HR departments are often the lifeblood of a company; they recruit, hire, pay and ultimately retain employees. With such great responsibility, it’s essential for HR managers to be up to speed with the best practices and policies. Here are 15 books to help you stay on top of your game with HR. Read what leading experts say the best HR departments are doing and how you can benefit from their strategies.

1. “First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently”
By Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

This book uses a 25-year study of management practices and information from more than 80,000 interviews to give readers the inside scoop on business management. Learn what unconventional approaches the best managers take and how you can improve as a supervisor.

2. “The HR Answer Book: An Indispensable Guide for Managers and Human Resources Professionals”
By Shawn A. Smith and Rebecca A. Mazin
Learn the answers to the 200 questions that every manager needs to confront, from how to recruit new employees to what the best employee-benefit options.
3. “Business: The Ultimate Resource”
By Perseus Publishing

This must-have reference includes more than 150 essays from top business leaders covering important HR topics. Discover the mindset of groundbreaking HR experts and learn how their practices can benefit you.

4. “The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First”
By Jeffrey Pfeffer

Business strategy takes the backseat in this important guide to increasing profits. Learn how to build strong relationships with your employees that will increase productivity through the many examples the author provides.

5. “Why Employees Don’t Do What They’re Supposed to Do and What to Do About It”
By Ferdinand F. Fournies

Finally, a clear and comprehensive guide to understanding employee motivation. Learn why your employees work the way they do and what you can do to build company loyalty and drive.

6. “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”
By David Allen

If you’ve ever felt like your company never has enough time, this is the perfect book for you. Learn easy ways to increase your productivity that are helpful in all aspects of business. Highlights include a flowchart for processing your inbox and a general-planning model.

7. “The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work”
By Peter Block

This book provides expert advice from a master organization-development consultant. Find out how to accomplish your career goals and how to empower others to be successful.

8. “Good to Great (Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t)”
By James C. Collins

Based on a comprehensive study, the author explains why some companies are destined for success while others aren’t. Collins also gives detailed advice on how to get your company on the winning track.

9. “The Brave New World of eHR: Human Resources in the Digital Age”
By Hal Gueutal, Dianna L. Stone and Eduardo Salas

With digital technologies continuing to transform the working world, this book is a must-have for any business. A group of scholars, practitioners and subject-matter experts examine the major technological trends in eHR and explain how you can use this technology to improve your business.

10. “1001 Ways to Reward Employees”
By Bob Nelson

This book provides managers with 1,001 no-cost to low-cost ways to reward employees, company loyalty and overall productivity. From supplying cab fare to those who stay late to giving workers magnetic calendars, these simple ideas can greatly improve employee morale.
Though the resources below will help companies of all sizes, smaller, growing businesses will find these five books especially useful:
11. “Entrepreneur Magazine: Human Resources for Small Businesses”
By William R. Sullivan

This comprehensive resource provides everything small businesses need to build their HR department. With more than 25 years of experience, Sullivan provides easy-to-follow guidelines for recruiting employees, establishing company policies, choosing employee benefits and more.

12. “Managing Human Resources in Small and Mid-Sized Companies”
By Diane Arthur

This book specifically addresses the unique challenges that businesses with 100 to 1,500 employees face, but its solutions are applicable for even smaller companies. Use this clear and helpful guide to set up or expand an effective HR department.

13. “Smart Staffing”
By Wayne Outlaw

Discover how to hire and retain top employees for small business with Outlaw’s book. Full of case studies, expert strategies, checklists and more, this guide will help any small business improve its staff.

14. “101 Great Ideas for Managing People: From America’s Most Innovative Small Companies”
by Martha E. Mangelsdorf

This book is an essential tool for helping small-business managers face countless challenges. Find out how the most innovative and successful managers address common problems and how you can adapt their strategies to increase productivity and profit.

15. “The Payroll Toolkit”
By Timothy F. Carse and Jeffrey Slater

This reference guide gives detailed instruction on all the basics of payroll, from when an employee is first hired to calculating gross pay to dealing with taxes. If your business runs into any questions related to payroll, this book will have the answers.

