8 People & Culture Books to Read Over the Holidays 📚

8 People & Culture Books to Read Over the Holidays 📚

The holidays are a great time to take time to recharge, relax and also sharpen your skills. Here are a few Employee Engagement books that provide insight and unique approaches to increase engagement, activities, communication, and more.

The Employee Experience Advantage: How to Win the War for Talent by Giving Employees the Workspaces they Want, the Tools they Need, and a Culture They Can Celebrate by Jacob Morgan 📘

The book provides leaders with a toolkit to create and measure employee experience by dissecting the idea into its fundamental elements, such as the physical, technical, and cultural settings. Later chapters offer case studies that serve as examples of effective practices and discuss in-depth methods, concepts, and activities for creating experiential organizations. The book outlines the fundamental elements and manageable processes that transform businesses into fantastic workplaces.

The New Art of Hybrid Gathering by Priya Parker 📙

The author Priya Parker talks about how hybrid meetings are where some people attend a meeting in person while others meet from their place of choice. This has had an increase in popularity at workplaces, events, personal gatherings, and more. While it is hard to manage, this can bring a new method of connection. Bridging the gap between virtual and traditional is the biggest challenge. But when done correctly it can lead to a fun overall experience and creates a stronger culture where individuals can relate with each other while having the comfort of being at home. Learn more on the Art of Hybrid Gathering here as well as Epoch's summary/notes from the book can be broken down by chapter with key findings here.

The Employee Experience: How to Attract Talent, Retain Top Performers, and Drive Results by Matthew Wride and Tracy Maylett 📗

One of the best employee experience strategy books is The Employee Experience. This guide contrasts the customer and employee experiences and demonstrates how the two ideas are related. The book also explains how applying this theory can result in organizational development and financial success. According to the authors, employers should "contract" with their staff members and earn their trust by keeping their commitments. The book also encourages leaders to consider and address team member's expectations to make sure that their ideas of what makes a good workplace align with those of their coworkers.

People Operations: Automate HR, Design a Great Employee Experience, and Unleash Your Workforce by Jay Fulcher, Kevin Marasco, and Tracy Cote 📕

One of the more beneficial books on people strategy is People Operations. This manual teaches HR professionals how to automate routine departmental tasks and "busywork" with software so they can concentrate on maximizing human capital and improving employee experiences. A valuable framework for streamlining efforts into the areas that matter most to employees and have the biggest influence on culture and performance is provided by people operations.

How to Be a Great Boss by Gino Wickman and René Boer 📙

An important aspect of the employment experience is management. People don't leave lousy jobs, they leave poor supervisors. The book How to Be a Great Boss offers advice on how to foster a positive workplace culture and bring out the best in staff members. The book describes the distinction between management and leadership, lists the traits of excellent managers, and demonstrates how to build relationships with team members. The book emphasizes that the ultimate objective of effective leadership is to support employees in developing positive connections with their managers and coworkers and a sense of the significance and importance of their work.

The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation by Timothy R. Clark 📘

Psychological safety is one of the most crucial elements of a great work environment. A tutorial on how to establish this circumstance within your business can be found in The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety. The four stages of psychological safety include inclusion, learning, contributing, and challenging, according to the book. Employees are more ready to develop, take risks, share ideas, and exert extra effort when they feel protected and valued.

The Art of Community: Seven Principles for Belonging by Charles Vogl 📕

The Art of Community is a guide for developing a sense of group identity and purpose. The book offers a set of more general guidelines and best practices for creating a community rather than concentrating solely on work. Rituals and storytelling are just two examples of the author's seven key practices for creating strong communities. The author also provides leaders with tools to use in order to promote connection, inclusivity, and unity within the group. To the extent that having work friends reduces professionals' likelihood of leaving jobs, getting along with coworkers unquestionably enhances the employee experience.

Employee Experience: Develop a Happy, Productive, and Supported Workforce for Exceptional Individual and Business Performance by Ben Whitter 📙

Employee Experience by Ben Whitter is a crash course in EX. The author encourages readers to consider executive experience (EX) as a duty of all organizational leaders rather than just an HR function. In his book Holistic Employee Experience, Ben Whitter describes a framework for integrating employee understanding, respect, and support throughout the entire organization. This strategy gives leaders a place to start as they create organizations that put their employees first, filled with devoted, highly motivated, and productive workers.

Want more book recommendations? Epoch’s Employee Experience community helps EX teams share ideas on inclusive events, books, gifting, new methods, and which vendors to use. Join our community today to be part of the conversation among other EX professionals!

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