Kaiti Norton, Author at TechnologyAdvice https://technologyadvice.com/blog/author/knorton/ We help B2B tech buyers manage the complex & risky buying process. Fri, 02 Aug 2024 04:14:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 https://assets.technologyadvice.com/uploads/2021/09/ta-favicon-45x45.png Kaiti Norton, Author at TechnologyAdvice https://technologyadvice.com/blog/author/knorton/ 32 32 Asana vs. monday.com: Top Project Management Software in 2024 https://technologyadvice.com/blog/project-management/asana-vs-monday/ Sat, 27 Apr 2024 02:47:36 +0000 https://technologyadvice.com/?p=68913 Discover Asana and Monday's key features, pros and cons, and pricing to help you decide which project management software better fits your needs.

The post Asana vs. monday.com: Top Project Management Software in 2024 appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

]]> Asana and monday.com are similar solutions for project management, but each one is optimized for different use cases.

  • Asana is better for smaller teams and those that need flexible task management capabilities.
  • monday.com is better for robust analytics and simple projects that need to get started quickly.

Apr. 26, 2024: Kaiti Norton updated our analysis with fresh information about each vendor’s current pricing and features.

Sept. 5. 2023: Corey Noles reviewed pricing and feature details for accuracy. He also made some adjustments to the copy to improve the flow of information.

At TechnologyAdvice, we assess a wide range of factors when evaluating project management software. For monday.com and Asana in particular, we regularly assess each vendor on the following dimensions:

  • Core project management features.
  • Usability.
  • Integrations.
  • Customization options.
  • Mobile access.
  • Reporting and analytics.
  • Scalability.
  • Industry-specific capabilities.
  • Pricing structures.
  • Technical support options.

We conduct hands-on demos, aggregate customer reviews, and review product documentation to compile our extensive research. As each vendor releases new software updates, we update our analysis to provide you with the best insight.

TechnologyAdvice is able to offer our services for free because some vendors may pay us for web traffic or other sales opportunities. Our mission is to help technology buyers make better purchasing decisions, so we provide you with information for all vendors — even those that don’t pay us.

Featured Partners

Asana vs. monday.com: Which is better?

Asanamonday.com
Forever free planRobust functionality; max 10 usersLimited functionality; max 2 users
Starting price*$10.99$9
Free trial for paid plans30 days14 days
Integrations200+ apps~70 with action limits
Task managementAdvanced, dynamic capabilities Standard capabilities
AnalyticsStandard capabilitiesAdvanced, dynamic capabilities

*per user, per month with annual billing

Check out our video overview below:

Visit Asana Visit monday.com

Asana – Better for task management

Pros

  • Unlimited projects, tasks, and storage on all plans.
  • More integration options.
  • Dynamic project structures and workflows.
  • Individual, team, and company-wide goal tracking.

Cons

  • Fewer data visualization options.
  • Larger learning curve.
  • Longer implementation timeline.
  • Basic project dashboards.
The Asana logo.
Visit Website

Asana‘s flexible project management and task management tools will rise to the level of complexity you need. It allows you to monitor progress and stay ahead of potential risks by breaking down projects into multiple levels of tasks and subtasks. You also have complete control over project views, with options to group, sort, and filter tasks according to any field.

The software has other useful tools, like task dependencies, approvals, and batch actions. So if you need to stay on top of many moving parts, Asana’s task management features are a strong choice for your team.

asana task calendar
asana project
asana Tableau Dashboard
Asana workflows
timelines in asana look like gantt charts.

Project view customization: Control what details are displayed for your project and how. Organize by task type, status, owner, etc.

Task granularity: Asana allows you to break down assignments as thoroughly as necessary. Create tasks and subtasks with dependencies. Then, group tasks or establish dependencies to maintain the overall progress of your project.

High-level monitoring: Goal tracking and portfolio management features provide a birds’ eye view of progress and resources across multiple projects and teams.

Asana works well for a wide range of use cases, but it has a slight edge if:

  • Your projects and workflows are complex.
  • You have no budget for project management software.
  • You have a team of 10 or fewer people.
  • You want streamlined goal tracking.

monday.com: Better for reporting

Pros

  • Pre-built modules for sales, development, and work management.
  • 200+ project templates.
  • First-party data architecture.
  • Wide variety of highly customizable dashboard widgets.

Cons

  • Integration use limited by plan.
  • Restrictive task heirarchies.
  • Limited view customizations.
  • No top-level goal tracking.
The monday.com logo.
Visit Website

monday.com bills itself as a “work OS,” or a platform that can manage workflow for everything from HR to design to software development. The platform includes lots of project management tools, but you can also use it as a CRM, workflow automation tool, or collaboration tool.

You can use monday.com to build custom dashboards and workflows. Or, if you don’t want to deal with manual setup, monday.com offers pre-built products like monday work management and monday CRM that you can customize as you go. Either way, you can tailor monday.com’s platform to multiple teams, workflows, and project use cases.

