21 HR Books Every HR Professional Should Read in 2024
The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) is rapidly changing. Staying up to date with the classic concepts and the latest information is more important than ever to remain relevant as an HR professional. In this article, we list 21 must-read HR books that will help you do your job better – whether you’re a seasoned HR practitioner or just getting started in the field.
We have broken down this list of the best books on Human Resources into the four categories of HR management, popular literature on HR, HR books for beginners, and HR analytics books.
Let’s dive in.
Contents
HR management books
Popular literature on HR
HR books for beginners
HR analytics books
HR management books
The following HR management books provide overviews of the HR field and key HR theories and concepts. They explain and discuss HR’s main responsibilities and how to handle them effectively.
1. Human Resource Management
Gary Dessler
Human Resources Management, written by Gary Dessler, is a 700-page HR bible. It is arguably one of the most-read study books when it comes to HR.
In its 18 chapters, the book examines the key aspects of HR. It covers a practical and step-by-step explanation of the cornerstones of HR. These are defined in five parts: recruitment, placement & talent management, training & development, compensation, and employee relations.
2. HR from the Outside In: Six Competencies for the Future of Human Resources
Dave Ulrich, Jon Younger, Wayne Brockbank, Mike Ulrich
What are the competencies that you, as an HR professional, should have? That’s what this book is all about.
Ulrich and colleagues list the key competencies of the modern HR professional. The HR professional should enable capability building, be a technology proponent, be a change champion, and be an HR innovator and integrator.
In addition, since these different roles sometimes conflict with each other, one of the most important roles of the HR practitioner is to be a credible activist for both the employees and the business. This is all placed within a larger strategic context, which forms the final competency: the strategic positioner.
Ulrich’s work is always very well-researched, and so is this book. In 2017, Ulrich published Victory Through Organization, which builds upon this original work. However, the original book remains one of the must-reads when it comes to modern HRM.
3. Victory Through Organization
Dave Ulrich, David Kryscynski, Wayne Brockbank, Mike Ulrich
In this brilliant book, Ulrich and co-authors take a closer look at the HR function. The resource they used for their research is an HR competency study with a sample of over 30,000 HR professionals, business leaders, and associates – the largest sample ever when it comes to HR capabilities.
Based on this research, the book provides insight into how HR can add the most value. It not only shows how value is created for HR and the employee but also for the business, investors/owners, communities, and line managers.
Furthermore, it shows which activities HR is rated best in (by HR and by the business) and which activities add the most value (again, to HR, the business, and all the other stakeholders). Themes like employee performance, integrated HR practices, HR analytics, and HR information management are covered.
Although the book is a complex read, it is a necessity for any senior HR manager.
4. The HR Scorecard
Brian Becker, Mark Huselid, Dave Ulrich
This book is arguably the oldest on this list but also the most timeless. In the HR Scorecard, Becker and colleagues explain how people, strategy, and performance can be linked and quantified.
HRM has never been regarded as a hard science. Aligning HR activities with the organizational strategy and measuring the impact on the workforce hasn’t always come naturally to HR. However, when done well, it enables HR to quantify its impact and measure the effectiveness of its work.
Speaking the same language as the business helps quantify the work of HR. The business is focused on key performance indicators (KPIs) and on achieving a return on investment (ROI). Once HR can quantify some of its activities through these elements, it can build credibility.
5. Strategic Human Resource Management: An HR Professional’s Toolkit
Karen Beaven
This functional guide is a comprehensive resource for the HR industry. It’s divided into four sections that lay out how knowing yourself, your business, your industry, and your profession will help you add strategic value to an organization.
It contains chapters on standard HR topics, including talent management, technology, and workforce planning. The text also goes beyond the technical to address personal issues, such as how self-care and mental well-being affect performance. The book redefines HR’s mindset from managing human capital to directing the organization’s people experience.
After the book’s release, author Karen Beaven stated, “…I was passionate about sharing information in a really practical way based on the experiences I’d had while building my career. I wanted to create something accessible with information that people could apply immediately.”
Karen Beaven is the founder of PXI, a London-based HR consulting agency. PXI offers well-being, HR strategy, and burnout prevention and recovery services. Beaven has earned numerous HR awards and influential rankings.
