(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best human resources books

Use reddit! There are subs for literally every tech niche you can think of. I recruit for DevOps, and had to learn DevOps from soup to nuts. I worked agency recruiting, and ranged from networking to Business Systems Analysis and back. You have to dive in and google EVERYTHING. I also really liked this book: http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Made-Simple-Technical-Recruiter/dp/1450216463/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450223570&sr=1-1&keywords=technical+recruiting

I think it's only available in ebook now, but it's worth the download. Good luck, and feel free to post here with specific questions, there are REALLY smart folks hanging around these parts that I learn from all the time.

Always My Child: A Parent's Guide to Understanding Your Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, or Questioning Son or Daughter - Kevin Jennings

The GENDER Book - Mel Reiff Hill

The Gender Creative Child: Pathways for Nurturing and Supporting Children Who Live Outside Gender Boxes - Diane Ehrensaft

Gender Diversity and Non-Binary Inclusion in the Workplace: The Essential Guide for Employers - Sarah Gibson, J. Fernandez

Helping Your Transgender Teen: A Guide for Parents - Irwin Krieger

The Transgender Teen: A Handbook for Parents and Professionals Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary Teens - Stephanie Brill

Transitions of the Heart: Stories of Love, Struggle and Acceptance by Mothers of Transgender and Gender Variant Children - Rachel Pepper

Interaction Design

• About Face 3 by Alan Cooper
  
• Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge
  
• Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell
  
• Designing for the Digital Age by Kim Goodwin
  
• Making Things Talk: (2011) (2007) by Tom Igoe
  
  Interior Design
  
  
• The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden, Jr. Codman
  
• Domino: The Book of Decorating by Deborah Needleman
  
• Design*Sponge at Home: A Guide to Inspiring Homes by Grace Bonney
  
• The Vintage/Modern Home by Katherine Sorrell
  
• The Fundamentals of Interior Design by Simon Dodsworth
  
  Landscape Architecture
  
  
• Landscape Architectural Graphic Standards by Leonard J. Hopper
  
• Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers
  
• Landscape Graphics by Grant W. Reid
  
• Cities for People by Jan Gehl
  
• Design with Nature by Ian L. McHarg
  
  Lighting Design
  
  
• Stage Lighting Design by Richard Pilbrow
  
• The Architecture of Natural Light by Henry Plummer
  
• Painting With Light by John Alton
  
• Made of Light by Anthony Tischhauser
  
• Color, Environment and Human Response by Frank H. Mahnke & Rudolf H. Mahnke
  
  Product Design
  
  
• Sketching: Drawing Techniques from Product Designers by Koos Eissen
  
• Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek
  
• The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
  
• Mythologies by Roland Barthes
  
• Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
  
  Product Design
  
  
• In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World by John Thackara
  
• The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine II & James H. Gilmore
  
• Universal Methods of Design by Bruce Hanington & Bella Martin
  
• Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
  
• Mental Models by Indi Young
  
  Sound Design
  
  
• Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema by David Sonnenschein
  
• Designing Sound by Andy Farnell
  
• Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen by Michel Chion
  
• The Sound Effects Bible by Ric Viers
  
• Sound Theory Sound Practice by Rick Altman
  
  Urban Design
  
  
• The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
  * Cities for People by Jan Gehl
  
• A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
  
• The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler
  
• The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch
  
  Web Design
  
  
• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
  
• HTML & CSS: Design and Build Web Sites by Jon Duckett
  
• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird
  
• Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS by Ben Frain
  
• Hardboiled Web Design by Andy Clarke
  

I took the exam last spring and used three different books.

PHR/SPHR for Dummies - I did not use this as much as I used the books listed below.

PHR/SPHR Exam Study Guide 2016 - This was more of a summary of the areas covered. I got some good information out of it and it was a quick read.

PHR/SPHR Professional in Human Resources Certification Deluxe Study Guide - This was the most thorough of the books I purchased and I'm confident I can use it for PHR exam too, without having to worry about buying additional study materials.

I don't remember too much about the exam, but I wish you the best of luck!

*Note: I made flashcards off of information from the books and used those to study, once I finished reading the books.

>You realize you're asking me to analyze an entire country's economic status


I haven't read farther, but that wasn't really what I was trying to do. I wasn't playing the "dump data on you and run" game.


Have you read The End of Work? It sheds a lot of light on the subject I think.


>If you've dealt with unions before, I'd guess you can see how more unionization might lead itself to more protectionist policies, e.g. maintaining employment in industries that might otherwise opt for layoffs.


I have. I'm well aware this exists and I have suffered directly from the ridiculousness of this situation as a whole fairly often just to do my work. I'm definitely on the same page here.