An example of monday.com's highly customizable boards, split by business quarters and filled out with phase statuses, task owners, and like information.
GIF showing how Groups work in Monday.com to organize Pulses.
A look at monday.com's workspaces.
A look at monday.com's integration window
Screenshot of the maps view in Monday.com.

Project template library: Choose from hundreds of templates for unique use cases to get your project up and running quickly.

Dashboard customization: Dashboards offer tremendous versatility and numerous options to fine-tune data visualizations to your requirements.

App marketplace: Browse hundreds of apps (not to be confused with integrations) that have been curated by monday.com’s developer community to extend the software’s native functionality.

Choose monday.com if:

  • Your project structure is simple.
  • You need a fast implementation timeline.
  • Your projects are data-heavy.
  • You want intricate tracking dashboards.

Asana vs. monday.com: Pricing

Winner: Asana

Here’s why: Asana and monday.com structure similarly, with forever free plans that graduate incrementally to custom enterprise packages. monday.com offers a lower starting price for its paid plans, but Asana offers more value in its free plan by a landslide.

Asanamonday work management
Starting price*$10.99$9
Free trial length30 days14 days
Maximum free seats102
Discount for annual billing✔✔
Functional free plan✔✘

*per user, per month with annual billing

Visit Asana Visit monday.com

Asana has five tiers:

  • Personal: Free
  • Starter: $10.99 per user per month
  • Premium: $24.99 per user per month
  • Enterprise: Custom quote
  • Enterprise+: Custom quote

The free plan allows up to 10 users, which means it could work for your small team. It offers all the essential project and task management tools.

Most teams, though, will want at least the mid-tier Premium plan. It gets you workflow automation, unlimited free guests, Gantt chart views, and other tools that will level-up your project management capabilities.

monday work management has five tiers:

  • Free: Free
  • Basic: $9 per user per month
  • Standard: $12 per user per month
  • Pro: $19 per user per month
  • Enterprise: Custom quote

monday.com also offers comparable plans for its specialized products, monday CRM and monday dev.

While monday.com does offer a free plan, it’s too limited for most teams. (You can only have two users, three boards, and no integrations.) Even the Basic plan lacks essentials like software automations, calendar and timeline views, and guest access.

Most businesses should expect to pay between $12 and $19 per user per month for the mid-tier Standard or Pro plans. Those both get you software integrations, workflow automation, and more project views―but the Pro plan gives you more of all of those.

Asana vs. monday.com: Integrations

Winner: Asana

Here’s why: Integrating your project management software with the other tools you use day-to-day should be simple, and with Asana, it is. You’ll get a bit more variety with monday.com, but it may increase the cost of using the software.

Asanamonday work management
Available integrations200+~70*
Integrations on all plans✔✘
Unlimited integration actions✔✘
Open API access✔✔

*monday.com offers additional apps that are separate from integrations.

Visit Asana Visit monday.com

With Asana, you get access to more than 200 popular apps like Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Figma, Jira, Slack, and Zoom. Most integrations are available on all Asana plans, but a handful of apps like Salesforce, Tableau, Power BI, and Adobe Creative Cloud are restricted to the higher paid plans. For the majority of use cases, though, the app you need to integrate is available for free.

Asana also offers open API access and works well with automation platforms like Zapier and Make. This is a nice workaround to automate basic processes for free, and it’s a must-have for complex flows that exceed Asana’s native capabilities.

An Asana user shares a Google Doc file directly within the Asana platform via an integration with Google Drive.
Asana eliminates friction from your workflows that work with apps like Google Drive. Source: Asana

monday.com’s approach to integrations is confusing at best and downright frustrating at worst. The integration library includes about 70 essential business apps that sync directly with your board, but you can’t actually use them unless you’re subscribed to the Standard plan or higher.

What’s more, monday.com limits integration usage — the Standard plan gets you 250 integration actions per month, while the Pro plan bumps you up to 25,000. This can drive up costs quickly, especially if you have a large team that often works cross-functionally. Even connecting to a platform like Zapier requires a webhook integration, so there aren’t any viable workarounds like there are with Asana.

One advantage monday.com offers, though, is its app marketplace. While the integrations are primarily used to sync data with other platforms, apps serve to extend monday.com’s native functionality. Things like embedding Google Docs in an item card, for example, can be accomplished without setting up an integration. See? Confusing.

Learn more about monday.com’s integrations in our video overview:

Asana vs. monday.com: Task management

Winner: Asana

Here’s why: monday.com’s project template library will help you jumpstart your project if you’re pressed for time, but its task management capabilities are relatively inflexible. Asana, on the other hand, gives you granular control over how your projects are structured and organized so your team can work more efficiently.