6. The New HR Leader’s First 100 Days: How To Start Strong, Hit The Ground Running & Achieve Success Faster As A New Human Resources Manager, Director or VP
Alan Collins
Stepping into HR leadership for the first time is daunting. Nonetheless, it is crucial to lay a strong foundation for success during the first 100 days.
This book offers easy-to-follow steps and insights that will guide new leaders to a productive start. It reveals how to confidently take charge in a new role, hit the ground running, earn respect, and make an impact right away.
Alan Collins is a former Vice President of Human Resources at PepsiCo and is a well-known HR conference speaker throughout the United States and Canada. His book covers 17 proven rules that were gathered from best practices discovered throughout his extensive experience coaching and working with hundreds of people from every level of HR leadership.
Popular literature on HR
The Human Resources books in this section have wide appeal because they are written by practitioners for practitioners.
7. The Talent Delusion
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
The Talent Delusion is an easy-to-read book, stacked to the brim with scientific facts regarding talent management. The book covers what talent is (not everyone is talent), how to measure talent, how to engage and develop it, the dark side of talent, and the future of talent.
One notable insight from the book is the difference between normal performance and top performance. For some people, there’s a big gap between the two. For others, top performance is quite similar to their normal performance.
It is easy for an employee to fool their boss into thinking they perform well by giving it their best. However, it’s impossible to always be at peak performance. People can only do this for a limited amount of time before returning back to their normal performance. That’s why it is almost impossible to assess someone’s performance based on one or two months of data, especially when this person is motivated to perform well.
The trick here is to select people whose normal performance is similar to their top performance level.
8. Work Rules!
Laszlo Bock
Google has always been a beacon when it comes to good HR practices. In his book Work Rules! Laszlo Bock, former VP of People Operations at Google, describes the best HR practices at Google.
This very practical book stresses the importance of company culture, Google’s ability to consistently select high performers, the importance of data in HR, why you should compensate unfairly – different performance should be compensated differently – and how to deal with mistakes in HR.
This is a book that you can finish in one day. Laszlo Bock shows you which best practices you can replicate tomorrow in your own organization in order to manage people better.
9. HR Disrupted: It’s Time for Something Different
Lucy Adams
This book looks at what the role of HR will be like in the future. How can we lead, manage, engage, and support employees in a radically different way?
According to Adams, disruptive HR has three pillars. First, it doesn’t treat employees as children but as adults. Second, employees are treated as consumers, leaving behind the one-size-fits-all approach. Third, employees should be treated as human beings.
With a series of interesting and very recognizable examples from her role as HR director at the BBC, Adams illustrates how people can be managed better in an increasingly digital and disruptive business environment.
10. Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World
Marcus Buckingham, Ashley Goodall
Nine Lies About Work uses a science-based approach to debunk nine common myths. Myths included are ‘the best plan wins’, ‘people have potential’, ‘the best people are well-rounded’, ‘work-life balance matters most’, and ‘leadership is a thing’.
According to the authors, excellence in a job, another myth, is not a function of getting the facts and steps right. You can get these right and still be average. The only thing that can be defined is the end result.
For example, you cannot define how comedians in general are – and then measure that through a 360-degree feedback survey. Eddy Murphy, Chris Rock, and Jerry Seinfeld are all different. Their only similarity is the result: people laugh. The authors conclude that we learn through our own experimentation and individualized attention, not through generalized, critical feedback.
11. HR Rising!!: From Ownership to Leadership
Steve Browne
In this book, bestselling author Steve Browne inspires HR professionals to move beyond the mindset of being a support function and enter into intentional leadership.
HR provides the opportunity to connect and interact with all employees. This unique role puts HR professionals in the perfect position to lead and forge meaningful change for their companies.
The book explains Browne’s formula of People + Processes = Results. It is the alternative to the model of working backward from results to processes, with people as an afterthought. Instead, when the focus is placed on developing, encouraging, and equipping staff, the result is an engaged workforce.
Browne believes that strong leadership results not from job titles but from who people are. The storytelling and fresh insights of this book illuminate the characteristics you can find in your own work experience that will help you start leading from where you are right now.
Steve Browne strives to inspire people to have a passion for working in HR. Along with being an HR executive and writing books, Browne facilitates an HR Roundtable and an internet forum. He also maintains an HR blog that reaches an international audience.