>These policies generally tend to help one group of people (those who would otherwise be made unemployed) at the expense of hurting everyone else.


A self interested person can still believe in this policy. This reinvestment is critical for our system to function. If you look at it from an economic perspective: Compare the cost of one person if they spend their whole lives as criminal drug addicts versus someone who is prosperous and succesful who is a benefit to the whole community. Even the difference between a kid growing up with good self discipline versus not will cost society hugely. And yet a super high quality person is easily worth millions> Just consider your own life and experiences. It is our job as a society to cultivate that and we will not survive if we don't.


Also, aside from a slight loss due to self-management overhead, it's not like you are paid less per hour. You can get another part time job to make up the extra 5 hours a week if you need it.

OK I'm getting a little overwhelmed at the vast amount of literature that's available on this topic (this is an area in which I do research). I'll post a few things I like, but there's a lot more if you want it. Just have a look at, say, the webpage of the National Poverty Center.

The New World of Welfare was the book I read that got me interested in these topics from a research angle. They provide a wide range of views, and the editors come from different ideological backgrounds.

Finding Jobs and Welfare Reform is also a great overview of the scholarly research on welfare reform. It's more one-sided than the other book, though.

If you want more just let me know. Many of the authors I would recommend wrote in one of the two books above, but there's been a lot of work recently that's not in either of those books. Still, I think they're a good starting place.

Edit: Oh, I remembered: Working and Poor and Changing Poverty, Changing Policy are other great scholarly overviews. They're not focused exclusively on Welfare Reform, but they're more recent.

I did this for about eight months, but not for Save The Children. There are a few major for-profit companies that do street fundraising for their nonprofit partners. In Boston, the major ones are Grassroots Campaigns, Inc., Dialogue Direct, and MASSPIRG/Fund For the Public Interest. (The last one is technically a nonprofit).

What's it like to do this job? Is it stressful to be ignored so often?

Really depends on your personality. If you're used to campaign work, you get used to the rejection. Our turnover rate is ridiculously high. The average employee lasts maybe two or three weeks. If you stay for more than a couple months, you're an anomaly. So for most, the answer is yes, it's stressful. I've been volunteering on campaigns since I was 13, so I knew what I was signing up for, and wasn't too surprised by how we were treated. It still made me bitter, and that bitterness wasn't healthy. I found myself, off the clock, judging in my head who would stop and who wouldn't, and getting irrationally angry at people I knew nothing about. That's not normal. The job itself is pretty fun, though. If you're good at fundraising, and you know you'll make quota, it's a fairly laid-back job. Fun coworkers, and you get to work mostly unsupervised, which I loved. I would always hit quota, so I'd spend a lot of my shift just having conversations with people, even if I knew they weren't going to donate. I got to have a lot of really interesting conversations with people, learned a lot, and got a whooooole lot of good stories about the crazies.

EDIT: Rose-colored glasses have fogged my memory, and I feel like I should add a little more detail. The office was hilariously managed. You had a small handful of directors leading the canvass crew. While their turnover rate wasn't as abysmal as ours, it was still concerningly high. Staying for more than a year was unusual for them. About a third of our crew were made "Field Managers" after their third shift. It's a meaningless title. The FM's job is to keep an eye on your crew when in the field. You train the new kids, make sure everyone is taking their required breaks, call the shots on who gets to stand where, and fill out a little extra end-of-day paperwork. The idea here is that giving a canvasser with potential a fancy title and a small amount of power will make them feel more invested and loyal to the company. Every day, we'd spend an hour in the office doing "training". This training primarily consisted of teaching the new kids the script word-for-word in a demeaning, kindergarten-esque "repeat-after-me" exercise. Deviation from the script was prohibited, and we were meant to memorize "response structures" for common questions/objections. If you hear a canvasser that sounds awkward and robotic, it's because he was trained to believe that any slight deviation from the script would get him fired, and that as long as you repeat the script word-for-word, you'll get donations. I made up my own "script", raised more than the majority of my coworkers, and was still punished for not following instructions. We were micromanaged to no end, and this became frustrating.

Are you paid on commission?