Asanamonday work management
Project templates80+200+
Multiple subtask levels✔✘
Kanban, Gantt, and table views✔✔
Task dependencies✔✔
Visit Asana Visit monday.com

Asana offers a few compelling advantages over monday.com when it comes to managing complex workflows. First, Asana’s interface makes it easier to manipulate any project view to your requirements. You can group by tasks by type, status, owner, due date, etc. and sort within those groups to see what’s most important in different circumstances.

It also lets you break down projects into units that make sense for your team―whether that’s tasks, subtasks, or even sub-subtasks. You can’t assign one task to multiple people, which means you have to distill tasks into their simplest components. This level of granularity encourages accountability and clear communication.In comparison, monday.com’s capabilities are limited to one level of subtasks that struggle with reporting and automations.

Large Asana’s goal management features allow you to track progress across multiple projects.

An example of Asana's kanban view.
Asana offers multiple project views, including a kanban board. Source: Asana

monday work management isn’t as dynamic as Asana, but it does offer an impressive range of pre-configured options. For example, you can choose from more than 30 types of columns when building or customizing a board:

  • Status
  • Label
  • Priority
  • People
  • Number
  • Text
  • Long text
  • Timeline
  • Date
  • Creative brief
  • Meeting notes
  • Checkbox
  • World clock
  • Link
  • Item ID
  • Phone number
  • Location
  • Files
  • Vote
  • Rating
  • Tags
  • Creation log
  • Last updated
  • Progress tracking
  • Button
  • Dependency
  • Dropdown
  • Week
  • Formula
  • Country
  • Color picker
  • Time tracking
  • Email address

Some of these column types are slight variations of the same thing (Text and Long text, for example) that can be accomplished with customizations in Asana. However, some columns like World clock, Formula, Button, and Rating offer a unique functionality that would take considerably more effort to replicate in Asana. Columns in the monday app can’t be customized to the same degree as those in Asana, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you don’t have the time or patience to fuss with building something from scratch.

To that end, monday.com’s vast library of templates range from broad use cases like Marketing Strategy to niche ones like Real Estate Agency Management. These templates demonstrate numerous ways monday.com can adapt to different industries, teams, projects, and workflows with little manual effort.

Asana vs. monday.com: Analytics

Winner: monday.com

Here’s why: Asana’s analytics capabilities are sufficient for basic project reports, but monday.com offers more variety and customization in terms of data visualization. monday.com’s first-party data architecture, mondayDB, is also better for maintaining large, complex dashboards.

Asanamonday work management
Dashboard widget options640+
Per-dashboard widget limit2030
Exportable reports✘✘
Granular visualization controls✘✔
First-party data infrastructure✘✔
Goal tracking✔✘
Visit Asana Visit monday.com

Asana’s analytics capabilities are pretty basic. Each project dashboard has six charts for data visualization:

  • Bar charts.
  • Line graphs.
  • Donut charts.
  • Burnup charts.
  • Lollipop charts.
  • Numbers.

You can tweak each chart’s axes and color palette, but it’s missing some of the controls monday.com offers for sizing, ascending/descending axes, and multi-dimensional charts. Similarly, Asana’s widget filters are less dynamic and can be a little tricky to configure correctly.

Asana is also more limited in terms of widget quantity — each dashboard maxes out at 20 widgets, so if you need more depth or detail, you’ll need to export the data to a different platform. (Thankfully, Asana’s Google Sheets integration makes this relatively easy.)

Outside of project-specific dashboards, though, Asana has some compelling analytics features. The Goals dashboard, for example, is reminiscent of performance management software: You can set up cascading goals at the company, team, or individual level and drill into more granular sub-goals and related work. This set up makes it easy to see how individual projects and tasks contribute to broader goals without much manual configuration.

monday.com’s greatest strength lies in its analytics capabilities. In 2023, the company announced the launch of mondayDB, its database architecture that powers the software’s boards and dashboards. mondayDB is a more flexible and secure infrastructure solution compared to most alternatives — it’s still in its first version, so particularly complex queries on large datasets tend to lag a bit, but monday.com’s product roadmap promises better performance at a larger scale in the coming months.

Beyond the database, monday.com’s dashboard widgets offer extensive data visualization options. You can choose from a large library of 30+ widgets to build a dashboard with the precise details you need to track what’s most important. It has all of the standard charts and graphs you’d expect, plus unique widgets for things like workload management, geo-mapping, and date countdowns. The app marketplace offers additional visualization options for niche use cases as well.

Like Asana, monday.com lacks the ability to generate ready-made, exportable reports, but you can export individual widgets as PDFs, PNGs, SVGs, and other file formats.

Learn more about monday.com’s dashboards in our 2-part video overview:

Asana vs. monday.com: Ready to choose?

Both Asana and monday.com are popular project management tools that can help your team plan workflows, automate tasks, and track projects and tasks. However, they aren’t built exactly the same:

  • Asana offers more robust task management tools overall. It also offers a better free plan that small teams can actually use, and it gives you more access to software integrations.
  • monday.com, on the other hand, is a more straightforward project management platform. It’s a great solution if you don’t have the time, patience, or technical expertise to create a bespoke project ecosystem.

