The best 37 New Work books

In Remote, you are given an inside look at a new kind of work relationship made possible by modern technology, called “remote work.” The book details companies’ common fears about allowing employees to work remotely and in contrast, outlines the many benefits of remote work. Importantly, it offers practical advice to managers who employ remote workers or are considering introducing remote work options for their company.

• Managers who need to find solutions for employees
• Anyone who is considering trying out remote work at their company
• Anyone looking for a better way to organize their workforce

Holacracy (2015) describes a revolutionary new management system championed by some of today’s most forward-thinking companies, like Zappos and Medium. These blinks explain how authority and responsibility are defined and distributed within a Holacracy – and why this system leads to a more effective and dynamic organization.

• Founders, CEOs, managers and HR professionals
• Employees who feel undervalued within a hierarchical organization
• Anyone who wishes their company were more flexible, dynamic and responsive

The Loop Approach (2019) presents a systematic approach to the transformation of organizations. Its toolkit of ideas and methods is designed to help even the largest organization change its bad habits, thus enabling it to adapt to the challenges of the future. 

• Business leaders looking for ways to update their company structures
• Teams aiming to work more effectively as a group
• Entrepreneurs wishing to establish organizations that are forward-looking

Brave New Work (2019) is an unusual guide to organizational change. Rather than prescribing techniques for corporate change, it offers suggestions and case studies. The real work of transformation is left up to you.

• Start-up leaders looking to transform their organizations
• Managers and human resources professionals
• Those interested in the workplaces of the future

The 4 Day Week shows us a better way of working – one in which employees are able to maintain flexibility, preserve their well-being, and increase productivity. By avoiding all the pitfalls of the precarious gig economy and relieving the stresses that we’re inflicting on the planet, the four-day week is the future of work. 

• Business owners who want to maximize productivity
• Campaigners for workers’ rights
• Anyone with an interest in well-being at work

The New Corner Office (2020) is a practical guide to succeeding in the world of remote work. This timely tome is filled with sensible advice for remaining creative and productive while working from home.

• Remote workers seeking new success strategies 
• Managers skeptical about the benefits of remote work
• Anyone looking to stay productive while working from home

Flexible Working (2021) is a practical guide to organizing work outside the standard nine-to-five. This helpful handbook explores the diverse array of working arrangements possible in the contemporary world.

• Businesses looking for more agile work arrangements
• Workers wanting to see life outside the nine-to-five
• Anyone curious about the future of work

How to Thrive in the Virtual Workplace (2021) is a guide to working remotely. With tips for both organizations and individuals, it covers everything from the benefits of remote work to steps for implementing it successfully, and the tools and tricks that make it easy.

• Organizational leaders interested in going remote
• Employees who want a fulfilling remote experience
• People who are curious about the future of work

The Long-Distance Teammate: Stay Engaged and Connected While Working Anywhere (2021) is a guide to being a quality teammate while working remotely. It helps you navigate all the interpersonal issues that pop up when you’re no longer sharing an office with your coworkers, and gives advice on how to build connections with people you haven’t seen.

• Anyone working remotely
• Workers unsure where they fit in
• People seeking a better work-life balance

The Business of Belonging (2021) explores how businesses can harness the power of online communities for the benefit of both themselves and their customers.

• Community professionals seeking to hone their craft
• Businesspeople who’d like to tap into the power of community
• Marketeers on the lookout for new approaches

Out of Office (2021) is about working from home, and the bigger, more fundamental questions about contemporary work culture that remote work illuminates. How can we reimagine work to make our lives more meaningful?

• Workers curious about fleeing the office
• Managers looking to rethink working practices
• Anyone interested in the future of work

Simple Truths of Leadership (2022) explores simple principles that elevate leaders from good to great. It reveals the common mistakes that leaders make – and uncovers the behaviors that result in better team performance and closer working relationships. 

• New managers eager to build strong relationships with their teams
• Seasoned leaders looking for a fresh perspective
• Entrepreneurs hoping to brush up on their people skills

Leading from Anywhere (2021) is a guide to leading a remote team, covering everything from building a company culture, managing performance, and running virtual meetings to providing feedback to team members. In addition to setting out the best way to manage a team remotely, it makes a strong case for remote work in general. 

• CEOs and team leaders
• Remote workers in dysfunctional organizations
• Anyone interested in setting up a remote business

Design for How People Learn (2015) is a practical guide for teachers, workshop leaders, and managers who want to create lessons that engage and inspire. It covers the science of how we learn and then shares the design principles that underpin successful lessons – no matter what’s being taught.

