Module One: Why Study Human Resources Management

People have always been central to organizations, but their strategic importance is growing in today's knowledge-based industries. An organization's success increasingly depends on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees, particularly as they help establish a set of core competencies that distinguish an organization from its competitors. When employees' talents are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and organized, an organization can achieve a sustained competitive advantage through people.

Module Two: Challenges of globalization for managers

Globalization influences a significant portion of the Canadian economy and affects the free flow of trade among countries. This globalization influences the number and kinds of jobs that are available and requires that organizations balance a complicated set of issues related to managing people in different geographies, cultures, legal environments, and business conditions. HR functions such as staffing, training, compensation, and the like have to be adjusted to take into account the differences in global management.

Module Three: Challenges of new technology

Advanced technology has tended to reduce the number of jobs that require little skill and to increase the number of jobs that require considerable skill, a shift we refer to as moving from touch labour to knowledge work. This displaces some employees and requires that others be retrained. In addition, information technology has influenced HRM through human resources information systems (HRIS) that streamline the processing of data and make employee information more readily available to managers.

Module Four: Challenges of managing change

Both proactive and reactive change initiatives require HR managers to work with line managers and executives to create a vision for the future, establish an architecture that enables change, and communicate with employees about the processes of change.

Module Five: Challenges of developing human capital

In order to "compete through people" organizations have to do a good job of managing human capitalCthe knowledge, skills, and capabilities that have value to organizations. Managers must develop strategies for identifying, recruiting, and hiring the best talent available; developing these employees in ways that are firm-specific; helping them to generate new ideas and generalize them through the company; encouraging information sharing; and rewarding collaboration and teamwork.

Module Six: Market Challenges

In order to respond to customer needs better, faster, and more cheaply, organizations have instituted total-quality management (TQM) and reengineering programs. Each of these programs requires that HR be involved in changing work processes, training, job design, compensation, and the like. HR issues also arise when communicating with employees about the new work systems, just as with any change initiative.

Module Seven: Challenge of containing costs

In order to contain costs, organizations have been downsizing, outsourcing, leasing employees, and enhancing productivity. HR's role is to maintain the relationship between a company and its employees, while implementing the changes.

Module Eight: Demographic Challenges

The workforce is becoming increasingly diverse and organizations are doing more to address employee concerns and to maximize the benefit of different kinds of employees. Demographic changes, social and cultural differences, and changing attitudes toward work can provide a rich source of variety for organizations. But to benefit from diversity, managers need to recognize the potential concerns of employees and make certain that the exchange between the organization and employees is mutually beneficial.

Module Nine: The Partnership of line managers and HR

In working with line managers to address the organization's challenges, HR managers play a number of important roles; they are called on for advice and counsel for various service activities, for policy formulation and implementation, and for employee advocacy. To perform these roles effectively, HR managers must contribute business competencies, state-of-the-art HR competencies, and change-management competencies. Ultimately, managing people is rarely the exclusive responsibility of the HR function. Every manager's job is managing people, and successful companies are those that combine the expertise of HR specialists with the experience of line managers to develop and utilize the talents of employees to their greatest potential.