Sharon Armstrong began her Human Resources career as a Recruiter/Trainer in a large Manhattan law firm in 1985. Armstrong has provided training and completed HR projects dealing with performance management design and implementation for a wide range of clients since launching her own consulting firm, Human Resources 911, in 1998.

Barbara Mitchell is a human resources consultant, author, and speaker. She is the coauthor of several books, including The Big Book of HR, The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook, The Conflict Resolution Phrase Book, and The Essential HR Handbook. Marriott International was where she spent the majority of her HR career. Barbara is The Mitchell Group's managing partner and an innovative career transition coach.

For more than a decade, tens of thousands of busy managers have relied on this best-selling book as a handy guide to the ins and outs of human resources. And it's no surprise! Because, whether you're a small business owner, a manager in a company without an HR department, or a seasoned HR professional, The Essential HR Handbook will help you quickly and easily handle any personnel problem, from onboarding to outplacement. This fully updated 10th anniversary edition is jam-packed with information, tools, checklists, sample forms, and timely tips to help you navigate today's complex business environment's maze of personnel issues.

The Essential HR Handbook will teach you how to:

• Utilize social media recruiting to attract talented employees.
• Recognize legal pitfalls to avoid lawsuits and regulatory intervention.
• Develop a multigenerational workforce that is diverse and inclusive.
• Provide a compensation and benefits package that will position your company as a "employer of choice."
• Streamline your orientation and onboarding procedures so that new hires can hit the ground running.

When it comes to personnel issues, having The Essential HR Handbook on your bookshelf is like having a team of expert HR consultants at your disposal!

Author: Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Handbook-10th-Anniversary-Professional/dp/1632651394/

Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 stars (from 936 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #30,912 in Books

#10 in Business Encyclopedias

#19 in Business Education & Reference (Books)

#31 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Books)

Laszlo Bock was in charge of Google's people function, which was in charge of attracting, developing, retaining, and delighting "Googlers." Bock's previous experience includes executive positions at General Electric, management consulting at McKinsey & Company, start-ups, non-profits, and acting.

This realization is at the heart of Work Rules!, a compelling and unexpectedly playful manifesto that offers lessons such as:

• Remove managers' authority over employees.
• Learn from your best and worst employees.
• Hire only smarter people than you, no matter how long it takes to find them.
• Pay inequitably (it's more equitable!)
• Don't believe your instincts: Make use of data to forecast and shape the future.
• Be open and transparent by default, and welcome feedback.
• If you're satisfied with the amount of autonomy you've granted your employees, you haven't gone far enough.

Work Rules! also provides teaching examples from a variety of industries—including lauded companies that happen to be hideous places to work and little-known companies that achieve spectacular results by valuing and listening to their employees—drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and a profound understanding of human psychology. Bock takes us inside one of history's most explosively successful businesses to reveal why Google is consistently ranked as one of the best places to work in the world, distilling 15 years of intensive worker R&D into principles that are simple to implement, whether you're a team of one or a team of thousands.

Work Is Everything! shows how to strike a balance between creativity and structure, resulting in success that can be measured in terms of both quality of life and market share. Read it to build a better company from within rather than from without; read it to rediscover your passion for your work.

Author: Laszlo Bock

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside-Transform/dp/1455554790/

Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 stars (from 1525 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #34,480 in Books

#57 in Workplace Culture (Books)

#321 in Business Management (Books)

#488 in Leadership & Motivation

Bjørn Ekelund is Senior Consultant and Chairman of the Board at Human Factors AS in Norway, as well as a Research Fellow at Simon Fraser University's Centre for Global Workforce Strategy in Canada.

Unleashing the Power of Diversity provides a clear tool for developing a common language across teams and organizations that reinforces positive identity, builds trust in people and processes, promotes innovation, and aids in the sustainability of diversity.

Many organizations and teams are now dealing with global problems that include cultural, social, and environmental concerns. Climate change, mass migration, and human rights issues do not respect national borders or socioeconomic groups. To solve these complex problems, we must be able to communicate effectively across differences that might otherwise divide us.

