101 HR Quotes to Make Even Mondays Bearable

If there is one thing that connects all employees across the world, it is their unanimous hatred for Mondays. It feels like the longest and slowest day of the week, and employees really struggle to find the motivation to get through Mondays. According to Forbes, 80% of people say Monday is their most stressful day at work, and 41% of people dislike Mondays the most. So here are not one, not two, but a hundred and one quotes that will help you love Mondays!

Motivation Matters

Employee engagement stands out as the paramount factor for organizational success. Engaged employees exhibit satisfaction and heightened loyalty to their work, resulting in remarkable productivity. While numerous avenues exist for finding motivation, turning to inspirational quotes proves to be the simplest and effective method. Let's explore how these quotes can contribute to enhancing the workdays for both you and your employees.

1. "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
2. "To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace." - Doug Conant
3. "The best companies value the balance between work and personal life, they value the individual and provide opportunities for challenges, achievement and growth." - Dr. John Sullivan
4. "Your number one customers are your people. Look after employees first and then customers last." - Ian Hutchinson
5. "The way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel. And if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers." - Sybil F. Stershic
6. "It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it." - Lou Holtz
7. "The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." - Ralph Nader
8. "Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it." - Henry David Thoreau
9. "Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to." - Richard Branson
10. "Great vision without great people is irrelevant." - Jim Collins

1. “One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” – Elbert Hubbard 
2. “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
3. “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
4. “It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
5. “High expectations are the key to everything.” — Sam Walton
6. “Human resources isn’t a thing we do, it’s the thing that runs our business.” — Steve Wynn
7. “Human resources are the most valuable assets the world has. They are all needed desperately.” — Eleanor Roosevelt Quote
8. “The body may be bought with a paycheck but the heart is earned with a purpose.” — Angela Lynne Craig
9. “You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless they are willing to climb.” – Andrew Carnegie
10. “Management is nothing more than motivation other people” - Lee Lacocca
11. "To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart." - Eleanor Roosevelt
12. “The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously your people will take you.” - John Maxwell
13. “Children imitate their parents, employees their managers.” – Amit Kalantri

1. "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do." - Steve Jobs
2. "People work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise, and rewards." - Dale Carnegie
3. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill
4. "Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best." - Theodore Isaac Rubin
5. "The best way to predict the future is to create it." - Peter Drucker
6. "Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going." - Sam Levenson
7. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." - Steve Jobs
8. Quotes on Employee Engagement
9. "There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organization’s overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow." - Jack Welch
10. "Employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals." - Kevin Kruse
11. "When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute." - Simon Sinek
12. "The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity." - Tom Peters

1. "Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person – not just an employee – are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability." - Anne M. Mulcahy
2. "Employees engage with employers and brands when they're treated as humans worthy of respect." - Meghan M. Biro
3. "An engaged employee is 44% more productive than a satisfied worker." - Gallup
4. "You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader." - Henry Ford
5. "Engaged employees stay for what they give (they like their work); disengaged employees stay for what they get (favorable job conditions, growth opportunities, job security)." - BlessingWhite's The State of Employee Engagement 2008
6. "Take care of your employees and they will take care of your business. It’s as simple as that." - Richard Branson
7. "Engagement is not something you can impose on people; it’s a two-way street. You have to be engaging for employees to be engaged." - Ian Buckingham
8. "Engagement is about building trust and being trusted. It is about connecting, communicating, and involving; an emotional and intellectual commitment to the organization." - Linda Holbeche

1. "Acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was - and still is - the most important thing we do." - Marc Bennioff, Salesforce CEO
2. "Recruiting should be viewed as business partner, someone who is critical to the success of the business." - Mathew Caldwell, GE Appliances
3. "Recruitment is a puzzle. You're trying to find the right piece for your company." - Unknown
4. "Recruitment is a proactive effort to identify, engage, and nurture relationships with candidates." - Lou Adler
5. "You are only as good as the people you hire." - Ray Kroc, McDonald's Corporation
6. "Hiring people is an art, not a science, and resumes can’t tell you whether someone will fit into a company’s culture." - Howard Schultz, Starbucks
7. "The best companies are those that think of their employees as volunteers." - Warren Buffett
8. "Recruitment is not about finding the perfect candidate; it’s about building a relationship with the right person for your organization." - Shannon Breuer, Wiley Education Services
9. "Your workforce is your most valuable asset. The knowledge and skills they have represent the fuel that drives the engine of business." - Harvey Mackay
10. "A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people." - Jim Collins

