What is a good quote for HR?

Peter Drucker's “The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things” (Management, 1973) sums up the job. For a team slide, try Louis Gerstner's “In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.”

What are good human resource management quotes for managers?

Tom DeMarco's “The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work” (Peopleware, 1987) is the one to put in manager training. Thomas J. Watson's line on leading yourself before leading others works for new managers.

Who said “Human Resources isn't a thing we do. It's the thing that runs our business”?

It's usually credited to the casino developer Steve Wynn, but we couldn't trace it to a book, speech or interview of his, so we left it off.

Did Peter Drucker say “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”?

No. Wikiquote lists it as misattributed: the line first appears in 2000, in a paper industry magazine, and was first tied to Drucker in 2011, six years after he died. Our company culture quotes page has the story and 45 culture quotes we could source.

What are some funny HR quotes?

Douglas McGregor's “The ingenuity of the average worker is sufficient to outwit any system of controls devised by management” and Tom DeMarco's “People under pressure don't work better; they just work faster” both get a laugh in a room of HR people.

How do I use a quote on HR Professionals Day?

HR Professionals Day is September 26. Post one quote with the names of your HR team and one thing each did this year. For more ideas, see our HR Professionals Day guide.

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Quotes

HR quotes: 45 sourced quotes for human resources teams

Quotes for HR teams, sorted by the job you need one for. Each one checked against its source.

KraftyLab TeamUpdated Oct 20268 min read

A smiling HR specialist opens a welcome folder for a new hire across a desk in a sunny office.

Most human resource quotes online have no source, and some carry the wrong name. We checked these 45 one by one against the speaker's own book, talk or post, or the sourced section of their Wikiquote page. Copy any of them, name included, with one click.

HR quotes for hiring and onboarding

For the start of the job, from the job ad to the first week.

On hiring

For a job ad, interviewer training or the kickoff with a hiring manager.

One cannot hire a hand; the whole man always comes with it.
Peter Drucker, management thinker
Hire for all jobs based on empathy. Employ people who care about people; everything else can be trained.
Tom Peters, management writer
Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy.
Jack Welch, GE chief executive
Effective hiring and screening and team building is not about bringing in the givers; it's about weeding out the takers.
Adam Grant, organizational psychologist
When it comes to creativity and to leadership, we need introverts doing what they do best.
Susan Cain, author of Quiet
We don't want anyone to be a leader in the company if they haven't been interviewed and approved by their future subordinates.
Ricardo Semler, Semco chief executive
In manufacturing, we try to stamp out variance. With people, variance is everything.
Jack Welch, GE chief executive
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Samuel Johnson, English writer

On onboarding and learning

For the first-week deck and the buddy program.

Above all, it is necessary to recognize that knowledge cannot be pumped into human beings the way grease is forced into a machine. The individual may learn; he is not taught.
Douglas McGregor, management professor
Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing.
Henry Mintzberg, management scholar
In the industrial, as well as the academic world, almost every man is a teacher.
Lillian Gilbreth, industrial psychologist
Every man I meet is my master at some point, and in that, I learn of him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist
The best learners are also teachers.
Dave Ulrich, HR scholar

Human resource management quotes for managers

Most of HR's work reaches people through their manager.

On leading people

For manager training and the people-leader newsletter.

The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.
Tom DeMarco, software management author
Behind every managerial decision or action are assumptions about human nature and human behavior.
Douglas McGregor, management professor
When we take people merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer
If you want people to do a good job, give them a good job to do.
Frederick Herzberg, work psychologist
Clarity is the antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.
Marcus Buckingham, strengths researcher
Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.
Thomas J. Watson, IBM chairman
Leadership is always dependent upon the context, but the context is established by the relationships.
Margaret Wheatley, leadership writer

On the workplace people stay for

For an engagement survey readout or a wellbeing week.

I believe people work for satisfaction.
Akio Morita, Sony co-founder
It is all-important to keep the human touch in whatever we do.
Frances Perkins, US Secretary of Labor
Man has two sets of needs: his need as an animal to avoid pain and his need as a human to grow psychologically.
Frederick Herzberg, work psychologist
One friend, one person who is truly understanding, who takes the trouble to listen to us as we consider our problem, can change our whole outlook on the world.
Elton Mayo, organizational researcher
Helpfulness means I don't have to know everything, I just have to work among people who are good at getting and giving help.
Margaret Heffernan, business author

HR quotes on recognition

For a thank-you note, a recognition program launch or the awards slide. For thank-you lines in bulk, see our employee appreciation quotes.

