Four workplace books to help people pros navigate HR challenges

From DEI rollbacks to leadership challenges, HR pros face new obstacles seemingly every day.

HR Brew has spoken with several authors over the past year whose books aim to help people people navigate these and other pressing issues. Here, we’ve rounded up a few that might be worth adding to the stack on your bedside table.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

For the HR pro questioning their understanding of DEI: Can I Say That? By Poornima Luthra

What you’ll learn: “I’d like [HR pros] to have a more nuanced understanding around the backlash and resistance that we’re seeing to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to really understand where it comes from, because I think there’s a lot of superficial understanding…and there’s a lot of shame and blame associated with those that oppose DEI as well as the other way around those that support DEI,” Lurthra said.

“Resistance to DEI and the backlash has always been there. You can go back in history to the Civil Rights Movement. The movement with women’s rights as well…so, understanding this resistance has been a big part of my research over the last few years, and when you get into it, it’s really about the fact that we see DEI as a threat. A threat to our status, threat to our idea of what we think meritocracy is, and my position in an organization, the threat to access to opportunities and resources, the threat to culture, and what I think my culture should be, or the organizational culture/societal culture should be.”

For the HR pro trying to climb the corporate ladder: The Broken Rung: When the Career Ladder Breaks for Women—and How They Can Succeed in Spite of It, by Lareina Yee, Kweilin Ellingrud, and María del Mar Martínez

What you’ll learn: “When we visualize your career over time, oftentimes people think of a ladder, and you think that every promotion is stepping one more rung up that ladder to getting to the top. The top could be being a CEO. The top could be being a manager…That concept of the ladder—people think about the glass ceiling as being what holds you back [from reaching] the top—but what we found…was actually one of the most damaging setbacks is the very first step on that ladder. And, that’s why we call it a broken rung,” Yee said.

“If we just fix the top, it’s insufficient. We have to fix the whole talent pipeline…Every single step on the ladder. Every stage in the talent pipeline matters. We do a really good job recruiting women…But when you think of retention and promotion, it’s important to provide those opportunities for women. And, it’s hard for me to believe that two, three, [or] five years into being hired, there’s so much of a disparity between men and women. And if there is, from a merit perspective, then let’s think about the interventions to make sure that women have that first promotion opportunity, because it’s only up from there.”

For the HR pro trying to improve corporate culture: Work Life Well-Lived: The Motives Met Pathway to No-B.S. Well-Being at Work, by Kelly Mackin

What you’ll learn: “We conducted a lot of research to really get to the heart of what thriving at work is all about, because there is so much noise out there to navigate through…and research can’t really seem to make up its mind either about what employees want most. Research will claim that employees walk out the door because of a lack of growth, but other data says, ‘No, it’s a bad boss or a lack of appreciation,’ so there’s a lot of contradictory advice that’s well-intentioned, but it’s overwhelming,” Mackin said.

“But, what the data also showed is that what you need most to thrive is going to be really different than what I need most. So, there is no universal hierarchy of needs. It’s discovering what each person’s hierarchy is. So, we kind of have to cut through the noise out there, and the BS and go, ‘What is true for me? What is true for my team and my work culture?’”

For the HR pro trying to differentiate between performative and functional professionalism: Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously), by Bree Groff

What you’ll learn: “When we think about ‘performative professionalism,’ that’s the suits, and the ties, and the fancy decks, and the business jargon. It’s all these ways in which we need to show up in our ‘business masks’ that often get in the way of what we know makes for a productive and happy culture, so things like psychological safety or just simply camaraderie, like having a work best friend…How we can prioritize people feeling like they don’t have to exhale at the end of the day because they’ve been keeping it professional all day long?” Groff said.

“We should like the people that we’re spending our days with, and so how can we create a feeling not just of being collegial, but of real camaraderie in teams? And I use the term ‘cozy teams’ in the book…What I’m trying to do with the book is to help re-humanize the workplace from cultures that can sometimes feel very, ‘I have to show up in a certain way in order to succeed to I’m having a good time at work because I’m doing it among friends. I’m doing my most brilliant work because I feel welcome to share my ideas.’”