At last, it is summertime, and the reading’s easy this year with a bumper crop of fresh books on all manner of HR and workplace topics including teamwork, inclusion, neurodiversity, culture, change, and difficult conversations, plus the new SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP exam study guide and practice workbooks.
Happy reading!
Unlocking the Culture Code for Optimal Performance
By William L. Sparks
Why do some teams experience synergies and outperform their competitors while others lag behind with low engagement and poor performance? The answer is culture, and bestselling author William L. Sparks delivers a proven road map for teams and organizations to both identify their current culture and implement evidence-based strategies to enhance team communication, increase trust, and improve performance. SHRM Books
How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations
By Mary C. Murphy
Create environments where people want to be and where everyone can thrive and achieve their potential, both individually and together. In a world where success seems reserved for a chosen few, this book unveils a radically different approach to creating organizations that inspire learning, growth, and success at all levels. Simon & Schuster
DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS DON’T HAVE TO BE DIFFICULT
A Simple, Smart Way to Make Your Relationships and Team Better
By Jon Gordon and Amy P. Kelly
Perfect for managers, executives, directors, and business leaders and their teams, this book is also a must-read for coaches, trainers, teachers, consultants, and other professionals doing their best to help others realize their full potential. Teams who read the book together will be equipped with a proven strategy and process to enhance communication, performance, and unity. Wiley
How to Achieve Pay Equity That Works
By Kent Plunkett and Heather Bussing
From the experts at Salary.com, this book will help you understand the key issues surrounding pay equity and why it is fundamental to running any business, especially in an ongoing labor shortage. This book shows how to assess and address pay equity and keep things on track. Building a culture of fairness is not just a compliance issue, it’s also good business. SHRM Books
The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
By Katy Milkman
Time for a fresh start? Behavioral changes are hard and seldom last. In eight smart, succinct chapters, Wharton School professor and Choiceology podcast host Katy Milkman shows how behavior science can change you for the better. This book is a great guide for managers to kick-start themselves or help others who are struggling. Portfolio
The Essential Guide to Dismantling Racial Inequity in the Workplace
By Daisy Auger-Domínguez
Workplace strategist Daisy Auger-Domínguez delivers a timely, inspirational, and practical exploration of why mainstream efforts at diversity improvement tend to fail and what you can do today to successfully create a diverse and representative leadership team at your organization. This book is perfect for managers, directors, executives, entrepreneurs, founders, and other business leaders. Wiley
The Essential Guide to Embracing Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Differences for Any Organization
By Maureen Dunne
Based on more than two decades of immersive cognitive science research, neurodiversity expert Maureen Dunne delivers an essential guide for executives, board directors, human resource professionals, managers, recruiters, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, allies, educators, nonprofit leaders, and anyone with an interest in better understanding neurodiversity, authentic neuroinclusion, and the human mind. Wiley
Leveraging the Global Workforce to Solve Your Biggest Challenges
By John Winsor and Jin H. Paik
The imperative is clear: Adapt to and leverage this new, digitally enabled world of “open talent” or get left behind. This eye-opening guidebook shows how the massive reset of the pandemic allowed talented workers everywhere to exit their jobs without leaving the workforce. Now, many are freelancing for multiple companies or are starting small businesses, challenging hiring managers as never before amid a transformed workforce. Harvard Business Review Press
And the Essential Nature of Human Performance
By Ashley Goodall
Drawing on two decades of leading HR departments at Deloitte and Cisco, Ashley Goodall reveals why change is not the same as improvement and how, by prioritizing team cohesion (instead of reshuffling teams at will), using real words (rather than corporate-speak), sharing secrets (not mission statements), fixing only the things that are truly broken (instead of moving fast and breaking everything in sight), and more, leaders at every level can create the stability that people need to thrive. Little, Browne Spark
The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
By Cal Newport
Drawing from research on the habits and mindsets of a cast of storied thinkers, including Galileo and Georgia O’Keeffe, Cal Newport lays out the key principles of “slow productivity,” a more sustainable alternative to the aimless overwhelm that defines our current moment. Combining cultural criticism with systematic pragmatism, Newport deconstructs the absurdities inherent in standard notions of productivity and then provides step-by-step advice for cultivating a slower, more humane alternative. Penguin
How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection
By Charles Duhigg
Supercommunicators know the importance of recognizing—and then matching—each kind of conversation and how to hear the complex emotions, subtle negotiations, and deeply held beliefs that color so much of what we say and how we listen. Our experiences, our values, and our emotional lives—and how we see ourselves and others—shape every discussion. In this book, you will learn why some people are able to make themselves heard and to hear others so clearly. In the end, Charles Duhigg delivers a simple but powerful lesson: With the right tools, we can connect with anyone. Random House
12 Mindshifts to Breakthrough Limiting Beliefs and Become Who You Were Born to Be
By Josh Axe
Unlock your potential by cultivating self-awareness and curating a fulfilling life full of self-improvement, emotional intelligence, and a growth mindset. Leadership expert and entrepreneur Josh Axe teaches 12 revolutionary “mindshifts” to beat the grind and reach the life you’ve always wanted. Redefine success and replace limiting beliefs with the healthy mental toughness to think this, not that. Thomas Nelson
ACE YOUR SHRM CERTIFICATION EXAM, The Official SHRM Study Guide for the SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP Exams, Third Edition
PREPARING FOR THE SHRM-CP EXAM Workbook and 70 Practice Questions from SHRM, Second Edition,
and
PREPARING FOR THE SHRM-SCP EXAM Workbook and 70 Practice Questions from SHRM, Second Edition
These updated SHRM certification workbooks deliver exam preparation with real questions. Practice items used in past exams are provided to give certification candidates exposure to the types of items they will encounter in the real exam, as well as feedback about correct responses.
The workbooks also offer guidance about each item’s difficulty level, which can help develop study and test-taking strategies, plus more emphasis on utilizing and understanding the SHRM Body of Applied Skills and Knowledge.
Matt Davis is SHRM's manager of book publishing.
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