An admittedly light survey of HR degree programs offered at a major state university, a well-known mid-sized urban university, and the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations turns up some surprising things affecting the future of Human Resources and gives us a good run down of things to look for when selecting a program to follow.
Good
The first program is deep in management and financial courses with 24 credit hours directly involved with HR issues (depending on how you handle electives). There are courses in HR management, labor relations, compensation management, employment law, and organizational issues. But, it is basically a business management degree with an HR emphasis.
Better
Depending how you manage your course sequence at the second school, you are looking at 30+ experience hours. It lets you spend some time on behavior, leadership, regulations, and IT. However, it also immerses the major in operations concerns like supply chain management and applied economics.
Best
The Rutgers program is much deeper and pragmatic. It has courses specific to staffing, compensation, and employment law. It addresses training, development, and career management. There are courses in global experiences and corporate governance. And, there are hours on social psychology, organizational and personnel psychology as well as the sociology of women, gender, class, work and occupations. Now, not all these courses are required, and some are only pursued on the graduate level, but this program seems best equipped to turn out professionals with strategic HR potential.
Still . . .
Students in HR could benefit from fewer theory courses and more “how to” practicums. Theory is the classical approach, teaching in the following format:
- Learn the vocabulary
- Evaluate a given situation
- Determine the best course of action – with respect to the theory.
This takes the HR experience out of context and puts it in a vacuum for lab study. So, the student says that this is what should be done when that happens – according to the law, according to good judgment, and to employee good-will.
What you do not see is courses that provide depth for the following:
- How to select and implement an HRIS program
- How to negotiate employee benefits
- How to identify strategic values in HRIS data
- How to build strategy for and around outsourcing options
- How to manage corporate culture in co-employment situations
If HR graduates want to enter the job market at a level higher than generalist, they need to be able to design a career with a loftier starting point. Strategic HR is not easily learned on the job due to all of the tactical minutiae HR professionals get bogged down with. In the end, supplement your skills with university and continuing education programs that will increase your value when ready to build strategy into your method and mission.