1. “Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.” —Peter Drucker
2. “The company culture is about being human, being good to other people.” — Logan Green 
3. “Culture is simply a shared way of doing something with a passion.” — Brian Chesky 
4. “Every time I see high-trust cultures, I see a lessening of adversarialism.” — Stephen Covey 
5. “Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.” — Simon Sinek 
6. “Ultimately, what any company does when it is successful is merely a lagging indicator of its existing culture.” — Satya Nadella 
7. “Like people, when companies work to foster a culture of collaboration, communication becomes second nature.” — Doug McMillon 
8. “There’s no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.” — Richard Branson 
9. “Part of company culture is path-dependent – it’s the lessons you learn along the way.” — Jeff Bezos 
10. “Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.” — Tony Hsieh 
11. “Corporate culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage that is completely within the control of the entrepreneur.” — David Cumming 

1. “Using people to be inclusive is not an attack. It is progress.” –DaShanne Stokes (Sociologist)
2. “If we want to include everyone, we have to help everyone develop their talents and use their gifts for the good of the community. That’s what inclusion means– everyone contributes.” –Melinda Gates
3. “You either believe that people respond to authority, or that they respond to kindness and inclusion. I’m obviously in the latter camp. I think that people respond better to reward than punishment.” –Brian Eno(Musician)
4. “Diversity requires commitment. Achieving superior performance diversity can produce further action– most notably, a commitment to develop a culture of inclusion. People do not just need to be different, they need to be fully involved and feel their voices are heard.” –Alain Dehaze (CEO of Adecco)
5. “The human heart is too grand to be wasted in the gutter of cultural exclusivity.” –Abhijit Naskar 
6. “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” – Stephen Covey
7. “Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.” -William Butler Yeats
8. “We have to transcend our differences to transform our future.” – Antonio Guterres
9. “You don’t have true freedom until you allow a diversity of opinion and a diversity of voices.” – Don Lemon
10. “Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible – the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.” – Virginia Satir
11. “You do not want to be in a creative organization with everybody being like-minded and stroking each other’s creative egos. You want differences of opinion… constructively.” – Cate Blanchett
12. “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. “When initiating activity in problem solving it is always best to let the team identify their own problems. I never yet saw a team that wasn’t interested in solving a problem they were interested in”. Kemball Fisher, author of “Leading Self Directed Work Teams”.
2. “There is only one thing that makes people unhappy, and that is when they have a problem they think is important and they don’t think they can influence it”. J Clayton Lafferty, Founder of Human Synergistics. 
3. “The thing is with a problem, after trying everything possible to fix it and you still find it is impossible to fix, then it ceases to be a problem”. The Dalai Lama
4. “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi
5.  "The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that's changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks." – Mark Zuckerberg
6. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
7. “You don’t need to be a genius or a visionary, or even a college graduate for that matter, to be successful. You just need framework and a dream.” – Michael Dell
8. "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." – Steve Jobs

1. “Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” – Steven Pressfield
2. “A brave man acknowledges the strengths of others”- Veronica Roth
3. “An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”– Mahatma Gandhi
4. “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of the employees, they’ll take care of the clients.”sir richard branson
5. “Treat your employees like an investment, not a cost.” – Dan Sullivan. American Senator
6. “The way your employees feel is the way your customers feel. And if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers.” – Sybil F. Stershic.
7. “You don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they’ll surprise you with their results.” – General George Patton. American Army General
8. “An employee’s motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.”–Dr. Bob Nelson, Best Selling Author and Motivational Speaker

1. "Employees are a company’s greatest asset – they’re your competitive advantage. You want to attract and retain the best; provide them with encouragement, stimulus, and make them feel that they are an integral part of the company’s mission." – Anne M. Mulcahy (Former CEO, Xerox)
2. “The secret to a successful hire is this: look for the people who want to change the world.” - Marc Benioff (CEO, Salesforce)
3. “Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.” - David Ogilvy
4. “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”  - Sir Richard Branson (Co-founder, Virgin Group)
5. “If you’re good to your staff when things are going well, they’ll rally when times go bad.” - Mary Kay Ash (Founder, Mary Kay Cosmetics) 
6. “Before you become a leader, success is all about growing yourself. After you become a leader, success is about growing others." - Jack Welch (CEO, General Electric)
7. “Human resources isn’t a thing we do. It’s the thing that runs our business.” - Steve Wynn (Founder, Wynn Resort)
8. "I hire people brighter than me and I get out of their way." - Lee Iacocca
9. "The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." - Theodore Roosevelt
10. “Recruitment IS marketing. If you’re a recruiter nowadays and you don’t see yourself as a marketer, you’re in the wrong profession.” - Matthew Jeffrey
11. “There goes my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.” - Mahatma Gandhi
12. “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” - Harvey S. Firestone

All Motivated to Take on the Day?

At least one of these 101 HR quotes must have made your day, right? Choose a couple of quotes that you feel resonate with your Mondays at the workplace. Let them be your mantra that helps bring out the best in your employees. If you still feel your workplace needs a bit more life, reach out to ThriveSparrow, and we'll find a solution together!