15 Books that Every HR Professional Should Read

Human resource department is a crucial organ for any organization. This department ensures the selection of personnel for the organization. And this personnel are responsible for the steady development of the institution.

However, the selection of competent personnel depends on the HR professionals who supervise this entire process.

There are many ways a human resource professional can improve themselves for the betterment of their organization and career. The best way to do it is by reading books. There are countless books written by esteemed authors that can inspire the human resource professional today.  

Here, we have a collection of books that can greatly support an HR professional to further heighten their capabilities.

Good To Great

  • By Jim Collins
best books for hr professionals

This book written by Jim Collins tells us all not to settle for the good but aim for the best teams, business practice, or achievement.

It doesn’t matter how many times one reads this book they will be able to find a somewhat different takeaway, regardless of what kind of activity you are currently focused on.

This book can not only help human resource professionals to improve themselves but also improve their teams and organization as a whole.

Fierce Conversations

  • By Susan Scott
best books for hr professionals

This book is for those who want to tackle the unpleasant conversations left for tomorrow.

There has been numerous positive feedback from a leader of different status. What they all enjoyed about the book is that, its approaches are practical, effective, and can be implemented with ease.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

  •  Patrick Leneioni
best books for hr professionals

This book is a must-have for those who are team leaders. As its main focus is teamwork and many aspects of a team.

sometimes a leader can fail to recognize the issues within a team but only address its indication. This book can help a team to realize their major strengths and weakness and also improve their relationship.

As the team continues to improve, it will achieve success and can break through even the most difficult situations.

The 7 Intuitive Laws of Employee Loyalty

  • By Heather R. Younger
best books for hr professionals

This book is an amazing book that focuses on the loyalty and commitment of an employee to the company. In this book, the author prescribed seven laws that show the significance of employee loyalty.  

There are many companies that do not focus on employees and fail to comprehend their value as human resources.

The author of this book has given specific reasons and presented statistical data. That shows the companies who had focused on employee retention are more successful than their rivals.

Aligning Human Resources and Business Strategy

  • By Linda Holbeche
best books for hr professionals

This book has its main focus on the Human Resource Department. According to the author, HR is much more than a simple division within a company for providing personnel. If the management aligns HR and business tactics than they can turn HR into a strategic partner.

linda has provided her insights on transforming HR to such a state.

This book also contains case studies of Hr strategies that were successfully implemented. This book can help HR professional to identify what they lack in their own organization and how they can develop their HR department as well.

Born to Run

  • By Bruce Springsteen
best books for hr professionals

This book describes the creation of a company called E Street Band. It focuses on the conflicts and resolution of different avatars in the book. Modesty and stability can make a successful leader with a goal.

A company that supports their workers and reject internal politics and carry out their word is what can be considered magical.

Radical Candor

  • By Kim Scott
best books for hr professionals

If you want to be a good manager then this book is for you. It shows how a manager can lead the way to success for others and himself while still maintaining his humility by recognizing that they are all people cut from the same cloth.

The SPEED of Trust

  • By Stephen M.R. Covey
best books for hr professionals

This is an inspirational book for all professionals at all levels. The author considers Trust as a skill and a positive economic propeller. the author discusses 5 steps of trust and act of trust that can aid the success of an organization.

First, Break All the Rules

  •  by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
best books for hr professionals

This book discusses the different methods applied by managers renowned throughout the globe.

Although HR always tries to recruit the most experienced personnel according to the author, HR should hire talents rather than experience. He has also provided some fascinating points to show its effectiveness.  

The Alchemist

  •  By Paulo Coelho
best books for hr professionals

The book provides the perfect getaway from the continuous pounding of business strategies and schemes.

This book by Paulo Coelho will help one to find or rejoin with the greater meaning behind one’s life and the life of one’s business.

An inspirational quote by the author is, “At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what is happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie”

Failing Forward

  • By John Maxwell
best books for hr professionals

This amazing book by John Maxwell tells his audience to look beyond the initial sadness of a failure to figure out how much can be learned from it.

Based on real-life observations, the author proposes that successful individuals in business aren’t the ones who’ve failed the least times but those who had the mental capacity to learn from their experiences.

For HR managers, this book provides insight into how people can learn to conquer and surpass feelings of defeat. The skills the author described can be performed by HR professionals themselves or can be easily shared with others in their organizations.

Smart Staffing

  • By Wayne Outlaw
best books for hr professionals

As its name suggests, this is a guidebook about staffing for the HR professional. It can help HR professionals who have just started their career and wants to gain further comprehensive knowledge.

The author provides tips and pieces of advice from publishing ads to the management of selected recruit.

Outlaw is a true genius when it comes to staffing. Regardless of when and where anyone can read the book and gain help from it. The author shows the bigger picture of staffing in this book.

The HR Answer Book

  • By Rebecca Mazin and Shawn Smith
best books for hr professionals

The human resource department is one of the most active departments in an institution and the experts who are in charge and supervise everything are expected to know the answer of countless questions related to employment on the spot.

It may seem quite difficult but after reading this book it’s possible to easily accomplish this task.

AS it contains over 200 questions and answers that an HR professional is asked in a normal day. It includes everything, starting from recruitment to layoffs. This book is extremely helpful for new and experienced experts alike.

100 Ways to Motivate others

  • By Steve Chandler
best books for hr professionals

This is a book not specifically written for HR professionals but can help them greatly improve their performance. This book is Practical and easy to use, Steven Chandler’s book on motivation helps managers and Hr professionals to have a greater understanding about the art and science of persuading their teams to work harder than before.

The author instructs HR professionals on how to encourage their teams in such a  way that will minimize micromanagement while maximizing productivity at the same time.

This book is also focused on the bigger picture of motivation and how positive work behaviors can be demonstrated by HR professionals.

If someone is redesigning or developing an employee recognition program, then this book will be extremely helpful to their cause. The author provides many enforceable schemes that HR managers can share with other leaders.

The Power Of Habit

  • By Charles Duhigg
best books for hr professionals

The author recognizes that humans are creatures of habit at heart, and he describes how our habits create and influence us in this book. This book is great to have as it helps HR managers have a greater understanding of how habits are created and how people can break away from them.

The techniques that Duhigg provides are incredibly effective, which makes them perfect for HR managers who run performance reviews or trains managers.

The comprehensive explanation of Habit also provides insights to its readers because it discusses matters that are far beyond the primary understandings of habits to inspect how habits are formed unintentionally and how they affect our daily life.

In conclusion, regardless of what profession a person is indulged in, In order to ascend to new heights, they must increase their knowledge. And books are are a great way to do it. A human resource professional will receive an enormous harvest by reading the books mentioned above. It will not help them gain new information, it will also change their understanding of how what works.

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