Yes. The pay structure was a bit complicated, and the commission fluctuated based on our office average. Here's how it worked: our nonprofit partners pay our employer a set amount of money per shift they send out. If four canvassers go out, we get paid 4n, if six go out we get paid 6n, no matter how much we actually raise. The way that money is distributed, however, makes it so we're able to make commission. Every pay period, the office average is calculated. Let's say that, on average, canvassers raised $180 per shift this pay period. The office calculates 80% of that figure (in this case that's $144), and that's our quota. If you worked six shifts in a pay period, you'd be expected to raise (6 x $144 = $864). If you raised $864 or less, you were paid minimum wage. For every dollar you raise above $864, you take home $0.25. There were additional rules in place for large donations (I think anything over $200) where you'd only take home 10% or something. So you'd take home more money from ten $100 donations than from one $1000 donation. Over half of the office made $11-13/hour. The top fundraisers would usually take home $15-18/hour. Highest I ever got was $22/hour, on a week that the rest of the office sucked and I had a killer few days. One more note: monthly donors, or sustainers, were our #1 goal. If you got someone to pledge $10/month, you multiply that number by seven for your commission. So if you got a $10/month donor, a $10 one-time donor, and a $20 one-time donor, you technically had a $100 day.

How much money goes to the actual charities?

This is where it gets fucked up, and is most of the reason why I quit. Check out this document on the Attorney General's website. Grassroots is a good example. The ACLU lost $30,000 on them in 2015, meaning that they gave -0.96% of their revenue to them. Doctors Without Borders lost $400,000 on them, for a contribution rate of -55.03%. The Nature Conservancy lost $120,000 on them, making their rate -26.90%. Planned Parenthood was the worst, losing almost $2,000,000 on them with a rate of -136.66%.

Now, technically 100% of the money we raise goes directly to the nonprofits we fundraise for. But If I raise $100 and give that to a nonprofit, and then they turn around and pay me $150 for my labor, is that still a totally accurate statement?

Is this a growing industry? How is it organized?

Unfortunately, yes. Individual grassroots organizations are finding that it's profitable to outsource their field work. This results in "activists" with no personal attachment to the organizations they represent. Here's something I wrote right after I quit:

>
If progressive nonprofits want to succeed, they need to start building and investing in their own field teams. Outsourcing their canvassing to for-profit corporations where the average employee lasts three weeks just isn't good enough.

> Movements aren't built by canvassers who get a total of two hours between "this is the name of the group we represent" and "now it's your turn to fundraise, good luck". They aren't built by canvassers who are told they MUST follow a specific script, word-for-word, with no variations. And they definitely aren't built by canvassers who guilt the public into thinking that the only way they can get involved with a cause is to give money, even if they don't have any money to give.

>The nonprofits we represent do amazing work, and I loved having hundreds of conversations about important issues with strangers on the street, but this model of fundraising needs to end.

____

If you're interested in this topic, I can't recommend enough the amazing book by Dana Fisher, Activism, Inc.: How the Outsourcing of Grassroots Campaigns Is Strangling Progressive Politics in America. She works for PIRG and documents her time there in amazing detail. It felt like it could have been written by one of my coworkers, how accurate it was. And she explains exactly why this model of fundraising is so flawed.

For a shorter read, my former co-worker Ria published this piece on Medium.

HR Made Simple: Recruit. Engage. Comply. It's That Easy! https://www.amazon.com/dp/1945670312/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_sM6cAbDB9DFXQ

I haven't read it yet, but I hear great things about it. It's on my wish list.

There are! Of course, there isn't any way to do it directly - if there were, there would be a lot fewer trades around here!

The way that I generally favor is to buy the person trading for amazon giftcards ebooks equal to the value of the transaction - there are a few books available for right around $60, believe it or not. From there, you send that gift to the email address of the person's amazon account. They can choose to redeem the ebook or refuse it for amazon giftcard credit directly to your account. You can read up more on this here. Their statement says that it can take up to a week for the credit to be given, but in my experience it was nearly instant.

In addition, you can also buy prime for people. I haven't done this before to know how it works but I assume its similar in that the person on the receiving end can refuse it for amazon credit equal to the value of prime.

I believe you can use the ebook process with other digital media, but I don't know enough to give advice on that.

https://www.amazon.com/Recruit-Rockstars-Playbook-Winners-Business-ebook/dp/B076J4D891

My manager recommended this book and it was a great read. Even though the author’s background is in agency recruiting, his approach can be fully or loosely applied to fit your situation with success.

For those who mentioned being interested in books in this thread:
[Asperger Syndrome Employment Workbook] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Asperger-Syndrome-Employment-Workbook-Professionals/dp/1853027960/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468747819&sr=8-1&keywords=Asperger+Syndrome+Employment+Workbook)

Survival Tips for Women with ADHD - Suitable for more than just women, and more than just ADHD.

[Build Your Own Life: A Self-Help Guide for Individuals with Asperger] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Build-Your-Own-Life-Individuals/dp/1843101149?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc)

A Field Guide to Earthlings

Been There. Done That. Try This!: An Aspie's Guide to Life on Earth

The Guide to Good Mental Health on the Autism Spectrum

Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Understanding Life Experiences from Early Childhood to Old Age

Autism Equality in the Workplace: Removing Barriers and Challenging Discrimination - Some parts are more for employers or those supporting autistic people into work but others are more for autistic people.