• Teachers who want students to genuinely connect with their material
• Managers who want to help their team members skill up
• HR professionals who want to prioritize employee development

Workplace Learning (2019) argues that learning and development professionals have to offer more than the usual array of courses and seminars. If you want to help your company compete in today’s fast-moving world, Nigel Paine believes, you have to start building the right kind of organizational culture. That culture rests on two pillars: open communication and knowledge sharing. For Paine, these are the foundation for the kind of constant, day-to-day learning organizations need. 

• Team leaders and managers 
• HR professionals 
• Anyone who wants to improve their workplace

AI 2041 (2021) is a provocative work of speculative fiction with analysis that explores the ways in which AI will shake up our world over the next twenty years. We’re just at the beginning of the technological revolution that AI will bring. By imagining what that future will look like, we can start preparing for the changes to come.

• Entrepreneurs wanting to learn about how AI will transform the world of work
• Sci-fi lovers interested in exploring techno utopias and dystopias
• People curious about how societies are affected by changing technologies

The Next Rules of Work (2021) is a kind of cookbook – or “landscape of ideas” – on what’s here now and what comes next in the world of work. It offers a new mindset, skillset, and toolset that’ll equip you to succeed today and in the future. 

• Leaders looking to futureproof their organizations
• Workers seeking the right skills and mindset to thrive today and tomorrow
• People who don’t want to be left behind in the face of automation

Map it! The Action Mapping Book (2017) is a practical, hands-on guide for those in the business world that design training for fellow professionals. This revolutionary guide refocuses on solving problems in business and achieving measurable results. So if you’re longing to dump those ineffective webinars and boring slide stacks look no further—Map it! Will help you focus on what the problems are, how they got that way, and what everyone can do about it for provable results. 

• Business trainers looking for targeted, measurable results 
• Problem solvers wanting a reliable path to better outcomes
• Anyone who wants to ditch that boring training course, but make better on-the-job choices

Learning at Speed (2022) is your guide to professional learning and development in the modern world. By adopting a lean methodology inspired by startups, L&D can help businesses thrive.

• Learning and development professionals in search of new ideas
• Managers looking to upskill their staff
• Business professionals seeking to understand modern L&D

Learning Agile (2015) is a no-nonsense guide to an often misunderstood concept – agile. The reason for that misunderstanding is simple: all too often, agile is bandied about as a one-size-fits-all solution to every conceivable organizational difficulty. Longtime agile practitioners Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene don’t see it that way. For them, agile is a great tool, but you have to know how – and when and why – to use it. And that starts with getting a grasp on agile’s underlying principles. 

• Software developers
• Team leaders 
• Project managers

The Learning and Development Handbook (2022) is a practical guide for human resources experts who want to upgrade how people learn in their organization without slavishly following new fads. So what’s their best bet? Michelle Parry-Slater thinks companies’ can benefit from the digital revolution, but only if they embed professional development in wider cultures of learning. That means one thing above all: working with the grain of human psychology, collective as well as individual. 

• Human resource managers 
• Coaches and educationalists
• Psychologists interested in learning

Evidence-Informed Learning Design (2020) takes stock of where learning and development in the workplace is today. While many learning myths are still encountered in contemporary workplace learning, there’re effective ways for learning professionals to identify them – and stamp them out. Once this is done, there are a number of fantastic techniques learning professionals can utilize to help assist employee learning.

• learning professionals looking to up their game
• employees looking to get ahead with their professional knowledge
• students of any persuasion hoping to discover effective learning strategies

Trust & Inspire (2022) provides a new leadership model. Instead of the traditional “Command and Control” approach, Covey proposes one that focuses on collaboration, trust and personal growth. It offers a new set of tools for inspiring and unlocking the massive potential of a modern workforce. 

• CEOs and executives looking to create a better workplace environment
• Managers and supervisors who want to be more hands-off
• Parents and educators who want a more empowering approach to childcare

The Adaptation Advantage (2020) explores how to navigate the future of work – without worrying about the robots taking over. It provides actionable insights on how to tap into uniquely human attributes like adaptation to excel.

• Workers worried about the rise of the machines
• Managers and business owners seeking new perspectives
• Futurologists fascinated by what’s coming next

The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety (2020) is a practical handbook for creating and maintaining psychological safety in the workplace. In order for employees to take risks, ask questions, challenge the status quo, and make mistakes – all while learning and growing – they have to feel included and safe. This book shows how leaders can reduce social friction while encouraging collaboration and innovation.

• Managers and CEOs trying to boost employee well-being and productivity
• Leaders tired of dusty corporate hierarchies
• Anyone interested in practical approaches to workplace inclusion

The Heart of Transformation (2021) is a how-to guide for changing an organization. It focuses on six specific capabilities that leaders can adopt to meet the demands of the twenty-first century.