Bjørn Ekelund, award-winning consultant and author, presents a clear step-by-step approach to communicating with people who have different mindsets, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds in this groundbreaking book. It is relevant and applicable in a variety of contexts, including the workplace, inter-professional, across industries and cultures, and between corporate, governmental, and non-governmental organizations.

The Diversity Icebreaker program, described in the book, has been implemented successfully in 70 countries and with 250,000 participants. It demonstrates how to break down these barriers and provides a new way to conceptualize diversity across various boundaries, allowing for the formation of trust and unity and paving the way for improved communication.

Author: Bjørn Ekelund

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Unleashing-Power-Diversity-Bj%C3%B8rn-Ekelund/dp/113860271X/

Ratings: 5 out of 5 stars (from 2 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #2,249,090 in Books

#4,231 in Workplace Culture (Books)

#6,171 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Books)

#7,406 in Motivational Management & Leadership

KURSAT OZENC, PHD works at SAP Labs Palo Alto as a Senior User Experience Designer. At Stanford Institute of Design, he teaches interaction and service design (the d.school). He also facilitates workshops on personal and group relationship rituals, organizational change, and civic design.

MARGARET HAGAN, PHD, JD, is the director of Stanford University's Legal Design Lab. She teaches at the d.school and is a legal industry thought leader, pioneering how to bring a human-centered approach to how legal and government organizations serve people.

Rituals for Work demonstrates how creative rituals can enrich our personal and professional lives. Rituals are effective tools for reinforcing good habits, motivating personal and professional achievement, forging bonds among coworkers, and for developing shared values; they can transform an organization's culture and provide a foundation for achieving common goals. This book takes a practical approach to the power and benefits of workplace rituals, focusing on real-world examples. From business and management to design and personal development, this insightful book presents 50 creative rituals. Specific case studies highlight the use of rituals and their positive impact on real-world organizations, while vivid visuals transport us to their energy and emotion.

A ritual is only effective if its purpose is clear. This book goes beyond simple analysis to provide individual ritual recipes designed to promote specific habits, change negative behaviors, and instill values. Each ritual can be adapted to achieve a variety of goals and tailored to the specific needs of your organization or team.

• Change behaviors, form positive habits, and give shared goals meaning
• Create shared values, foster innovation, and promote strong teamwork.
• Deal with conflicts effectively and enlist the help of others to find solutions.
• Learn the fundamental concepts of ritual construction and share your knowledge with your team.

Rituals for Work is an informative and inspiring resource for executives, managers, team leaders, and employees at all levels. It provides a blueprint for creating a culture of engagement, innovation, and shared purpose in organizations of all sizes and across industries.

Author: Kursat Ozenc and Margaret Hagan

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Rituals-Work-Engagement-Bottom-Up-Innovation/dp/1119530784/

Ratings: 4.2 out of 5 stars (from 156 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #156,938 in Books

#274 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Books)

#1,280 in Business Management (Books)

#1,789 in Leadership & Motivation

Poplar Financial, a provider of integrated, automated HR processes, is owned by Rhamy Alejeal. Rhamy and his team work with hundreds of businesses across the country to teach them how to stop pushing paper and start prioritizing people. Rhamy also serves on the Federal Reserve's Industry Council on Healthcare, where he provides insights into employer costs and how they affect businesses in today's marketplace.

Employees who are unmotivated. Inadequate performance. A high turnover rate. Addressing these issues should be your human resources managers' top priority, but they don't have time because they spend the majority of their days dealing with paperwork. To do right by your employees and the clients they serve, you must free HR from the burden of rote, repetitive, soul-draining procedures.

People Processes explains how to use technology to improve your personnel operations. Rhamy Alejeal walks you through each component of HR workflow, laying out the steps for optimizing rote procedures like onboarding, scheduling, payroll, reporting, compliance, and communication. You'll discover how to make the necessary changes and, even better, what the employee experience looks like once you've done so.

People are your most valuable asset. Putting the strategies outlined in People Processes into action will improve your ability to attract and retain them, giving you a competitive advantage.

