50+ Best HR Quotes to Improve Your People Management

If you are looking for motivational quotes that will inspire you to reach new heights and build a strong company culture, you are in the right place:

1) “Human resources are the architects of an environment where talent can flow.”

2) “You cannot mandate productivity; you must provide the tools to let people become their best.” – Steve Jobs

3) “Human resources are like natural resources; they’re often buried deep. You have to go looking for them; they’re not just lying around on the surface.” – Ken Robinson

4) “Not finance, not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and rare.” – Patrick Lencioni

5) “The best manager is the one who knows how to find and nurture talent.”

6) “Every recruitment process is an opportunity to build a brilliant team. Never lose sight of this objective.”

7) “Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers.” – Robin S. Sharma

8) “Before you are a leader, success is about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is about growing others.” – Jack Welch

9) “HR pros are similar to orchestra conductors: they harmonize everyone’s talents to create the melody of success.”

10) “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Sir Richard Branson

Although we would never deny the fact that HR strategies play a crucial role in every organization, the truth is that human resources will always mainly focus on people. Here are quotes to guide talent management and appreciate people skills:

11) “Relationships, not power, drive you forward.” – Kim Malone Scott

12) “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

13) “Your smile is your logo, your personality is your business card, how you leave others feeling after an experience with you becomes your trademark.” – Jay Danzie

14) “Every single HR process is an integral part of a positive employee experience, including recruitment, performance reviews and one-on-one meetings.”

15) “Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.” – Simon Sinek

16) “Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.” – Terry Pratchett

17) “The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people.” – Tom Peters

18) “To win in the marketplace, you must first win the workplace.” – Doug Conant

19) “Accepted that we all are human resources, but we are humans first and resources later.” – Rutvik Oza

20) “When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.” – Betty Bender

Managing people is all about using constructive communication and creating a healthy culture of growth and feedback. Here are quotes highlighting how crucial communication can be for long-term success:

21) “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” – Epictetus 

22) “Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.” – Andy Stanley

23) “When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.” – Stephen R. Covey

24) “Your ability to communicate is an important tool in the pursuit of your goals, whether it is with your family, your co-workers or your clients and customers.” – Lee Brown

25) “Be sincere; be brief, be seated.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

26) “The way you ask for criticism and react when you get it goes a long way toward building trust – or destroying it.” – Kim Malone Scott

Funny HR quotes are always a blast, just like HR memes:

27) “That’s the way to get on in the world – by grabbing your opportunities. Why, what’s Big Ben but a wrist-watch that saw its chance and made good?” – P. G. Wodehouse

28) “The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.​” – Stanley J. Randall

29) “I will always choose a lazy person to do a hard job, because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” – Bill Gates

30) “Do not underestimate your abilities. That is your boss’s job.” – Francis Young

31) “I am about to do something very bold in this job that I’ve never done before. Try.” – Jim Halpert

32) “The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.” – Robert Frost

33) “You may look around and see two groups here: white collar, blue collar. But I don’t see it that way, and you know why not? Because I am collar-blind.” – Michael Scott

Nowadays, we all know that HR has a huge part to play in business strategies… Right? You can use these quotes to debunk pesky HR myths:

34) “Synergy encourages good energy: the HR department is more efficient when working in cohesion with other teams and needs to be aware of everything that is going on in the organization.”

35) “Human Resource isn’t a thing we do; it’s the thing that runs our business.” – Steve Wynne

36) “Financial Resources may be the lifeblood of a company, but Human Resources are the brains.” – Rob Silzer

37) “HR is the pillar of your organizational culture and should be at the forefront of all your business plans.”

38) “The value of a business is a function of how well the financial capital and intellectual capital are managed by human capital. You’d better get the human capital part right.” – Dave Bookbinder

39) “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” – Michael Jordan

40) “HR has to work with all sorts of data, including statistics and feedback, in addition to thinking strategically and creatively to overcome various challenges. All this, of course, with people at the core of all action plans!”

41) “Ultimately, delivering strategy is about hiring the right people and motivating them to deliver results.” – Helen M. & P. Schubert

42) “Great vision without great people is irrelevant.” – Jim Collins

These quotes perfectly illustrate the importance of appreciating employees’ contributions, their loyalty, and their role in your organization:

43) “Take time to appreciate employees and they will reciprocate in a thousand ways.” – Bob Nelson

44) “If there were somewhere else that valued loyalty more highly, I’m going wherever they value loyalty the most.” – Dwight Schrute

45) “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” – Oscar Wilde

46) “We all have goals: We want to matter. We want to be important. We want to have freedom and power to pursue our creative work. We want respect from our peers and recognition for our accomplishments. Not out of vanity or selfishness, but of an earnest desire to fulfill our personal potential.” – Ryan Holiday

47) “Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not. I like to be liked. I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked. But it’s not like a compulsive need to be liked. Like my need to be praised.” – Michael Scott

48) “Treat employees like they make a difference and they will.” – Jim Goodnight

49) “People may take a job for more money, but they often leave it for more recognition.” – Bob Nelson

50) “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” – Max de Pree

Let’s conclude this article with a quote illustrating exactly how we envision HR at Folks:

Human Resources stands for…

H – Hiring 🔎

U – Uniting 🤗

M – Managing 🤝

A – Aligning 🧭

N – Nurturing 🌱

R – Retaining 💛

E – Empowering 🙌

S – Supporting 📣

O – Optimizing 📈

U – Unleashing 💡

R – Resolving 🎯

C – Cultivating 🪴

E – Engaging 🎉

S – Sustaining 🚀

That’s why we ❤️ HR!