Instead of constantly talking about motivation, organizations should ensure that employees are occasionally delighted.
Ricardo Semler, Semco chief executive
Everybody loves being recognized, in any way, large or small.
Tom Peters, management writer
Generosity is not a loan to repay or a debt to settle. It's a gift to appreciate. You reciprocate a favor by paying it back. You honor an act of kindness by paying it forward.
Adam Grant, organizational psychologist
Each person's greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength.
Marcus Buckingham, strengths researcher
I'm celebrated for celebrating the uncelebrated.
Studs Terkel, oral historian

Quotes for HR teams leading change

For a reorg memo, a new system rollout or a merger town hall.

The heart of change is in the emotions.
John Kotter, change management professor
Nothing undermines change more than behavior by important individuals that is inconsistent with the verbal communication.
John Kotter, change management professor
Change always involves a dark night when everything falls apart. Yet if this period of dissolution is used to create new meaning, then chaos ends and new order emerges.
Margaret Wheatley, leadership writer
In essence, leaders are people who "walk ahead," people genuinely committed to deep changes, in themselves and in their organizations.
Peter Senge, systems scientist
Learning is not compulsory; it's voluntary. Improvement is not compulsory; it's voluntary. But to survive, we must learn.
W. Edwards Deming, quality management pioneer
It is a kind of law of nature. The goal one aims for can rarely be reached by a direct road.
Konosuke Matsushita, Panasonic founder

Quotes on human resources: the job itself

For the HR team's own channel, an HR Professionals Day post or a conference slide.

The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things.
Peter Drucker, management thinker
In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.
Louis V. Gerstner Jr., IBM chief executive
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, education author
Too many organizations are making their decisions, their policies about talent and people, based on assumptions that are outdated, unexamined, and rooted more in folklore than in science.
Daniel Pink, author of Drive
Organizations exist only to serve. Leaders exist only to serve.
Tom Peters, management writer

Lighter quotes on HR, all real

Dry, funny and true. No sitcom lines, nothing credited to “unknown.”

The ingenuity of the average worker is sufficient to outwit any system of controls devised by management.
Douglas McGregor, management professor
The rule should be to minimize the need for people to get together to accomplish anything.
Peter Drucker, management thinker
Business has to be fun. For too many people, it's "just a job."
Jack Welch, GE chief executive
People under pressure don't work better; they just work faster.
Tom DeMarco, software management author

How to use HR quotes at work

Add one sentence of your own and a quote reads as a message, not a poster. Wording you can borrow:

Twelve blank index cards pinned in neat rows on an office corkboard above a desk with a coffee mug and pen.

On HR Professionals Day. September 26. Add the names of the people who did the work.“Gerstner wrote that an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value. [Names] build that capacity here every day. Happy HR Professionals Day.”
At the top of the HR newsletter. One quote, then one line on why it fits this month.“Marcus Buckingham wrote that clarity is the antidote to anxiety. So, with the new team structure starting [date], here's what changes for you and what doesn't.”
On an onboarding slide. Say what the quote means at your company.“Dave Ulrich wrote that the best learners are also teachers. Every new hire here gets a buddy, and by month three you'll be one.”

Famous HR quotes we left out, and why

These show up on most HR quote lists. We couldn't confirm the words under the name.

“Human Resources isn't a thing we do. It's the thing that runs our business.” (usually credited to Steve Wynn)
It tops most HR quote lists, but we couldn't trace it to a book, speech or interview of his.
“Hire character. Train skill.” (usually credited to Peter Schutz, former Porsche CEO)
We couldn't find it in anything he wrote or said on record. Tom Peters' empathy line in our hiring list makes the same point, with a source.
“Choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” (usually credited to Bill Gates)
Wikiquote lists it as misattributed: Clarence Bleicher said much the same in 1947, eight years before Gates was born.
“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.” (usually credited to Richard Branson)
It isn't on his Wikiquote page, and we couldn't trace it to a post, book or interview of his.
“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.” (usually credited to Goethe)
Wikiquote lists it as disputed: it may be a distortion of a passage by the child psychologist Haim Ginott. Its closing idea is real Goethe, and that passage is in our list.

Need a checked quote for another moment? Try our teamwork quotes or motivational quotes for work.

When a quote isn't enough

A quote starts a conversation, but it won't tell you how people feel. KraftyLab Intelligence sends a pulse survey automatically after every event to participants with an email, from 20 templates that run from eNPS to burnout. People answer in the browser with no account, and AI summaries pull out what they said. It also works on its own, without an event.

To thank people face to face, our employee appreciation events put remote, hybrid and office staff on one call with a live host, on Zoom by default (Teams, Meet or Webex on request). Teams split across time zones can book two sessions. Book about 2 weeks ahead; December dates fill first.

Two hosted hours HR teams book to say thanks, with today's prices. Get a free quote with your date and headcount.