Author: Rhamy Alejeal

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/People-Processes-Organizations-Competitive-Advantage-ebook/dp/B07GRCNSBY/

Ratings: 4.3 out of 5 stars (from 19 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #1,127,944 in Kindle Store

#327 in Human Resources & Personnel

#923 in Workplace Behavior

#1,241 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Kindle Store)

Before launching PeopleAnalyst, LLC, Mike West was a founding member of the first people analytics teams at Merck, PetSmart, Google, and Children's Health Dallas. He has assisted companies of all sizes in developing people analytics applications and establishing their own people analytics teams. Mike brings a distinct perspective on how to use data to build winning businesses and great places to work.

Creating a successful workforce necessitates more than a gut check. Data can assist you in making decisions ranging from where to seat a team to optimizing production processes to engaging with your employees in ways that are meaningful to them.

People analytics is the study of your most valuable business asset—your people—and this book teaches you how to collect data, analyze it, and then apply what you've learned to create a happier and more engaged workforce.

• Begin a project for people analytics.
• Utilize qualitative data
• Data collection via communication
• Find the best data analysis tools and methods.

People Analytics For Dummies makes it easier for your organization to better understand why high performers leave, why one department has more personnel issues than another, and why employees violate. The book is among the best books on HR.

Author: Mike West

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Analytics-Dummies-Business-Personal-Finance/dp/1119434769/

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars (from 129 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #178,272 in Books

#325 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Books)

Patti Perez is the Vice President of Workplace Strategy for Emtrain, a technology-driven HR culture/compliance company, and a frequent speaker on sexual harassment prevention and other workplace issues in the United States and Latin America. She is a licensed California attorney, a professionally certified human resources executive, and a workplace drama prevention and resolution specialist.

Companies spend millions of dollars on legal compliance training and initiatives to eliminate workplace drama, low morale, and lawsuits, but they don't always get the desired results. Most organizations recognize that simply checking legal compliance boxes for sexual harassment, bias, and other issues isn't enough, but are unsure how to implement solutions, particularly in today's post-#MeToo world.

Patti Perez is a former state regulator, attorney, HR expert, and trainer who has conducted over 1,200 workplace investigations. She explains the secret to avoiding all forms of drama, legal exposure, and low morale in this one-of-a-kind book: a healthy workplace culture. Patti uses her 25 years of professional experience, as well as solid data from behavioral science research, to debunk common myths, such as the belief that a focus on legal compliance leads to a healthy workplace culture. (In fact, it increases the chances of being sued.)

The Drama-Free Workplace includes a section with simple causes, effects, and solutions to problems such as:

• Sexual assault
• Diversity and bias
• Errors in ethics

The book also contains useful information on:

• Developing into a company that values and practices fearlessness, fairness, and freedom
• Anticipating situations that could lead to drama and providing detailed advice on how to avoid them
• Using emotional intelligence to communicate more precisely and persuasively about sensitive and contentious workplace issues

Finally, the DIY section of the book instructs businesses on how to:

• create and implement useful policies (that employees will actually read and *want* to follow).
• create and deliver powerful and effective training programs
• investigate and resolve sexual harassment and other types of misconduct claims

These practical tools will help all of your employees feel valued and motivated while avoiding drama, disengagement, and lawsuits.

Author: Patti Perez

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Drama-Free-Workplace-Prevent-Unconscious-Harassment/dp/1119546427/

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 47 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #622,173 in Books

#1,438 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Books)

#4,779 in Business Management (Books)

#6,015 in Leadership & Motivation

Erica Keswin is a workplace strategist, business coach, and the creator of the Spaghetti Project, a website dedicated to sharing the science and stories behind workplace relationships. Keswin has worked as a consultant for the Hay Group and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., as an executive recruiter for Russell Reynolds Associates, and as an executive coach at New York University's Stern School of Business. She writes for Forbes, the Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, and Quartz at Work on a regular basis.

We are wired as humans to connect and form relationships. So it should come as no surprise that relationships must extend to the workplace, where we spend the majority of our time! Companies that recognize this will retain the most productive, creative, and loyal employees and, as a result, will invariably gain a competitive advantage.

The most successful leaders are those who actively cultivate quality relationships with their employees, who value and practice fundamental human qualities such as authenticity, openness, and basic politeness on a daily basis. Paying attention to and genuinely caring about the effects people have on one another is critical to developing a winning culture in which people perform at their peak and want to come to work.

