Hug Your People: The Proven Way to Hire, Inspire and Recognize Your Employees and Achieve Remarkable Results

Reading a book with the word “hug” in the title that basically advises on how to be nice to other people makes one realize that there ought to be more books like this on the shelves. Mitchell, CEO of the clothing stores Mitchells/Richards/Marshs has already outlined how to keep customers happy in Hug Your Customers . With his newest, Mitchell repeats this mandate, now turning inward to focus on how to hire and maintain a happy staff. Divided into five parts that outline how to treat people, build trust, develop pride in your organization and be inclusive and recognize people, the book looks at how creating a niceness culture can help to create employees that stick around the company and take a personal interest in the organization. Mitchell ends each chapter with a helpful checklist that repeats the important points. In one chapter, he advises redefining “rules and regulations” as “expectations and standards” (rules, for example, are “unbending... cold and impersonal”; expectations are “flexible and freeing when they need to be”). While such changes may seem subtle, the spirit behind them is surely a worthwhile reminder of how to make work more enjoyable for everyone. (Mar. 4)