If neither Asana nor monday sounds quite right for your team, check out popular alternatives in our Project Management Software Guide.

FAQs

The core features of Asana and monday.com include project management, task management, and workflow automation.

In most situations, Asana offers more customization and granular task management tools, while monday.com’s platform offers more project templates and better reporting capabilities.

The post Asana vs. monday.com: Top Project Management Software in 2024 appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

]]> Asana vs Monday: Top Project Management Software in 2024 Asana & Monday are two of the top project management solutions. Compare pricing, pros, & cons, and pick the right one for your team. asana,faq,monday.com,Project Management,asana vs monday Asana asana-task-calendar asana-project asana Tableau Dashboard asana-workflows Workflows in Asana asana gantt monday monday.com Customizable Boards Create highly customizable boards with monday.com’s work OS. Source: monday.com Groups in Monday.com monday.com Workspaces monday.com makes it easy to create your workspace. Source: monday.com monday.com Integrations Integrate monday.com with many apps, including Jira software. Source: monday.com Maps in Monday.com Asana Asana eliminates friction from your workflows that work with apps like Google Drive. Source: Asana Asana Views Asana offers multiple project views, including a kanban board. Source: Asana Glossary of HR Terms https://technologyadvice.com/blog/human-resources/hr-glossary/ Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:48:12 +0000 https://technologyadvice.com/?p=122704 A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z

The post Glossary of HR Terms appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

]]>

A

Allyship training is a nuanced and focused form of DEI training that teaches employees about marginalized groups and the biases, stereotypes, and inequalities they face. It provides resources and foundational knowledge workplace allies need to communicate with and advocate for underrepresented members of the workforce.

As seen in: Allyship Training for Organizations

Attrition refers to gradual reduction in an employee’s workforce over time. Attrition occurs for voluntary reasons (resignation, retirement, relocation, etc.) and involuntary reasons (discharges, layoffs, and eliminated positions, etc.).

As seen in: Employee Attrition Rate Calculation: A Quick Guide

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a software application that allows hiring teams to organize candidate information and monitor the hiring pipeline for multiple open roles. ATS software streamlines most recruitment operations, including creating job posts, screening candidates, and scheduling interviews.

As seen in: Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Software Guide

B

A bonus is an extra amount given to employees on top of their regular wages, usually as a reward for good performance. The FLSA categorizes a bonus as either discretionary or non-discretionary based on whether you set conditions to receive the bonus in advance. This is important when determining overtime pay for your non-exempt employees.

As seen in: Employee Bonuses 101: Everything You Need to Know

Benefits administration refers to the process of managing the benefits package a company offers its employees. Common benefits include health insurance, retirement plans, life insurance, disability coverage, pet insurance, and wellness programs. Benefits administration involves tasks like researching benefits options, negotiating competitive rates, educating employees during open enrollment, assisting employees with enrollment after qualifying life events, preventing compliance violations, and analyzing benefits utilization data.

As seen in:

A boomerang employee is one who previously worked for a company and has been rehired in the same role or a different one. Boomerang employees may have left voluntarily or they have been laid off in a downsizing measure.

As seen in: How Boomerang Employees Can Reinvigorate Your Organization

C

Candidate relationship management (CRM) is the practice of nurturing relationships with current and prospective job candidates throughout the recruiting process. It involves strategic engagement with passive candidates who have already been vetted.

As seen in: Top Candidate Relationship Management Software

Company culture describes the overall work environment of your company. It represents both stated and implied external and internal company procedures, processes, policies, behaviors, and interactions.

As seen in: Culture vs. Values: What’s the Difference?

Company values are principles, ethics, morals, and beliefs that guide an employer’s decision-making process. Examples include concepts like teamwork, inclusion, innovation, and trust.

As seen in: Culture vs. Values: What’s the Difference?

Contractors are the second-most common type of worker in the U.S. after employees. Contractors can refer to contingent workers or subcontractors, but for payroll purposes, the term contractors is typically shorthand for contingent workers.

Contingent workers comprise independent contractors, freelancers, gig workers, and consultants who work independently of the employer, typically providing project-based services. While employers hire these workers directly, contingent workers are not economically dependent on them. This also means employers are not responsible for contractors’ benefits and tax withholdings.

This makes paying contractors significantly easier than paying employees since you only have to pay them their agreed-upon compensation without factoring in deductions, taxes, and other benefits. However, there are hefty fines for misclassifying employees as contractors.

In January 2024, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) released new rules on employee and contractor classification. It is now much harder to classify workers as contractors, so carefully examine your workers’ responsibilities and level of independence before giving them their first paycheck.

As seen in: Top Contractor Payroll Solutions

Cultural competence is a broad concept that generally refers to the ability to understand, appreciate, and interact with people of different cultures and backgrounds.

