Start Reading Your Way to Remarkable HR Today

Me? Read? Are You Crazy?

I hear you cry - incredulous.I understand you are busy.I appreciate you are super busy outing fires, saving managers or clients from themselves, delivering the daily HR operation and organising development opportunities for everyone else with the exception of HR.But the pressure to deliver stellar results still stalks you.Your HR must:a) Make employee communications remarkable – worth noting, worth following.b) Deliver a candidate/employee experience that has authentic meaning.c) Reconnect the HR service to what matters to employees and the business.d) Create value through the work HR designs and delivers.The demand that HR step up and make a positive impact to the business refuses to abate.It will not stop! And no you cannot claim harassment.You are peddling fast but making slow progress. You wonder if your path is made of sticky treacle.Perhaps it is – metaphorically speaking.A bubble of inertia coupled with dull low-impact results threatens your HR.How do you burst the bubble of inertia?What’s the antidote for dull low-impact HR?

R-E-A-D!

You will never find time to read.You must make time to read.Need a shot of inspiration? Pop over to this James Altucher post  about the mind-shifting power of books.It is not about collecting books to decorate your shelves and your office floor; but actually reading them.It is not a random selection of books to appear smart but his “top 10 list of braingasm books. Books that will raise your IQ between the time you start and the time you end.”

The HR Value Conundrum

Inspired; James Altucher’s post got me thinking about the books I have read this year.Which books infiltrated my mind and shook it up – in a good way?My quest for the secret recipe for HR Value Creation led me to venture off the usual HR track and go cross-discipline adventuring.Incredibly, the books that resonated loudest were all Un-HR books.Untypical HR books that are so unexpectedly gripping that they have the power to seep into your mind and stick to your subconscious. They can expand your mind and tune your HR brain into a different yet complementary frequency.Are you ready to go cross-discipline adventuring?Don’t waste time agonising about not having the time.Don’t hem and haw.Start with yourself. Transforming your HR starts with you.This is your invitation to reboot and upgrade your thinking so you can help others and boost your HR from ordinary to extraordinary.Because you are super busy, I have kept the list short.  HR is a discerning discipline after all.Our journey starts here. Let’s go!Here are my top 4 picks for the critical Un-HR must-read book list.1. Marketing: a Love Story: How to Matter to Your Customers by Bernadette Jiwa

• Are you struggling to make your recruitment marketing efforts resonate with your target candidates?
• Are your employee communications and internal content marketing (job descriptions, policies and procedures) falling on deaf ears?
• Do you know how to craft the most compelling story to tell your candidates and employees?

This is your go-to guide to creating a meaningful “Human Business Strategy” based on an authentic understanding of what makes your customers (candidates and employees for HR) tick.Her One-Page Marketing Plan is 24K Gold.Tip: Add the words ‘recruitment’, ‘candidate’ and ‘employee’ in the relevant spots and eh Voilà, you have the bones of your human-centric HR plan.  Now over to you to add the meat - or better - the meaning.To paraphrase Bernadette Jiwa; “add meaning to peoples’ lives […] change how people feel first, which in turn changes what they do and what they come to expect and embrace.” 2. The Purpose Economy by Aaron HurstUnderstanding or contributing to the design of your organisation’s purpose is not as important as you might imagine.According to Hurst, The Purpose Economy is our reality now and it is:

• defined by the quest for people to have more purpose in their lives.
• driven by connecting people to their purpose.
• an economy where value lies in establishing purpose for employees and customers through serving needs greater than their own, enabling personal growth and building community.

This is HR’s opportunity to shine.

HR’s role in this new economy is to provide the thread which connects the employees’ purpose with the organisation’s purpose.  Fulfilling purpose is both a moral and financial imperative.The glue to make this connection stick is a thorough understanding of the individual employee's purpose as it relates to the organisation's purpose. Then you must connect the purpose dots for maximum engagement.Maximum engagement means that HR must ensure that the work each employee does contributes value to the business, has meaning and makes a difference.HR becomes the purpose connector and the meaning injector.3. The Art of Work by Jeff Goins.This book is positioned as a guide on how to abandon the status quo and live a life that matters with true passion and purpose.It does this brilliantly. It is worth reading for this alone.But dig deeper and with your HR hat on, you will find an extraordinary road map to inject life into your organisation’s learning and development programmes.Flip to the back of the book - the Appendix section. There, you will find a near perfect script for practical and meaningful individual employee career guidance conversations.There are also some useful exercises which you can use to help an employee plot their career path.4. Mindset by Carol Dweck. I am stealing this one as a recommendation to read from James Altucher’s top 10 list. Creating value through people is HR’s purpose. Arm yourself with the knowledge and mind-set to achieve this.Read these 4 books to expand your mind and dramatically boost your professional mojo.Apply what you read to raise your HR game and  boost your level of contribution you can make to your business.Have you read any of these books? How did they change your mind-set?What other books have you read that transformed your HR thinking?Share your key takeaways in the comments.Until we meet again next week down the HR Rabbit Hole…