Employees are a company’s greatest assets. That’s why businesses hire HR professionals to take care of employee needs, manage benefits and deal with any staff problems or concerns. Usually, HR staffers do a great job, but occasionally, they may display poor judgment, such as sharing private employee information or failing to follow up on complaints.

HR professionals may fall into the following 15 bad habits from time to time. By identifying these detrimental behaviors, you can hopefully work to eradicate them from your organization.

1. Gossip: HR staffers have access to a large amount of sensitive information, such as employee salaries, medical details and performance reviews. Watercooler gossip on these subjects can not only hurt feelings, but also lead to legal action over privacy concerns. Imagine the uncomfortable situation that could arise if an employee’s co-workers learned that he or she was using the company’s benefits package to seek psychiatric treatment. Try to keep a tight grip on gossip by clearly spelling out the consequences of loose lips to the entire HR staff.

2. Unintended leaks of private information: Willfully spreading gossip is one thing, but there’s also the danger of unintentionally leaking information by talking loudly in close quarters, using the speakerphone during private discussions and forwarding emails containing sensitive information.

3. Failing to deliver clear salary, benefits and job information: HR professionals are on the front lines of acclimating new employees, so when they drop the ball on delivering pertinent job-related information, it can spell trouble down the road. Employees may be confused about their benefits and job expectations, which can be harmful for both the employees and their managers.

4. Weak hiring practices: Failing to perform a thorough analysis of a job and its requirements can lead to bad hires, which can cost a company serious money. Make sure that each open position is thoroughly researched and that managers provide input as to what skills are required in order for the new hire to succeed.

5. Forgetting to follow up: HR staffers are often inundated with requests for benefits changes, procedure documentation and training, among other tasks. With so many responsibilities, it’s easy to lose track of individual employee requests and complaints or forget to follow up with interviewees who didn’t get a job. However, all of these seemingly small tasks can be very important to employees and potential hires and should be prioritized.

6. Lack of recognition and rewards: Your company has laid out myriad rules and procedures, but what about the rewards? Employees need to be recognized for a job well done, so work with managers to set up a reward system if there is not one in place already.

7. Not creating clear and thorough policies: Perhaps your company has a reward system but lacks clear policies. Without public – and better yet, published – procedures in place, HR professionals face many more questions and misunderstandings than they otherwise might.

8. Too many rules: Is your team busy writing up policies and procedures for every possible contingency? Too many rules can make employees feel restricted and can also stifle creative solutions and suggestions.

9. Failing to confront rule breakers and unproductive employees: While it’s important to have some basic procedural and behavioral policies in place, they are of little use if unenforced. Take evaluations and reported complaints seriously and follow up with employees who habitually cross the line.

10. Playing referee: If there’s a problem between an employee and a manager or a dispute between two employees, the ideal solution is for them to resolve it themselves. HR professionals can help facilitate communications, but they should not attempt to play referee between the two sides. If the parties cannot resolve their differences among themselves, sit everyone down together to help resolve the issue.

11. Not trusting employees: An atmosphere of suspicion can make individual employees and entire teams nervous, and eventually, they will stop trusting the company. Therefore, HR staffers should avoid excessive monitoring.

12. Not applying policies to your own team: HR departments spend most of their time making sure that the needs of employees and managers are met, but they sometimes forget to follow their own policies, especially when it comes to reviews.

13. Delivering bad news via email: Working in HR is not always fun, since you sometimes may have to lay off employees or deliver other bad news. As uncomfortable as this situation may be, make sure that you talk to the affected employees in person so that you can show empathy and answer any questions that they might have. This will also foster an atmosphere of transparency, which can help create a mutually respectful environment between HR and other departments.

14. Playing favorites: It may be tempting to put someone you personally like on the top of the pile for a promotion or new position, but favors such as these are unfair to other candidates. Also, if your biases ever become common company knowledge, your professional reputation will very likely be at risk.

15. Excessive or inappropriate joking: Whether you like it or not, the fact of the matter is that HR professionals are seen as role models for how other employees should behave. Making an off-color joke or dallying excessively can dilute the HR department’s image.

