Course info

 Introduction

This course introduces HRM as a fundamental component of an organization's competitiveness, effectiveness, and sustainability. HRM plays a crucial role in predicting employee behavior, attitudes, and performance. It is a central function of any organization.  Regardless of their functional specialization, managers need to utilize human resources to succeed.

This course aims to provide a context for HRM in organizations, an introduction to various functions of HRM, and help managers of today and tomorrow to appreciate, understand, and apply principles of HRM effectively.  This course combines two parts: first, we examine the strategic view on HRM and understand how strategies of HR are developed and implemented in contemporary organizations. Second, particular emphasis is made on HR practices, including performance management, employee training and development, and employee relations These parts allow learners to be able to analyze an actual situation with human resources in the company and achieve HR goals at the level of the department.

 Course Goals

The course aims at facilitating executive learners of postgraduate program in management to:

ü  Develop decision-making skills concerning HRM issues at the department level.

ü  Sharpen specific HR competencies applicable to line managers

ü  Implement the HR strategy of the organization

Learning Materials

All learning materials (including cases) are listed in the session plan of this course outline. They will be made available to the participants before the course begins on Moodle or thru email.

Pedagogy/Learning Process

This course follows the method of education and not training (O'Toole, 1999^[1]); emphasis will be on 'why' and not 'how'. Training focuses on how to do something, providing cookbook recipes for achieving specific predictable outcomes. Education, on the other hand, focuses on why people do something, helping you learn to ponder why people like to achieve various outcomes, so that you can yourself identify, if and when needed, the appropriate means for achieving those outcomes. Education is thus not application-oriented and immediate usefulness is not the main objective. It focuses on developing your capacity to think independently and thereby reach your own solutions to various problems^[2].

The learning method shall involve interactive discussions that evolve out of questions and answers drawn from a thorough reading of the assigned materials for every session. In an e-classroom context where the visual access between the instructor and the participants is limited, it thus becomes everybody’s responsibility to get into a constructive dialogue instead of expecting a particular individual to be the provider of ‘solutions’. Skimming through the readings in a superficial manner will not help in this regard. You are expected to come fully prepared to every session to engage in a fruitful deliberation. My role in this interaction is that of a guide and facilitator, inserting useful additional material at times, but seldom interpreting the readings for you or lecturing about them.