12. Belonging at Work: Everyday Actions You Can Take to Cultivate an Inclusive Organization
Rhodes Perry, MPA
A sense of belonging empowers people and creates a positive impact on the workplace. This book explains the basic human need for belonging and why it’s important for everyone to feel a sense of belonging in the workplace. The author also clarifies how diversity, equity, and inclusion are separate concepts, but they must work together.
Perry makes a case for why a sense of belonging is essential to the future of work and how to cultivate this atmosphere for your employees. The book lays out tactics that anyone in any role can take to make the necessary changes for creating an equitable organization that reflects its communities and customers.
With personal stories and actionable strategies, Belonging at Work is a focused approach. Its practical advice will walk you through the challenge of creating the kind of culture where all employees can thrive.
Rhodes Perry is the founder and CEO of Rhodes Perry Consulting, which offers leadership development and change management solutions for building inclusive corporations, government agencies, and nonprofits. He is a popular keynote speaker and also hosts The Out Entrepreneur podcast.
13. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth
Amy C. Edmondson
Human beings crave safety, so a sense of security in the workplace brings out the best in people. The idea of psychological safety is defined in this book as a “climate in which people are comfortable expressing and being themselves.”
Using 20 years of research, Edmondson delves into the connection between psychological safety and strong performance with real-life public and private sector case studies. She also provides practical steps leaders must take to build psychological safety that can generate and nurture a fearless organization.
This book is for those who want to encourage a work atmosphere where employees feel free to brainstorm and express themselves. When people are comfortable contributing their ideas, they feel more invested in the organization. They are motivated to collaborate and solve the problems that arise from the nonstop changes of today’s business era.
Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. Prior to her career in academia, she designed change programs for large businesses and was a Chief Engineer for renowned architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller.
14. The Way of the HR Warrior: Leading the Charge to Transform Your Career and Organization
Monica Frede & Keri Ohlrich, PhD
The authors’ purpose for this book is to inspire a revolution within the HR profession to demonstrate its true power within an organization.
When HR professionals master their roles, they can become HR warriors who add value and fight for business success. An HR Warrior® solves problems, facilitates work, and finds ways to make a positive impact on the company.
In this book, authors Monica Frede and Keri Ohlrich take a witty, tough-love approach that walks readers through their CHARGE™ model. This framework explains the essential qualities of Courage, Humility, Accuracy, Resiliency, Goal-oriented, and Exemplary that HR warriors must possess.
Through real case studies and experience applying CHARGE™ in their own careers, the authors teach readers:
- What potential impact they can have on their company.
- How to bring their efforts into alliance with business goals.
- How to use assessment tools to discover areas for personal and professional growth.
15. Putting The Human Back Into HR: Success as an HR Professional Begins With You
Su Patel
Being a Human Resources professional requires balancing your focus between meeting employees’ needs and creating value for the business while still handling all the policy and process facets of HR.
This book provides practical advice for maintaining this balance while making a positive impact on the business and its people. It covers the five areas (partnership, process, productivity, performance, progress) in which HR professionals must become proficient to be the most effective.
Patel offers insights on how to be a valued and respected partner who can help create a desirable work environment. This personal development tool will show you how to face change proactively and deliver results that demonstrate your worth.
Su Patel spent 27 years in HR with a UK retailer and now runs an HR training and consulting firm.
HR books for beginners
If you’re just starting out in the HR field, the following books will bring you up to speed on facts and strategies to help you perform your job well. Although these are among the best HR books for beginners, established HR professionals can also find them useful.
16. The Big Book of HR
Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gamlem
The 10th-anniversary edition of The Big Book of HR is an updated, comprehensive guide on Human Resources issues, processes, and best practices written by two experienced and respected HR professionals.
HR’s responsibility for managing people has always been challenging. However, in recent years, dramatic changes in the world of work have made it even more complex. This book reflects on these changes and explores current and emerging trends.
It covers both the strategic and functional aspects of managing talent, including information on topics such as:
- DEI
- Managing remote and distributed workers
- The impact of changing technologies
- Preventing and dealing with workplace harassment
- Pay equity and benefits for meeting varying workforce needs
- Training strategies, including gamification
17. The Essential HR Handbook
Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell
This best-seller offers ideas and resources for all the critical functions of HR. The updated 10thanniversary edition contains current tips, checklists, tools, and sample forms to help you navigate the challenges of HR responsibilities.
