The Essential HR Handbook: A Quick and Handy Resource for Any Manager or HR Professional

Whether you are a newly promoted manager, a seasoned business owner, or a human resources professional, knowing the ins and outs of dealing with HR issues is critical to your success. The Essential HR Handbook is a quick-reference guide that sheds light on the issues that keep managers up at night. It is filled with information, tools, tips, checklists, and road maps to guide managers and HR professionals through the maze of people and legal issues, from recruiting and retaining the best employees to terminating poor performers.

With this book, you'll learn how to effectively and efficiently:

• Individually manage each employee, starting on his or her first day.
• Manage a multi-generational workforce.
• Appraise job performance.
• Coach and counsel.
• Provide equitable pay, benefits, and total rewards strategies.
• Identify legal pitfalls and stay out of court.

The Essential HR Handbook is the one HR guide every manager needs on his or her desk!

About the Authors

SHARON ARMSTRONG began her career in human resources in 1985 as a recruiter and trainer at a large Manhattan law firm, where she was promoted to a managerial role within six months. Following that position, she was director of human resources at another law firm and at three nonprofit associations in Washington, D.C.

Since launching Sharon Armstrong and Associates in 1998, she has consulted with many large corporations and small businesses. She has provided training and completed HR projects for a wide variety of clients in the profit and nonprofit sectors as well as in government.

Sharon received her BA cum laude from the University of Southern Maine and her master’s degree in counseling from George Washington University. A certified Professional in Human Resources, she is a member of the national Society for Human Resource Management and its local chapter. She also serves on the Advisory Board of Disability Leave and Absence Reporter, published monthly by the Bureau of Business Practice.

Sharon is the coauthor of Stress-free Performance Appraisals: Turn Your Most Painful Management Duty Into a Powerful Motivational Tool and the tongue-in-jowl Heeling the Canine Within: The Dog’s Self-Help Companion.

BARBARA MITCHELL has more than 25 years of experience in HR management and consulting, and is a principal and coowner of The Millennium Group International, LLC, a Washington, D.C.–based consulting firm dedicated to building organizational capacity.

Much of her career has been in senior HR positions with Marriott International, including staffing, employee relations, and employee communications. She also served in senior leadership positions with Eon Corporation and Human Genome Sciences, Inc.

A past president of the Employment Management Association, a professional emphasis group of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Barbara is also a past president of the Personnel and Industrial Relations Association (PIRA) of Los Angeles, the Leesburg/Greater Loudoun (VA) SHRM chapter, and WTPF, the Forum for HR Professionals.

She is completing a book, Finders Keepers: A Back to Basics Approach to Attracting and Retaining the Best, and she contributed to both On Staffing: Advice and Perspective from HR Leaders and Cover Letters for Dummies. She recently served on the Society for Human Resource Management’s Special Expert Panel on Consulting and Outsourcing. Barbara is also a frequent speaker on topics related to recruitment, retention, generations at work, succession management, consulting, and human resources outsourcing.