Erica Keswin has spent over 20 years as a workplace strategist and business coach working with top business leaders and executives to build successful organizations that value relationships. Among the best books on HR, Bring Your Human to Work distills the key practices of the most human companies into applicable advice that any business leader can use to build a "human workplace," with case studies from top brands such as Lyft, Starbucks, Mogul, and SoulCycle, to name a few. These building blocks are as follows:

• Understanding your company's global role beyond financial profit
  
• Encouraging employees to be physically and spiritually healthy
  
• Holding meetings with a clear purpose
  
• Allowing for face-to-face interaction
  
• Incorporating professional development into the company culture
  
• Motivating your employees to give back to the community
  
• Just saying "thank you"
  

A human business is genuine, aligned, and true to itself. Instead of hiding its humanity, a real company flaunts it. It's what the most successful, long-lasting businesses are doing today, and there's no reason yours can't follow suit.

Keswin's leadership lessons promote workplace fairness, devotion, and joy, all of which are critical components of a successful business. By bringing your human to work, you can create a workplace that is good for people, good for business, and has the potential to change the world.

Author: Erica Keswin

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Human-Work-Workplace/dp/1260118096/

Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 stars (from 138 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #353,174 in Books

#790 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Books)

#2,848 in Business Management (Books)

#3,734 in Leadership & Motivation

Shawn Smith (Harrison, New York) is an attorney and the founder of Next Level Consulting, LLC. Her work has appeared in a variety of legal and business publications. The HR Answer Book, one of the best books on HR, written by Shawn Smith is a problem-solving tool for managers and human resources professionals who are struggling to adapt to new workplace challenges.

Shawn Smith, a corporate executive, and author Rebecca Mazin address over 200 of the most frequently asked employer questions about job functions such as recruitment and hiring, discipline, downsizing, compensation and benefits, training, and employee relations.

As a result, the book provides you with the industry's best practices for overcoming any obstacles and experiences that are impeding your success in your role. This revised and expanded second edition provides management instructors with a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the human resources field, including revised and expanded sections on FMLA, health insurance changes, compensation laws, salary reductions, and using social networking to recruit employees.

Smith and Mazin include bonus checklists in The HR Answer Book that cover:

• Job Applicant Flow logs, Performance Goals forms, and an Exit Interview Questionnaire are some of the tools available.
• Human resources professionals and department managers must experiment with new approaches to success in the fast-paced environment of the twenty-first century.

The HR Answer Book provides the immediately accessible tools you need to thrive and help others—and your organization—do the same, whether used as a cover-to-cover resource or a quick reference for tackling specific challenges.

Author: Shawn A. Smith

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Answer-Book-Indispensable-Resources-Professionals/dp/0814417175/

Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 stars (from 209 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #910,345 in Books

#434 in Business Encyclopedias

#2,149 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Books)

#6,756 in Business Management (Books)

For more than 30 years, Steve Browne has been an accomplished speaker, writer, and thought leader in Human Resource Management. He is committed to connecting the global HR community and assisting it in learning and growing together. Browne has worked in human resources in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, consumer goods, professional services, and restaurants.

Can you work in human resources for more than 30 years and still be passionate about it? Yes, you absolutely can!! Steve Browne, a HR leader, takes a fresh look at HR through an engaging collection of real-life examples, insights, and epiphanies and encourages practitioners to abandon preconceptions of what HR should be and instead look to what HR could be. Read this book to rekindle your passion for a vibrant and vital field and to make a difference in the lives of everyone you meet through HR on Purpose.

Look no further than Steve Browne if you're looking for an HR leadership role model. HR on Purpose is your chance to learn from one of the best in the business. This book offers a fresh perspective and a challenge to collectively improve our craft, regardless of where you are in your career. This book is an excellent mentoring resource and a constant reminder of the importance of human resources in organizations. It is regarded as one of the best books on HR.

Author: Steve Browne

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/HR-Purpose-Developing-Deliberate-Passion-ebook/dp/B071WMPVLB

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 278 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #467,767 in Kindle Store

#334 in Workplace Behavior

#368 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Kindle Store)

#1,411 in Workplace Culture (Books)