As seen in: Cultivating Cultural Competence in the Workplace

D

DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s also commonly referred to as DEIB (DEI + belonging), DEIA (DEI + accessibility), or DEIJ (DEI + justice).

As seen in: What is DEI?

Deductions are any amount withheld from an employee’s paycheck, like health insurance premiums, payments for company equipment, child support, and taxes.

Outside of deductions mandated by law, you generally need to obtain authorization from the employee before withholding any amount from their pay. Even then, those voluntary deductions should not take the employee’s paycheck below what they would make at minimum wage.

Direct deposit is a method of paying employees by sending their paychecks straight to their bank accounts. Unlike paper checks, direct deposit gives employees quicker access to their funds since they do not have to deposit checks into their banking accounts or exchange them for cash.

You must receive a direct deposit authorization form from employees that outlines their bank account and routing numbers, plus permission to send them their funds electronically.

As seen in: What Are the Best Methods for Paying Employees?

Employee disciplinary action is a series of formal, corrective actions companies take to correct an employee’s unwanted behavior or address a company policy violation.

As seen in: Employee Disciplinary Action Guide + Form Template

Disposable earnings refer to the employee’s gross pay after all legally required deductions, including federal, state, and local income taxes, plus the employee’s portion of FICA. For example, if John Doe’s gross pay is $1,500 and his total tax deductions for FIT, state income, and FICA are $356, then his disposable income is $1,144.

Most garnishment orders use disposable earnings to calculate how much the employee owes per paycheck. Be sure to carefully read how the garnishment order defines disposable earnings or how your employee’s state defines it. Some definitions include health insurance and retirement contributions in the disposable earnings calculation, while others do not.

Diversity hiring is a recruitment strategy that aims to increase the diversity of a company’s workforce by eliminating bias, accessibility barriers, and non-inclusive recruiting tactics in the talent acquisition process.

As seen in: The Complete Guide to Diversity Hiring

E

eLearning, a portmanteau of “electronic learning,” refers to training, coaching, and other forms of instruction that use technology.

As seen in: What is eLearning? A Comprehensive Guide for Business

Employees are workers who depend on employers for work. Employers are responsible for providing employees with compensation and other federal, state, or local mandated benefits. You can further divide employees into exempt or non-exempt from overtime pay based on factors like salary level, executive power, and whether they work in a creative or learned profession.

For payroll purposes, you must pay your employees per applicable labor laws, including withholding and remitting various payroll taxes to government agencies on their behalf. Because of this, employee payroll can be tricky, resulting in common mistakes such as misclassification to avoid tangling with various pay and tax laws.

Employee burnout is a state of physical, mental, or emotional exhaustion paired with job dissatisfaction.

As seen in: Employee Burnout: Top Signs & Prevention Tips

Employee classification is a system of categorizing employees to determine their pay and tax circumstances.

As seen in: Employee Classification: HR’s Guide to Classification Compliance

The employee life cycle is a concrete framework for conceptualizing each part of someone’s experience as an employee, from brand awareness to offboarding.

As seen in: Employee Life Cycle: The HR Guide to Managing the Stages

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are employee-led internal organizations that focus on creating more diverse, inclusive workplaces. They also go by affinity groups, business resource groups, or business network groups.

As seen in: Employee Resource Groups: Definition & Implementation

Employee satisfaction is a qualitative HR metric that measures how happy employees are with their jobs.

As seen in: How to Measure Employee Satisfaction

EOR stands for employer of record. An employer of record (EOR) serves as the legal employer of a business’s workforce.

As seen in:

An exit interview is a conversation with a departing employee about their experience working for the company.

As seen in: Conducting an Effective Exit Interview: Tips & Best Practices

Expense management is the practice of forecasting, paying, tracking, reporting, and reimbursing business expenses.

As seen in: What is Expense Management?

F

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the U.S. federal law governing worker pay, minimum wage, overtime, recordkeeping, and youth employment for private and public employers. Most states and some municipalities also have their own version of the FLSA with more stringent regulations and employee protections.

The Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) is the federal law that mandates Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. Many HR professionals and payroll providers use FICA to refer to both tax payments collectively. While the total paid in FICA taxes is 15.3% that you and your employee share, the law allocates 12.4% of that amount to Social Security and 2.9% to Medicare.

The Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) regulates employer tax payments for the federal unemployment compensation program. The rate is 6% of employees’ taxable wages, and you are responsible for the payment. However, you pay FUTA only on the first $7,000 of employees’ taxable annual income. 

If your employees live in a state with a state unemployment insurance program that you pay into, you can receive up to a maximum credit of 5.4%, reducing your FUTA rate to 0.6%.

The 1099 forms summarize various types of income you may receive in a calendar year outside of the employer-employee relationship. Many types of 1099 forms exist, but employers frequently use 1099 to refer to Form 1099-NEC. 1099-NECs notify contractors of the income they received from their clients in a calendar year to complete their tax returns.

