How to put great HR in place

The sequel to Management Bites was about working in HR and was called Employment Bites. First published in New Zealand in 2010 by HarperCollinsNZ, Employment Bites became a best seller!! The second edition was published in 2015.

And now in 2025 I have rewritten it to focus on those who are newer to HR and want to put great HR in place for your company!

It is a how to guide for anyone who works in HR or is responsible for HR in your organisation. Rather than a text book, it has real examples of how to apply HR policies and procedures in the real world, with practical suggestions, tools and techniques, case studies and real stories. If you’ve been working in HR for a while, then my sequel HR Bites XL which will come out in 2026 may be more for you.

What’s covered in HR Bites?

There are 12 covering different aspects of HR.

If you’re newer to HR and want some practical, real advice on how to put in place brilliant basic HR policies and procedures? You’ve just found your dream book!

Yes really – people have taken this book on holiday and read it by the pool, it’s that good! Why do people love it so much? Because I’ve has shared my learnings from 20+ years working in HR, to help you find what really works, with tasty tales of real-life cases and delicious exercises for you to complete, to grow your HR skills and knowledge.

What are you going to learn?
• How to deliver great HR advice to managers, while building your own skills
• Different ways to attract and recruit the right people and induct them effectively
• Measuring performance, developing skills and talent
• Rem systems, rewards schemes and benefits that work
• Dealing with those sticky HR situations that can go very wrong like restructuring, warnings, dismissals, employees with body odour problems, office affairs gone wrong and much more….

Purchase a copy!

Please note: While HR Bites is available on amazon, I prefer to use books.by. They print in Australia, Europe, the UK and the US with one low shipping rate.

Reviews for Employment Bites / HR Bites

I got some fantastic reviews for Employment Bites. My absolute favourite from was Craccum, which is a university magazine, and they admitted they had absolutely no idea if it was any good or not!! It makes me laugh every time I read it.

I also got some serious reviews too:

This review picked that I had tried to mention higher level HR, but couldn’t really go into depth. So now the new HR Bites is just for those newer to HR, and HR Bites XL will be for those who are working at a strategic level (and is due out in 2026)

Employment Today Magazine

Angela Atkins is the author of the popular and helpful Management Bites which I reviewed in the November issue of Employment Today.

The earlier book was aimed at line managers, breaking people management into easily digestible chunks and explaining how to do each step. It is a wonderful resource for an HR practitioner as you can use relevant sections of the book to help coach the managers you are working with.

This new book has a different intended audience. It is written directly for the HR professional, to guide our own practice. As before, the book is divided up into individual sections, each covering a separate area of HR expertise and giving the basic “how to’s” of that topic.

As I have a background in psychology and analysis, I am more than comfortable with the organisational development and HRIS/metrics side of human resource management. However, employment relations is an area I want to grow in technically, and I look for easy-to-read, straightforward guides to practice. This book is a perfect tool. It gives me a simple, no-nonsense approach to managing workforce performance issues and gives a sense of control in what is very often a chaotic environment.

Another feature of the book is the use of developmental exercises. I found this really useful as it helped me to focus in on some areas that I need to focus on and grow. I recommend that you take the time to do these exercises as you will get the benefits.

Whatever your strengths, and whatever your developmental needs in HR, you will find something to help you in this book. Written for the New Zealand employment environment, it is practical, warm and very human. Go out and buy a copy for yourself and one for your HR group. While you are at it, add in a copy of Atkins’s earlier book (Management Bites) and you will have the perfect reference set.

Purchase a copy of HR Bites!

Practical HR training

Angela’s company Elephant Group run training for HR, payroll, talent, OD and Learning professionals, with programmes based on Angela’s books.

Find out more

About Angela

ANGELA ATKINS is an internationally recognised expert on HR and training as well as a bestselling author and business entrepreneur. She founded Elephant Group in New Zealand in 2006 and then took the company global. She is the author of the non-fiction bites series, and the novel Britpop Summer. Her writing has appeared in many magazines and other publications. With her husband, she splits her time between France, Spain and the UK.