for a company are referred to as its workforce, employees, staff or personnel and are on its payroll.

Payroll is the list of all the people employed by a company, and the amount of money paid to each of them. The payroll is usually divided into monthly-paid staff, weekly-paid staff and hourly-paid staff.

Professionals or people who perform various office jobs are white-collar workers, while manual workers in factories, on building sites, etc. are called blue-collar workers. Someone who works with you in your job is a colleague (sometimes called a co-worker).

Exercises in Word Study

Ex.1. Form verbs from the following nouns:

employer, provider, runner, manager, executive, supervisor, assistant, authority, owner.

Ex.2. Give the English for:

людські ресурси; навички та досвід; роботодавець; керівник; службовець (2); платіжна відомість; персонал, який отримує заробітну платню щомісячно/щотижнево/погодинно; робітник; колега; керівництво.

Ex.3. Match words from list A with words from list B that have a similar meaning:

A	B
specific manual provide workforce colleague define authority owner	give co-worker definite physical possessor personnel specify power

Ex.4. Find suitable opposites to the following words and phrases:

employee, blue-collar worker, general, inferior, junior, formal.

Ex.5. Match the nouns in the left hand column with the adjectives in the right hand column.

payroll authority staff executive

legal official monthly weekly senior chief permanent temporary

Ex.6. Look at the words and phrases in the box. Match them with the correct definition from the list below:

1. a person who works for another person, business or government;

2. a person who is employed to control, organize and direct part or all of a business or organization;

3. (informal) a person who is responsible for the work of a company, a department or at least one other person;

4. a person with authority who watches others work to make sure a job is done properly;

5. a list of all the people employed by a company, and the amount of money paid to each of them;

6. the (official) power to give orders, make decisions, etc.;

7. a person that you work with in a profession or business;

8. an employee who does unskilled work, usually in a factory;

9. a person who works in an office;

10. all the employees in an office or factory;

11. a manager in a company who has the power to spend money, hire and fire employees.