Like W-2s, you must send 1099-NECs to your contractors by January 31. You also file 1099-NECs with the IRS by this date.

G

Garnishments are court-ordered withholdings from employee paychecks to pay for a debt. Child support is the most common garnishment, but employees may also receive garnishments for unpaid taxes or loan defaults. The employer is responsible for withholding the proper garnishment amount from an employee’s paychecks and paying the appropriate agency on their behalf.

Gross pay is the total earnings of an employee’s paycheck before taxes and deductions. For example, let’s say an employee’s straight-time rate is $20 per hour. If they work 40 hours in a pay period without any overtime, commissions, tips, and other earnings, their gross pay before taxes and deductions is $800.

H

HCM stands for human capital management.

As seen in: HRIS vs. HRMS vs. HCM: What Is the Difference?

Holiday pay is paid leave provided to employees for public holidays recognized by the company. In the U.S., this typically means paying employees at their straight-time rate for their normally scheduled hours on the following days under the employer’s holiday time off policy:

  • New Year’s Day.
  • Memorial Day.
  • Juneteenth.
  • Independence Day.
  • Labor Day.
  • Thanksgiving.
  • Christmas.

As seen in: How to Navigate Employee Holiday Time Off

HRIS stands for human resources information system.

As seen in:

HRMS stands for human resources management system.

As seen in:

HR automation refers to the practice of using intelligent software tools to replace manual tasks and processes.

As seen in: What is HR Automation: Everything You Need to Know

An HR strategy is a plan for how to maximize the value of a company’s workforce, complete with goals and milestones along the way to promote accountability.

As seen in: What is Strategic Human Resource Management?

Hard skills, also known as technical skills, comprise the practical abilities someone needs to perform their primary job responsibilities on a daily basis.

As seen in: Hard Skills vs Soft Skills: How to Measure Them?

An HR consultant is an HR expert that a company hires as an independent contractor to accomplish a specific project or objective. HR consultants provide various services, including professional consulting, education, training, and advising on human resource solutions.

As seen in: What Does an HR Consultant Do?

I

Income taxes are the federal and applicable state and local taxes withheld from an employee’s paycheck based on their taxable income. Generally, the more an employee makes, the more you withhold in taxes.

As an employer, you are responsible for calculating, withholding, and remitting income taxes from an employee’s paycheck to the appropriate government agencies.

The I-9 form is a document that verifies a new employee’s identity and authorization to work in the U.S. The form is issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and is enforced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). You are legally required to complete an I-9 form for every new employee.

As seen in: How to Fill Out I-9 Form

J

A job hopper is someone who has started and ended multiple jobs in quick succession within a relatively short timeframe.

As seen in: How to Hire & Retain Job Hoppers

L

LMS stands for learning management system.

As seen in: Learning Management System (LMS) Software Guide

M

Medicare tax is the amount you and your employee pay to fund the U.S. Medicare program. Like Social Security tax, employees pay a flat rate of 1.45% of their taxable wages, which you match every paycheck.

Minimum wage is the lowest per-hour rate employers can pay employees for their work. The current U.S. federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, but most states and several local areas have higher minimum wage requirements. You must follow the minimum wage law that provides the highest rate for employees in your area or state.

N

You can think of net pay as an employee’s take-home pay. It is the amount of money employees receive following all taxes and deductions. For example, if an employee’s gross pay is $800 but they have $100 in taxes and deductions, then their net pay is $700.

O

On-the-job (OTJ) training involves teaching new hires about their position via experiential learning — learning through doing — as opposed to offsite training.

As seen in: How to Make On-the-Job Training Work for Your Business

Federally, overtime rate is the pay rate hourly non-exempt workers receive for any hours worked over 40 in a week, but this can be different state by state. Overtime rate is one-and-a-half times an employee’s straight-time rate.

Example: If an employee’s straight-time rate is $20 per hour, their overtime rate is:

$20 x 1.5 = $30 per hour.

You may also hear the term overtime premium rate, which refers to the difference between an employee’s overtime rate and straight-time rate. Using the example above, if the employee’s straight-time rate is $20 per hour, their overtime premium is $10 per hour, or the additional $10 over their straight-time rate to get their overtime rate of $30 per hour.

An org chart is a visual representation of the relationships between employees’ positions.

As seen in: Org Chart Software Guide

P

Parental leave, also referred to as family leave, is a benefit given to employees who need time away from work to care for their children. It is similar to sick leave and PTO, but the stipulations for eligibility and entitlement are often more nuanced and subject to more legal requirements.

As seen in: The Employer’s Guide to Parental Leave Policies

A passive job candidate is a prospective hire who isn’t actively looking for a new job but is open to opportunities.

As seen in: What Are Passive Candidates & How Can You Recruit Them?

