Why you should study this course
This course aims to provide a solid foundation in the management of people, drawing upon contemporary business and human resource theory and practice.
- The CIPD qualifications are specifically designed to incorporate the needs of both management specialists and generalists, increasing the business content and broadening the appeal and relevance of these highly respected qualifications.
- Our focus will be on practice-led learning throughout your studies, encompassing informed research, real-world case studies and role-play (skills practice), designed to help enhance your essential practical and academic leadership and management skills. We will explore how to apply your learning to case studies from various organisations, from multinational corporations to smaller companies, across the public, private and charitable sectors. These case studies provide an opportunity to see the impact and influence that good human resource management has on business performance.
- We will encourage you to use your student membership of the CIPD to engage with field trips and conferences, as well as attending local and national branch events. These will give you the opportunity to engage with employers of different companies, providing the chance to build your professional networks and access the latest research and thinking. Talks include topics that currently present significant challenges to human resource practitioners, such as unconscious bias in recruitment and performance management, skills shortages and linking reward to performance.
Year one
In your first year, you will study a range of modules designed to underpin your knowledge and practice of HR and business management. These could include examining the financial underpinnings of human resources or how you can begin to shape your CV to enhance your potential future career options.
Modules
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Academic and Professional Skills in Business and Management
Compulsory
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Exploring Work Psychology
This module is designed to provide broad coverage of the central topics to the study of workplace psychology, including recruitment and selection; learning and development; leadership; health and safety; organisational change; the experience of working; psychological well-being at work and interpersonal relationships.
It is designed to provide you with an overview of key areas in work psychology in a way that will provide the scaffolding required to understand how the theoretical and practical aspects link together. The module will also offer the opportunity to gain practical experience in some of the key skills associated with psychology at work.
Compulsory
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Understanding HRM
This module aims to develop your critical understanding of some of the key issues surrounding the management of people at work and strengthen interpersonal skills in the work situation. It provides a broad introduction to various areas of HR practice. We will emphasise developing the skills necessary for effective management of people at work and interacting with other people in the working environment, as a manager or colleagues. Therefore, this module is aimed not only at those wishing to specialise in people management but also those who want to improve interpersonal skills for their future working life.
Compulsory
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Global Business Context of HRM
Human resources (HR) professionals need to understand key developments in the business and external economic contexts within which HR operates. This module enables you to identify and review the business and external contextual factors affecting organisations and assess the impacts of these factors on the HR function. It also examines HR’s role in strategy formulation and implementation. It is designed to encourage you to adopt a critical perspective of these contexts and to provide workable organisational and HR solutions to address them.
Compulsory
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Financial Aspects of HR
This module introduces you to the basic financial concepts in people management. You can gain hands-on experience through a simulation game of measuring and calculating the costs involved for human resource management tasks such as recruitment and selection, reward packages, family-friendly policies, grievance and discipline procedures, change management, absence management, health and safety and well-being policies.
Compulsory
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Contemporary Issues in People Management
The aim of this module is for you to develop an awareness of contemporary HR issues in the media relating to topics such as HR planning, recruitment and selection, equality and diversity, health and safety, performance management and rewards, training and development, employment relations, discipline and grievance, management of conflict and change, international HRM. You will then learn how to use these when applying HR theories.
Compulsory
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Add+vantage
The Add+vantage modules teach a range of work experience and career development activities to broaden your knowledge, skills and qualifications within a work focused environment.
There is a very broad range of Add+vantage subject areas in different themes of Global Languages, Global Perspectives, Professional Development, Creativity and Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, Work Experience, Global Experience Field Trips, Projects and Skills, Professional Accreditation and Research Skills.
Compulsory
Year two
During your second year, you will have the opportunity to further your knowledge in key areas of human resource management, as well as having the opportunity to select an optional module to pursue an area of interest.
Modules
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Critical Employment Awareness and Developing your Career
This module is designed to enable you to develop a sound understanding of the knowledge, skills and behaviours required by human resources (HR) professionals, whether in a generalist or specialist role and as described in the CIPD HR Profession Map (HRPM). It can help you to embrace the ‘thinking performer’ perspective, covering the competencies needed by the HR professional in a personal capacity, when collaborating and working with others, and when functioning efficiently and effectively in an organisational context. It will enable you to assess your strengths and identify a continuing professional development (CPD) plan, based on the capabilities required for ethical, business-focused and interpersonal professional conduct. You will explore placement and graduate opportunities and where they want to be in five years. Key note speakers and guests will undertake sessions with a focus upon CV writing, professional online profiles for e-recruitment and career directions.
Compulsory
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Using Data in Business
If human resources (HR) professionals are to add value to businesses by enhancing their competitiveness, innovation or productivity, they need to present a viable and realistic case for improvement based on sound work-based research and an understanding of what is considered good practice. This core unit develops the skills of research and enquiry to enable you to understand the nature, purpose and use of business data and information management in organisations; identify, select and evaluate data sources that support organisational decision making in HR; and synthesise, apply and manage the flow of this data, taking into account the people, processes and technology involved. This is with a view to evaluating the role of HR in business and strategy formulation and implementation and presenting a business case for improvement.