Once HR professionals know what habits they should avoid, they can focus on their core responsibilities and their own personal strengths. After all, if each member of the HR department concentrates on doing what he or she does best, the entire company wins.

It usually happens on an otherwise pleasant Friday afternoon. An employee comes to you asking for “a word in private.” You say, “sure” and invite the employee into your office. Then comes the bomb — a resignation.
The first thing to do is to control your emotions. A surprise resignation often inspires feelings of betrayal, anger and fear, and none of those emotions are necessary or productive. An employment relationship is a business arrangement that, barring a written contract to the contrary, can be terminated at any time by either party. Don’t take it personally. If personal problems motivated the resignation, you should have known about them, and the news should come as no surprise. Anger is a natural reaction to fear of loss, but anger should be channeled into constructive action rather than pointless recriminations. So keep your cool.

Calmly ask the obvious question: “Why do you want to resign?” Then listen in a nondefensive mode. Take each reason offered at face value. If possible (and you really want to keep the employee), offer accommodations that can mitigate the reasons for resigning. This isn’t begging the employee to stay; it is taking advantage of an opportunity to correct or improve workplace conditions in ways that can forestall future resignations by other employees.

If you are unsuccessful at persuading the employee to stay, the next step is to determine what notice period is appropriate. Notice periods may be specified in employment contracts. Otherwise, two weeks is a generally accepted standard.

But it is sometimes desirable to transition the employee out of the organization as quickly as possible. For example, you would not want a lame-duck network engineer to continue to have access to critical IT infrastructure. In such cases, it is appropriate to relieve the employee of keys, computer access and other company property and to escort him or her off the premises immediately.

If a notice period is negotiated, you need to get the most benefit out of the departing employee’s remaining time on the payroll. There are several steps that you can take to make a lame-duck period productive.
Work Out a Transition Plan
A departing employee will inevitably leave loose ends that need to be tied up by remaining workers. The reason for a notice period is to mitigate confusion, disruption and burdens for other employees. Put the departing employee to work; don’t just let him or her sit around.

Carefully review all work in progress with the departing employee. Determine what the worker can reasonably finish during the notice period. But also allow time for the departing employee to document what work has been done, what tasks remain, and which resources he or she planned to use to complete the work.

A departing employee generally has some body of specialized knowledge that will be lost to the organization if it is not fully documented before he or she leaves. Specify what contact lists, notes on vendors and customers, and other information you want the employee to document.

If there are benefits to which the departing employee is entitled, schedule meetings with the HR department to review and finalize arrangements for their delivery. If the employee possesses company property, make a list of what must be returned, and set a time for a thorough inventory and equipment surrender.

Schedule an exit interview with the departing employee. There are many insights that your company can gain by conducting a structured exit interview with every departing employee — even the ones that you are glad to see go.
Communicate with Affected Staffers
A co-worker’s resignation is always traumatic for remaining employees to some extent. Other employees will be wondering why their colleague resigned, whether they should also resign and what the hole in the organization will mean to them. It does no good to slip into denial and act as if a resignation has not happened.

Call a meeting of affected employees and lay out the facts. Their co-worker has resigned but will be sticking around for a certain period of time. (Don’t go into the reasons for this particular resignation during the meeting. If the reasons lead to changes in policies and procedures at a later time, that’s a bonus.)

Assure the staff that the impact of the employee’s departure will be minimal. Explain what steps are being taken to complete projects as much as possible, as well as to capture specialized knowledge that remaining employees will need.

A resignation may also be a potential gain for remaining employees. If the resignation results in a promotion opportunity, be sure to point out this positive aspect to the remaining employees.
Pay Close Attention to the Lame Duck
Some employers make the mistake of treating a departing employee as a pariah, effectively cutting him or her off from the daily flow of business. Instead, the departing employee’s final weeks should be a time of intensive contact with his or her manager. Follow up daily to see that transition-plan goals are being met; to ensure that new questions surrounding departure procedures are answered; and to gauge the employee’s comfort level with his or her decision to leave. It may be that your business will have one more chance to keep a key employee from leaving.