A pay card is an employee payment method that looks and works like a debit card. Instead of a check, employees receive money directly deposited into their pay card accounts. In addition to withdrawing money, employees can use the card at physical and online stores to purchase goods and services.

As seen in: What are the Best Methods for Paying Employees?

A pay period is the timeframe companies use to calculate employees’ paychecks. Pay periods closely align with pay schedules. Where a pay schedule tells you how often employees should expect a paycheck, pay periods indicate what dates your employees worked for that payday.

For example, say you have a semi-monthly pay schedule that pays employees on the 15th and the last day of the month. Your pay period may run between the 1st and 15th of the month. Then, you use the remaining days of the month as your pay period to calculate your employees’ pay on the last day of the month.

Pay periods should be consistent with your pay schedule and cover all days in a calendar year.

A pay schedule is the frequency with which you pay your employees. The most common pay frequencies in the U.S. are weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, and monthly.

As seen in: What is the Best Payroll Schedule for Your Business?

Paystubs are statements employees receive alongside their paychecks. They detail the employee’s gross earnings, net earnings, taxes, and deductions for that paycheck. Employers must provide employees with copies of paystubs with each paycheck, regardless of whether they receive their pay via paper check or direct deposit.

PEO stands for professional employer organization. PEOs partner with corporations to share HR responsibilities and compliance risks.

As seen in:

A performance improvement plan (PIP) is a formal document that outlines the steps employees must follow to remain in good-standing and avoid termination.

As seen in: What is a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)?

Performance metrics are the quantitative and qualitative measurements that assess how well employees are doing their jobs. Companies typically represent performance metrics as key performance indicators (KPIs) or objectives and key results (OKRs).

As seen in: Top Performance Metrics Examples & What They Measure

Positive pay is a method that financial institutions use to reduce the chance of check fraud. For payroll, it involves reporting the list of check numbers, issue dates, and dollar amounts to your bank. This way, when an employee presents a check for payment, the bank can check its validity against previously authorized checks before providing the funds.

Post-tax deductions do not lower an employee’s taxable income. Instead, you deduct them from employees’ gross pay following pre-tax deductions and taxes. Examples of post-tax deductions include union dues, pet insurance, company equipment fees, garnishments, and charitable contributions.

Preboarding is the employee life cycle phase that starts when a new hire accepts a job offer and transitions to onboarding on the employee’s first day. The preboarding process involves a range of various administrative tasks and engagement activities that generate enthusiasm and help new hires feel more comfortable in their new roles.

As seen in: Onboarding Rethought: Why Your Company Should Preboard New Hires

Pre-tax deductions are deductions taken from an employee’s paycheck before you calculate certain taxes. The benefit of pre-tax deductions is that they lower the employee’s taxable income, in turn lowering the amount of taxes withheld from their paycheck.

Only a few types of deductions are considered pre-tax deductions; the most common are health insurance premiums, flexible spending accounts (FSAs), health savings accounts (HSAs), commuter benefits, and retirement contributions.

Pulse surveys are short lists of focused questions that track fast-moving trends and collect immediate feedback from employees.

As seen in: What is a Pulse Survey?

Q

Quiet quitting is when employees disengage from work by performing only the duties outlined in their job descriptions and nothing more.

As seen in: What Managers Should Know About Quiet Quitting

Quiet hiring is the process of developing internal staff to fill critical positions or outsourcing partial job functions to independent contractors.

As seen in: What Is Quiet Hiring?

R

Recruitment metrics are measurements companies can use to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of their hiring processes.

As seen in: Essential Recruiting Metrics to Track

Reimbursements are payments you make to employees to cover business expenses. For example, you may reimburse employees for mileage costs, travel, relocation assistance, company equipment, meals, and entertainment.

Accountable reimbursements, where you reimburse employees exact amounts per receipt, are nontaxable. In contrast, providing employees with $100 for a team meal without requiring a receipt is considered a nonaccountable reimbursement and is subject to taxes.

A relocation policy outlines the processes for moving a new or current employee from one location to another. Companies typically move their employees to places where they need to be physically present to carry out their job responsibilities, especially when it involves collaborating with colleagues.

As seen in: Employee Relocation Policy 101

Reputation management is a continuous, comprehensive organizational strategy that influences and manages internal and external stakeholders’ perception of your company and its brand. It involves a balance between reactively addressing issues and proactively showcasing the company’s strengths in an authentic and transparent manner.

As seen in: Corporate Reputation Management: Best Practices & Strategy

Résumé screening is the practice of reviewing a candidate’s application documents to determine if they are qualified for the position.

As seen in: Resume Screening Best Practices for Recruiters (2024)

Retention refers to an organization’s ability to incentivize employees to stay with the company instead of looking for other jobs.

As seen in: Top 4 Employee Retention Strategies for 2024

ROWE stands for results-only work environment. A ROWE is an approach to company culture in which employees are rewarded for their work output, not the number of hours worked or their presence in the office.