Compulsory
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Resourcing, Talent Planning and Employer Branding
One of the major aims of this module is to introduce you to the strategic approaches that organisations take to position themselves as employers in the labour market and plan effectively to meet their current and anticipated organisational skills needs. Another is to introduce the key operational tools, techniques and practices that organisations use to resource their organisations effectively.
Compulsory
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Strategic and International Reward
This module provides you with a comprehensive understanding of how the business context drives reward strategies and policies, including the labour market, industrial and sector trends, regional differences and trends in pay and international comparisons; the financial drivers of the organisation, the balance sheet and the impact of reward costs. You will need to gather and evaluate intelligence on a wide range of reward data and show how this impacts business decisions. You will acquire knowledge of the perspectives, principles and policies of reward from a theoretical and strategic focus and how to implement them in practice. You will be able to assess the contribution of reward to business viability and advise on the appropriateness of policies and practices to line managers to promote employee performance. You will also examine the equality implications of reward practices and international comparison of regulatory requirements (gender pay gap, ethnicity pay gap reporting).
Compulsory
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Improving Organisational Performance
Human resources (HR) professionals need to understand how organisations can drive sustained organisation performance by creating a high-performance work organisation and involve line managers in the performance management process. You will assess the different conceptual frameworks of high-performance working (HPW), and examine its impact on organisational performance, competitive advantage, employee engagement and employee well-being. The module will provide you with the business case for and the barriers to HPW and the role of people management in improving organisational performance.
Compulsory
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Add+vantage
The Add+vantage modules teach a range of work experience and career development activities to broaden your knowledge, skills and qualifications within a work focused environment.
There is a very broad range of Add+vantage subject areas in different themes of Global Languages, Global Perspectives, Professional Development, Creativity and Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, Work Experience, Global Experience Field Trips, Projects and Skills, Professional Accreditation and Research Skills.
Compulsory
Optional Modules
Choose one from the following:
Digital Business
This module aims to develop your understanding of contemporary business practice in a digital environment. The module builds on existing theories and concepts that encourage you to critically assess market opportunities and develop business ideas exclusive to online platforms. The module will offer a critical understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by transforming the digital landscape and consumer culture. It will help you explore international aspects of digital business practice and ethical compliance concerning data protection, digital security, and customer information handling.
Employment Relations
Employment relations is about how work is regulated at organisational and societal levels and by whom. Who is involved in making the rules that govern working life and why? Who decides what rights and obligations employees and employers have? At what level are these decisions made and through which processes? What ideologies drive different approaches to regulating the employment relationship? What implications does this have for equality and diversity and inclusive economies?
This module allows you to build on your knowledge and experience to develop the skills required to make informed and effective judgements about existing and emerging models, processes and practices of employment relations in local and international jurisdictions.
Optional
Final year
In your final year, you will have the opportunity to conduct a project into a specific area of HRM, as well as have a further chance to select an optional module to tailor your studies to your interests.
Modules
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Project
Compulsory
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Innovation and Change
This module seeks to explore the theories and frameworks underpinning organisational change to allow you to develop your understanding of what change means, how it happens and how it is best managed. It will also aim to draw on the concepts of creativity and innovation and the conditions and processes required to encourage you to identify opportunities for innovation and improvement in organisations and to explain the rationale for choice in the context of organisational objectives.
Compulsory
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HR Analytics for Strategic Decision Making
Compulsory
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Business Governance, Leadership and Sustainable Ethics
This module will evaluate the impact of an organisations’ structure and governance on management and leadership practices. There is considerable interest in the idea of purposeful organisations that focus on societal responsibility, values and ethics and these organisations need a purposeful leader; someone who has a strong moral self, a vision for his or her team, and an ethical approach to leadership and commitment to stakeholders. You will explore theoretical models, management and leadership styles and approaches designed to promote a culture of mutual trust, respect and support.
Compulsory
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Employment Law
Employment law is a dynamic subject, as it responds to changing, and sometimes conflicting, economic, political and social demands, both within the UK and the European Union, and in the wider global context. The module aims to provide a critical understanding of the regulation of employment by law and to place the legal rules in their broader economic and socio-political context.
Compulsory
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Add+vantage
The Add+vantage modules teach a range of work experience and career development activities to broaden your knowledge, skills and qualifications within a work focused environment.
There is a very broad range of Add+vantage subject areas in different themes of Global Languages, Global Perspectives, Professional Development, Creativity and Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, Work Experience, Global Experience Field Trips, Projects and Skills, Professional Accreditation and Research Skills.
Compulsory
-
Optional Modules
Choose one from the following:
Strategic and International HRM
Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
This module aims to develop the your understanding of business enterprise, entrepreneurship, start-up processes, effectual and critical thinking as applied to business innovation and creativity. The module seeks to provide an academic and experiential perspective in the processes of managing enterprise entrepreneurship.
Optional
