UConn’s School of Business offers a wide variety of courses in Human Resource Management. Our curriculum is based on academic research supported by industry practice designed specifically to develop strategic HR competencies that you can apply in your current and future positions. Our courses have recently undergone a rigorous academic review to ensure that they reflect the real-world, collaborative learning that UConn’s School of Business is recognized for.
Core Classes
MGMT 5377 Human Resource Metrics and Talent Analytics
Creating and managing appropriate metrics is vital to enabling the development of high-achieving people in organizations and maintaining an effective human resource function. This course introduces techniques for developing effective metrics and identifies connections between human resource metrics and other performance measurement systems commonly used in organizations. The course also introduces students to talent analytics – the tools and techniques managers use to mine organizational data in pursuit of actionable knowledge. Students learn how to structure research questions, communicate data needs to technical specialists, and interpret data to yield organizational insights and support effective decisions.
MGMT 5401 Managing Risk in the Workplace
Successful professionals evaluate business issues with proper consideration of organizational risk. Risk is defined as the likelihood of unfavorable outcomes with respect to the organization’s process, financial, reputational, competitive market, and people outcomes. The class examines risk-related challenges linked to workplace activities and issues including employee separation, hiring, promotion, employment laws, regulations, interpersonal conflicts, employee privacy, workplace safety, intellectual property and data security.
MGMT 5639 Diversity and Inclusion
The globalization of product, labor, and capital markets has led to significant changes in the demographic composition of the international labor force. This course chronicles and examines the transition that is taking place in the global workforce due to the increased diversity in employees on the basis of personal characteristics such as sex, race/ethnicity, and national origin. This course examines how employers respond to these new workforce realities and how workforce inclusion strategies can contribute to positive outcomes for employers, employees and their families, and other stakeholders.
MGMT 5650 Interpersonal Relations, Influence, and Ethical Leadership
Today’s organizations are challenging, complex systems where success depends on the ability to work with and influence others to accomplish individual and organizational goals. This class focuses on communication challenges and difficult conversations faced by business professionals. It also emphasizes core values associated with ethical leadership in the professional world with a particular focus on the connections between applied ethics and management issues. Topics include conflict resolution styles and models, negotiation, organizational politics, influencing processes, the language of leadership, and models for examination and resolution of ethical workplace dilemmas.
MGMT 5675 Business Acumen and Strategic Human Resource Management
Business acumen involves understanding and managing a business situation in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome. Human resources managers need the capability to evaluate multiple dimensions of complex business issues and to understand their implications for a range of stakeholders. In pursuit of these objectives, the course examines the role of HRM activities in organizational strategy design and execution. Specific topics include identification of human capital as a firm resource, understanding employee value propositions and the role of human resources in creating value for customers and other stakeholders.
MGMT 5676 Human Capital and Workforce Capability Development
Students in this course will learn how to assess and develop an organization’s human assets. The class explores organizational learning and focuses on specific ways in which learning is achieved through training and development activities. Students study human resources trends such as increasing competition, globalization, technological complexities, regulation, and dynamic labor markets, and how these issues interact with increasing demands on workforce productivity. Topics include learning strategy development, training needs assessment, training program design, training techniques, evaluation strategies, and career development practices.
MGMT 5680 Talent Management Through the Employee Lifecycle
One of the primary responsibilities of human resources is managing talent throughout the employee lifecycle. Talent management spans recruiting, hiring, retention, and separation and requires a keen awareness of individual and organizational issues and strategies. Topics covered include recruitment, selection, on-boarding, career planning, job/competency analysis, benefits administration, retention, retirement, voluntary and involuntary separation, and downsizing.
