“A book that compels thought”, “Who is going to read this book? », “Too bad that it is a burden for companies”, “A great theoretical richness” : so many reactions from human resources managers expressed on reading the four books nominated for the 2022 edition of the HR Book Prize.
Created in 2000 by the Syntec Recrutement federation (now Syntec Conseil) in partnership with The world and Sciences Po, this prize rewards each year the best work on management of the previous year. The name of the winner was to be announced on Wednesday October 5 during the ceremony organized in Paris, at the premises of the World.
The students of the Sciences Po “organizations and management of human resources” master’s program have the program to read and discuss a year of editorial production in works on work. More specifically, around fifty books published in 2021 and shortlisted by Sciences Po, The world and publishers. The students’ choice sheds light on what challenges future management professionals in today’s business world.
As for the choice of the winner, it combines the concerns of future human resources managers with those of HRDs confronted every day with the realities on the ground. Incessant reorganizations, recruitment difficulties, new employee aspirations, versatility of profiles, rising inflation, declining productivity… For more than two years, HRDs have been practicing their skills in managing uncertainty. But what is the place of work in society now?
In 2020 the works of the HR Book Prize described the “new monsters” of the world of work produced by the advent of artificial intelligence and by the dehumanization of employment. In 2021, the selected essays analyzed the remedies for the damage of the technological revolution in the company. The books named for 2022 continue this search for a solution by questioning the concept of work very broadly, in particular from the observation of the consequences of management on the health of employees.
The Association for Executive Employment, which surveyed executives in the private sector in August, revealed that more than one in two executives (54%) would be in a situation of burnout. The essays named 2022 analyze, well beyond the Covid context, the fundamental trends in the evolution of work in society.
Employer domination reinvents itself
First observation, happiness at work has become an injunction, and it is a new risk for employees. The “know-how would only be secondary in the face of hidden talents” employees, likely to be revealed by the company. Human resources managers then promote the management of subjectivities, emotions and moods. The easements of well-being at work. Health impacts, written under the direction by the sociologist Sophie Le Garrec (Erès, 296 pages, 25 euros), denounces in the prescription to happiness the mask that hides “a disintegration of working conditions”.
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