As seen in: Rewarding Performance in a Results-Only Work Environment

S

Salary rate is a set pay amount an employee receives per pay period. Unlike total straight-time or overtime pay, an employee paid at a salary rate receives the same compensation per pay period with few exceptions.

Most employees paid at a salary rate are also exempt from overtime, but not always. If you pay non-exempt employees a salary rate, you must still monitor their hours and pay them at their overtime rate when applicable.

Example: Say you pay your workers semi-monthly, resulting in 24 payrolls a year. One of your employees has an annual salary rate of $60,000. This means their gross pay every payroll is $60,000 / 24 payrolls or $2,500 per pay period.

Severance pay is compensation or other benefits employers provide employees following termination. Severance pay can help keep the relationship with an employee amicable while offering them a way to pay for expenses as they look for a new job.

As seen in: Severance Pay: An Employer’s Guide to Payments and Policy

A skills gap analysis is a technique that identifies discrepancies between the skills of your current workforce and the skills your business needs.

As seen in: How to Conduct a Skills Gap Analysis

Social recruiting is a talent acquisition strategy that involves using social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to attract, engage, and hire employees.

As seen in: Social Recruiting: Everything You Need to Know

Social Security tax is the amount you and your employee pay to fund the U.S. Social Security program. It is a flat rate of 6.2% of employees’ taxable income after pre-tax deductions like health insurance and commuter benefits. As an employer, you also match this amount every paycheck.

Soft skills, also known as durable or people skills, are the personality traits, habits, or other characteristics that allow you to be more productive or efficient in your role.

As seen in: Hard Skills vs Soft Skills: How to Measure Them?

Several states administer state unemployment insurance programs that you pay into each payroll based on your employee’s taxable income. These taxes are called SUTA (State Unemployment Tax Act) or SUI (State Unemployment Insurance). Tax rates, calculations, and taxable wage bases differ by state.

Straight-time rate is the pay rate non-exempt, hourly workers receive for any hours they work under overtime. Many conflate straight-time rate with “regular rate,” which refers to the standard pay hourly non-exempt employees and salary-exempt employees receive every paycheck.

According to the IRS, a supplemental wage is any amount paid in addition to employees’ regular wages. This includes bonuses, commissions, severance pay, rewards/prizes, and back pay. Supplemental wages are taxed differently depending on whether you issue the amount alongside the employees’ regular paycheck or separately.

You can read more about this in IRS Publication 15 Circular E.

Succession planning is the act of developing long- and short-term strategies to fill critical roles when they become vacant.

As seen in: Succession Planning Examples

T

Taxable income, or taxable wages, is the amount of your employee’s pay subject to taxation. Taxable income varies by law, but it’s usually an employee’s gross pay minus pre-tax deductions, like health insurance, child support, and retirement plans.

A taxable wage base is the maximum amount of income taxed in a calendar year. Several tax laws, including Social Security, FUTA, and SUTA, have taxable wage bases.

Turnover, also known as employee churn, refers to a cyclical process of hiring, losing, and replacing employees in an organization.

As seen in: 6 Strategies to Reduce High Employee Turnover + Free Calculator

U

Unlimited paid time off (PTO) is a type of paid leave policy that allows employees to take off as much time as they need for vacation, sick, or personal reasons. The main caveat is that employees must manage their time effectively and meet work expectations.

As seen in: What is Unlimited Paid Time Off?

Upskilling is a strategic training and development initiative that evaluates employees’ skills in a particular area and provides the resources they need to build on them.

As seen in: Upskilling Your Workforce in 2024

V

Virtual reality (VR) training uses specialized technology — like headsets, surround sound, and gaming controllers — to teach employees new skills in a completely digital environment.

As seen in: What is VR Training?

W

WFA stands for work-from-anywhere. A work-from-anywhere policy allows employees to work from any location as long as they continue to meet all work expectations.

As seen in: How to Create an Effective Work-From-Anywhere Policy

W-2 forms summarize employees’ total income and taxes withheld for a calendar year. Employers must send these forms to employees by January 31 of the following year. Employees use these documents when preparing their tax returns.

The W-4 form, and state and local equivalents, is the federal form employees complete during onboarding to determine their income tax withholdings per paycheck. The form asks employees to identify their tax filing status, whether they work multiple jobs, number of dependents, and additional withholdings.

W-9 forms are information forms contractors complete before starting work with you. The form asks contractors to identify their Tax Identification Number (TIN), which is usually either an Employer Identification Number (EIN) or Social Security Number (SSN).

Companies need this number to report contractor income to the IRS and provide contractors with a 1099-NEC at the end of the calendar year.

Z

Zoom fatigue — also known as virtual or video meeting fatigue — is the mental, physical, social, and emotional exhaustion a person feels after the persistent use of video conferencing software for virtual meetings.

As seen in: How to Manage Zoom Fatigue in the Workplace

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