MGMT 5681 Human Capital and Teams
Securing and retaining human capital is vital for organizational competitiveness. However, that capital needs to be effectively developed and deployed to transform it into valuable human resources (HR), and teams are often the mechanism by which this occurs. In this class, we will draw upon participants’ experiences and current organizational examples to describe different human resource architectures (i.e., different bundles of HR programs for different employee populations). We will then consider the use and composition of different types of teams for enhancing performance and development in those different circumstances. We will also consider interventions that help teams to start off on the right path (e.g., charters, role specifications), how to sustain performance (e.g., team training and development, effective meetings), and how to use feedback and adapt over time (e.g., after action reviews, debriefs). This will be a hands-on course where participants must apply the course material to their team experiences.
MGMT 5805 Human Resource Management Capstone
Hands-on experience in the development of an HR related initiative within students’ work organization. Students will diagnose a problem or opportunity that needs to be addressed, identify specific cause and effect relationships driving current unsatisfactory outcomes, and build evidence in support of their causal theories. Students create guidelines to steer their change plans including identifying clear objectives, determining boundaries of the challenge, and explaining how changes can lead to desired outcomes. In the final stage of the project, students develop a coherent set of change actions expected to lead the organization from its current performance to its desired future outcomes. This course should be taken at the conclusion of the students’ HRM program.
Possible Electives
BLAW 5220 Employment Law
Examines federal and state laws regulating the employer-employee relationship and the dynamics of the contemporary workplace, as well as different legal forums and regulatory mechanisms impacting U.S. employment law. Introduces students to a wide range of problems involving hiring, firing, discrimination, harassment, and accommodation, emphasizes the importance of managing employer–employee relationships to resolve disputes and grow productivity, and addresses the prevention of claims and mitigation of legal risk in the context of business drivers, operational strategy, and the economic realities of today’s workplace.
MGMT 5138 Managing Organizations
Today’s business climate demands that organizations and their managers be innovative, flexible, adaptive, and capable of maximizing the contributions of all their members. In addition, effective managers must possess the leadership and team skills necessary to manage an increasingly diverse work force. This course examines topics such as leadership, motivation, team dynamics, organization structure, design and culture, conflict, power and politics.
MGMT 5223 Managing Innovation and Change
Students will learn both the theory and practice underlying successful organizational change, providing them with the understanding necessary to become effective change agents. The course addresses such topics as assessing organizational effectiveness and performance, fundamental organizational development techniques, change methodologies, individual, group, and organizational change processes, applied research methods for analysis of change problems, process interventions, the power and politics of change, and strategic change.
MGMT 5250 Consultative Management for Business Function Professionals
This course introduces students to the consultative style of management required for functional professionals to be effective with their internal clients. The course draws on a wide range of management theory and practice to help students develop the interpersonal, analytical, and technical skills required for consultative contributions. The course will address such topics as relationship and internal client management, intervention frameworks and their application, project management, ethical issues in consulting, and implementation issues.
MGMT 5420 Employee and Labor Relations
Examines the broad range of concepts and practices that arise out of the relationship between an organization and its employees. Covers the core topics of labor relations, including organizing, collective bargaining, and the grievance process. Examines trends in unionization and the impact of these trends on employees and organizations. Also examines broader employee relations issues such as managing diversity, arbitration/mediation, downsizing, performance appraisal, implied contracts, and statutory rights.
MGMT 5674 Negotiation Strategies
Effective negotiations skills are essential for successful managers in complex contemporary organizations characterized by changing structures, temporary task forces, multiple demands on resources, and the increased importance of interdepartmental cooperation. Critical negotiation situations with other organizations range from those dealing with labor unions, purchasing, mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures. During this course, participants plan and conduct negotiations simulations and receive feedback on their performance.
MGMT 5678 Total Rewards and Performance Management
This course explores the concept of total rewards, its fundamental elements, and strategic prevalence in attracting, motivating and retaining valued employees, and its integration with performance management. Topics include job evaluation, pay surveys, compensation plans and structure, individual and group incentives, and employee benefit principles and concepts. The course will also cover the design of incentive plans, including merit pay, bonuses, equity awards, gain sharing, profit sharing, piece-rate, tipping, and commission systems. Students will participate in strategic goal and program development, examining how total rewards, compensation, and benefit design impact performance and contribute to defining organization culture.