5 Great Books for Human Resources

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Books for Human Resources

  • The Empowered Manager
  • Don't Hire the Best: An Essential Guide to Picking the Right Team
  • Games People Play
  • Work Rules: Insights From Inside Google that Will Transform How You Live and Lead
  • Reality Bites: The Role of HR in Today's World

As a human resource manager, part of your job involves continuous learning and improving of your organization. You may not have the resources to attend conferences and workshops or take a class, but it shouldn't be too hard for you spare some money to buy new books. For human resources and people operations experts, books provide a great platform to explore inspirational materials that go beyond day-to-day business operations and dive into what shapes a positive and productive work environment, according to Forbes. In connection to this, therefore, here are five great books to help any professional tasked with overseeing an organization's culture, from cultivating the best practices in an organization, to wrangling with polices, and driving effective communication.

1. The Empowered Manager, by Peter Block

The book delicately addresses the issue of politics at the workplace and highlights relevant examples of how positive politics can benefit professional development in an organization. The book urges human resources managers to acknowledge the presence of politics in every workplace environment and breaks the paradigm that politics in the workplace lacks any positive connotation. The author pinpoints various affirmations that if effectively practiced can truly empower human resources managers. The book is a great read for human resource professionals working in dynamic and complex environments that require superior performance.

2. Don't Hire the Best: An Essential Guide to Picking the Right Team

This great book answers questions on how to hire judiciously. Using case studies ranging from large global organizations to small startups with just a handful of people in the leadership positions, the book underlines the differences that exist between hiring the right fit candidate versus hiring the best. The books also give a comprehensive insight on how human resources professionals can balance their potential hires with the job roles and the company's culture, the only way to land candidates who will be successful.

3. Games People Play, by Eric Berne

The book gives a comprehensive outlook on human behavior and its relevance in the workplace environment. It exposes the readers to team dynamics, building stronger relationships, stakeholder management, and understanding of an individual through the lenses other people's expectation at the workplace and beyond. Simply put, the book is an intriguing piece that will go a long way in helping you discover a new game in every HR related situation.

4. Work Rules: Insights From Inside Google that Will Transform How You Live and Lead

Drawing from human psychology and behavioral economics, this book provides practical examples from a wide range of industries and takes you inside Google, the search engine giant, and what makes it one of the top places to work in globally. The book provides a guide on how one can strike a balance between creativity and structure which is important for success—and that can be measured in quality of life and market share.

5. Reality Bites: The Role of HR in Today's World

The book exposes the reader to the strategic role that HR manager plays to meet the business goals of an organization. "Reality Bites" is generally structured around the employee life cycle and documents practical aspects of employer and employee value proposition, recruitment, HR analytics, compensation, and exit.

Related Resource: 30 Most Affordable Online Master's in Organizational Leadership Degrees

If you are human resources professional, it is always a great idea to read top human resources books or the best books for every human resources manager. The highlighted books are just part of the many great HR books out there in the market/libraries. Nonetheless, what you stand to learn from these great human resources books is manifold. The books will go a long way in helping you manifest all the human resource experience that you would have had by now and soon you will ready with a plethora of winning human resource ideas for your organization.