Sensory Issues for Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Very Late Diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome

Living Sensationally: Understanding Your Senses

Aspies on Mental Health: Speaking for Ourselves

The Hidden Curriculum of Getting and Keeping a Job: Navigating the Social Landscape of Employment

Asperger's Syndrome Workplace Survival Guide

The Complete Guide to Getting a Job for People with Asperger's Syndrome

Unemployed on the Autism Spectrum

Asperger Syndrome and Employment

I'm going to stop there, though I could add loads more books. No single book has all the answers obviously and some are better than others in their presentation and approach. I've read most of them, but there are a couple that are still on my "to read" list so I won't make a sweeping comment about the usefulness of all of them - but the ones I have finished have contained useful advice.

Now you're mythologizing the economic policies. Which are nothing like our assumptions today.

The founding fathers saw America as an agrarian paradise, where freedom and liberty was a function of self sustaining farms.

They were deeply skeptical of emerging markets, where people left the the land to work for industrialists. Jefferson would have called it wage slavery -- and even remarked that his slaves had it better than Irish peasants working for money. It's one way they justified the institution. African slaves had it better than "white slaves" on continental Europe working for wages.


So, your economic assertion aren't accurate either.

I have a hard time putting into words how much I care about this book. Mostly because it made me care deeply about the (real) people in the story. Once upon a time, the United States of America was the front lines of the labor movement. Things got very violent. The system was very corrupt. Read it. You'll love it. It's about the Haymarket massacre.

http://www.amazon.com/Performance-Management-2nd-Herman-Aguinis/dp/0136151752

If you really want to design a comprehensive system I would pick up this book. It reads really easily and will give you the understanding of performance management that you need to craft a well designed software solution.

Not fully on topic but I can recommend a book entitled Understanding Cross-Cultural Management which I use for a summer course of the same title. A comprehensive manual encompassing different fields from organisational culture and change to leadership attributes in multicultural settings.

A couple I've read or are on my to-read list:

Peace at Work: The HR Manager's Guide to Workplace Mediation
https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Work-Managers-Workplace-Mediation/dp/150033135X/


101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees
https://www.amazon.com/101-Tough-Conversations-Have-Employees/


Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People
https://www.amazon.com/Captivate-Succeeding-Vanessa-Van-Edwards/dp/0399564489/

Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations
https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Past-Negotiating-Difficult-Situations/dp/0553371312/


Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
https://www.amazon.com/Thanks-Feedback-Science-Receiving-Well/dp/0143127136/

Standard 1st year PhD I book: http://www.amazon.com/Applied-Psychology-Human-Resource-Management/dp/0136090958/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368770356&sr=1-1&keywords=cascio+%26+aguinis

O book: http://www.amazon.com/Organizational-Psychology-Scientist-Practitioner-Steve-Jex/dp/0470109769/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368770387&sr=1-1&keywords=jex

The O book is a much easier / more enjoyable read, the I book is much more.... textbooky....

Both should be approachable by someone with a BA

Undergrade level books: http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Applied-Work-Paul-Muchinsky/dp/0578076926/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368770501&sr=8-2-spell&keywords=Muchensky

Older edition: http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Applied-Work-Introduction-Organizational/dp/0980147808/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368770501&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=Muchensky

The new edition apparently touches on some of the things that have been effected by the recession. IDK if it is worth the extra $$$ though.

I would get the Jex book 1st, and if you like that check out the Cascio & Aguinis book, or vice versa.

https://www.amazon.com/Create-Your-Own-Employee-Handbook/dp/1413318843

Used this 6 years ago and it's held up great as we've grown. Had to make tweaks to fit my company originally and over time, but it's very comprehensive.

• Lost and Founder by Reid Fishkin (a startup CEO’s candid reflections on building a company)
  
• Powerful by Patty McCord (the Netflix’s HR person who brought you the infamous culture deck)
  
• Work Rules by Laszlo Bock (the book by the pioneer of HR at Google)
  
• Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz (really good advice on company management)
  
• The Essential HR Handbook by Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell (nice primer)
  
• HR from Now to Next by Jason Averbook (also a good thought leader)
  
• Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux (incredibly progressive, but I like the thinking)

Marx's "Das Kapital" for Beginners

Capitalism for Beginners

There are entire series of these graphic "for beginners" books. Great, concise, highly approachable and accurate.

For what it is worth:
https://www.amazon.com/Marxs-Kapital-Beginners-Michael-Wayne/dp/1934389595

An Introduction to Capital generally tells you once and then shows an example. Here's the one I have.