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Human Resources for Halloween: Business English
This silly video has a ton of really good business English language and it is appropriate for Halloween! It uses several English idioms, phrasal verbs, and words that are important in HR and business in general.
Below are some important phrases from the video. Did you understand them all?
- Could you please send him?
- Mummy, thanks for coming, please have a seat.
- Your numbers are down.
- It isn’t just a slump.
- You’ve been underperforming for years now.
- All of us in the front office have been rooting for you to turn things around.
- Werewolf isn’t on fire but, he has support from every major demographic out there.
- This is purely a performance based issue.
- We are going to have to let you go.
- We’ve put together a very generous severance package.
If you are hearing these phrases in English in real life, you might be a bit concerned because this is how HR talks when they are about to fire you!
Look at some of the phrasal verbs that are used:
rooting for–to support someone
turn something around–in this case it means to improve
on fire–in this sense it means popular
let someone go–to be told that you do not have a job
put together–created
Now look at some of the vocabulary related to business:
numbers are down–your sales numbers are lower than they should be.
slump–a bad financial/economic cycle
underperforming–when your job performance isn’t good.
major demographic-large number of different groups of people arranged by race, gender, age, ect.
severance package–the money that you get from a company when you have been fired or laid off.