Each chapter covers one core element of HR and contains a “Main Message for Managers” section at the end. These summaries provide quick access to the major points you’ll want to refer to when situations within the subject matter arise.
The Essential HR Handbook offers solutions for many HR issues, including:
- Attracting talent with modern methods
- Streamlining onboarding
- Training a diverse and multigenerational workforce
- Identifying legal pitfalls to comply with regulations and avoid litigation
- Providing a competitive compensation and benefits package
The authors have decades of HR experience. After working in the recruiting and training field, Sharon Armstrong launched a performance management consulting business in 1998. Barbara Mitchell worked in HR for Marriott International and is now an author, speaker, and managing partner of The Mitchell Group.
18. Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice
Michael Armstrong with Stephen Taylor
This book is a classic resource for HR students and practitioners for understanding and implementing HR. It offers thorough explanations of all the key areas of HR, including employee relations, performance management, and organizational behavior.
The authors share practical, relevant information and facilitate effective learning. Readers can access online support material for self-learning. Two sections of the book also contain toolkits with applicable skills and knowledge.
This updated version of the book includes expanded information on recent HRM developments. It incorporates new employment law information and explores the international concerns within HRM.
Author Michael Armstrong is an independent management consultant and the Joint Managing Partner of E-reward in the UK. He has written several HR books that have been translated into over 20 languages.
This edition introduces co-author Stephen Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the University of Exeter Business School.
HR analytics books
Data-driven decision-making has become crucial in the world of HR. The three HR analytics books in this section focus on helping HR professionals make decisions based on factual information by using data.
19. Predictive HR Analytics: Mastering the HR Metric
Kirsten & Martin Edwards
This book is often used as reading material for HR analytics classes. It covers metrics and analytics in detail. Using a number of different case studies, the book explores both metrics and analytics related to diversity, employee attitudes, employee turnover (including predictive turnover analytics), employee performance, recruitment analytics, and more.
The text provides a comprehensible framework to help HR practitioners understand and apply people analytics and statistical techniques. It walks readers through examples, demonstrating how to measure progress and use HR data for evidence-based HR decisions and strategies.
20. Investing in people. Financial Impact of Human Resource Initiatives
Wayne Cascio and John Boudreau
Cascio and Boudreau take a highly structured and data-driven approach to solving common problems in HR. This book, originally published in 2008, takes a deep dive into strategic HR measurement in specific topics.
The first two chapters contain the now-famous ‘Wall of Boudreau’, which is the barrier that companies need to break through to go from operational reporting to analytics.
The book is fairly technical, although understandable for the layperson. After explaining the foundations of solid measurement in HR, it continues to explore a number of case studies. These are about absenteeism, employee turnover, employee well-being, engagement, and more. For each of these topics, a structured approach is taken to explore them in detail, and the reader is offered tools to assess the cost and measure the impact of interventions.
A few examples of this book are included in our HR data analyst course.
21. The Practical Guide to HR Analytics: Using Data to Inform, Transform, and Empower HR Decisions
Shonna D. Waters, Valerie N. Streets, Lindsay McFarlane, and Rachael Johnson-Murray
Access to data has forever changed HR decision-making. Leveraging analytics to address problems is crucial to staying competitive. Therefore, HR must understand its uses and capabilities. This book describes how to use data to find solutions for HR challenges.
Through typical examples of obstacles businesses face, the book explains how to identify areas where analytics are useful and how to understand, implement, and maximize the impact of different types of metrics and analytics.
This book outlines four levels of data analytics complexity that organizations use to resolve problems. Once you identify which level your department falls under, you can follow the guidelines for progressing to the next stage.
The guide is written by a team of HR analytics professionals without using confusing mathematical jargon. Its format is easy to follow, allowing you to absorb how to use data analytics as a productive problem-solving tool.
The benefit of books
Challenging yourself with continual learning is essential to professional growth. Reading books on HR is an excellent way to do this. By drawing from in-depth information and experts’ fresh perspectives, you gain insight that will help you thrive in your HR role.
Building your knowledge, generating new ideas, and keeping up with the constantly evolving field of HR puts you in a better position to advance your career.
Happy reading!
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