• Anyone working in management or leadership
• Entrepreneurs or small business owners 
• Anyone curious about how to change a workplace for the better

Workstyle: A revolution for wellbeing, productivity and society (2022) introduces the concept of workstyle: the freedom to choose when and where we work. By examining the outdated history of the standard 9 to 5 working week in the light of the modern digital age, the authors lay the foundation for an individualized and autonomous way of working. 

• Career-optimizers who feel that our current way of working is inefficient or unnecessary.
• People with disabilities or challenges which exclude them from the regular 9 to 5.
• Visionaries who dare to dream of a better world.

How the Future Works (2022) provides a blueprint that company leaders can use to implement flexible work policies. It offers a step-by-step guide detailing how to manage this transition effectively so that organizations can benefit from this new way of working.

• Leaders wanting to make flexible work strategies the norm
• Executives who are skeptical about flexible working models
• Managers who want their teams to transition successfully to flexible work arrangements

The Future of the Office (2021) takes an analytical look at the current state of the traditional working office and what recent changes and developments may mean for the future. Drawing on research, anecdotes, and case studies of businesses responding to the global pandemic, it highlights the unique and exciting opportunities that we now have to fundamentally change the nature of where and how we work.

• White-collar workers wondering if the shift to working from home is here to stay
• Managers considering the pros and cons of changing up the traditional office environment
• Big thinkers who want to see how one of the fundamental aspects of our work lives has been brought down by the global pandemic

The Search (2023) provides a roadmap to finding meaningful work. It asks insightful questions and provides many real-life examples of people who, freed from outdated work scripts, have transformed their lives and written their own stories of work and success.

• Professionals who are looking for a “career” change
• Individuals going through a transitional phase and seeking direction
• Those looking for a way to achieve a better work-life balance

Prosperity (2018) examines how business thinking has led to our current state of social, political, and environmental disaster. Drawing on historical, legal, and economic knowledge, it presents a radical new framework in which both corporations and the broader community can flourish together.

• Business leaders and company directors
• MBA students
• Economic policy developers wanting to fix our broken system

Remote but not Distant (2022) explores the many facets of remote work and its impact on teams and individual employees. It delves into how technology, mindset, and leadership strategies can be used to create a more effective and human-centered remote-working environment, and provides practical tips and insights for managers and employees alike. 

• Managers and entrepreneurs who want to shift to a flexible remote-working model
• Office workers who want to convince their bosses to switch to a hybrid work model
• Remote workers who feel their current work model needs an overhaul

Unworking (2022) delves into the transformation of workspaces and the changing nature of work in the twenty-first century, driven by technological advancements and evolving societal values. The book examines the shift from traditional office settings to more flexible, people-centric environments. Through diverse case studies and insights, it underscores the need for adapting to a new work landscape where collaboration, creativity, and well-being take center stage.

• Professionals exploring modern workplace design
• Enthusiasts of technological impacts on work
• CEOs, HR heads, or business leaders struggling to find the balance between office and remote-friendly workplaces

The Infinite Leader (2020) presents the crisis afflicting modern leadership as a problem of balance, and proposes solutions to keeping the wholesome leader centered. Working from this position opens up boundless opportunities and restores people’s faith in leadership.

• Anyone leading a team, business, organization or community
• People learning how to choose and follow their leaders
• Anyone trying to live a more balanced and fulfilling life

Rewired (2023) presents a transformative roadmap crafted by the world's foremost management consultancy. It guides businesses on enhancing customer experiences, streamlining costs, and harnessing the immense potential of digital and AI. Dive in, and position your company for unparalleled long-term success.

• Business leaders navigating digital transformation
• Teams spearheading AI-driven enterprise initiatives
• Consultants seeking proven digital strategy blueprints

Rethinking Two Weeks' Notice (2024) takes a critical look at our outdated employee departure model, proposing a new framework, the Open Transition Program, built on transparency and mutual respect. Through practical strategies, it shows how you can create an environment where career transitions strengthen rather than damage workplace relationships.

• Managers seeking better ways to handle employee departures
• HR professionals focused on improving company culture and retention
• Business leaders wanting to reduce costs of sudden transitions

The Year without Pants offers an intimate look at life inside one of the most successful tech companies out there: Automattic, the brains behind sites like Wordpress.com and Polldaddy. By thinking outside the box, abandoning tradition and cutting the fat from your processes, you too can follow Automattic’s example and jumpstart innovation.

• Entrepreneurs from any industry
• Start-up CEOs
• Employees in tech industries