Top 8 HR books to add to your summer reading list
News 3 minute read

Top 8 HR books to add to your summer reading list

Rise | June 21, 2022

Making your next team book club selection or looking for recommendations for your own professional L&D initiatives? Start with our list of must–read HR books, newly updated for 2022 to help address the current challenges faced by HR.

1. The Essential HR Handbook by Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell

This classic HR guide, now in its 10th edition, covers the fundamentals of modern HR—including how to recruit through social media, creating highly attractive and retentive benefits packages, and fostering a culture of inclusivity through diverse hiring practices. 

2. Multipliers by Liz Wiseman

This thought-provoking book discusses “Diminishers”, people who reduce capability and intelligence from teams, and “Multipliers”, people who foster and amplify their teams’ capability and intelligence to produce better results. 

3. Bring Your Human to Work by Erica Keswin

With case studies from top brands including Lyft and Starbucks, this book will show you how to foster genuine connections at work, in turn building a company and culture that embraces your people—and helps you hire and retain the best, most productive talent.

4. The Fearless Organization by Amy C. Edmondson

This book explores the culture of psychological safety, providing you with a blueprint for creating such a culture to help you encourage fresh ideas and critical thought from everyone within your organization. 

5. Good to Great by Jim Collins

Based on a compelling study, Good to Great details the type of leadership required to achieve greatness. It also discusses how to foster a culture of discipline, build a better company with new technology, and more. 

6. Work Rules! by Lazlo Block

Lazlo Block, former head of people operations at Google, writes about how the company hires and manages its employees. Block shares that there’s more to Google’s HR strategy than free gourmet cafeterias, massage rooms, and haircuts.

7. Belonging at Work by Perry Rhodes

As summed up in its subtitle, this book will show you the everyday actions you can take to cultivate an inclusive organization, providing you with personal stories, case studies, and practical strategies to inspire you, and leaders at all levels, to create a culture of inclusivity. 

8. HR on Purpose by Steve Browne

This book by HR leader and popular "Everyday People" blogger Steve Browne takes a fresh look at HR and challenges you to drop your preconceptions of what HR should be—and instead imagine what HR could be—through anecdotes, insights, and epiphanies. 

Bring life to work, and your inbox.

Subscribe to our monthly email roundup of news and helpful resources on workplace trends, employee engagement tactics, and more.

Give your employees, and yourself, the experience we all deserve.

Book a demo