Is it your nature to keep the peace between a group of people? Do you have a knack for delegating responsibilities effectively so that an overwhelming task gets handled in the blink of an eye? Does it seem to be a natural ability of yours to work with people, no matter what their strengths and weaknesses seem to be? If it seems like you were just perfectly described then you should consider a career path in human resources. In this profession you will be expected to design, plan, and implement human resources policies and programs for compensation, staffing, green card processing, training, employee relations, benefits, and health and safety. In order to be successful it will be important that you a thoroughly familiar with a variety of concepts, procedures, and practices. Research your human resource management schools below! Be sure to ask about financial aid. In order to work in a human resources position it will be necessary for you to obtain a minimum of an associate’s degree. In the coursework for this degree program you will spend the majority of your time learning about hiring, labor relations, compensation, and the laws that are related to issues of human resources. It may be possible for you to complete an associate’s degree program in an on-campus location, through an online learning format, or through a hybrid approach to the two methods. Keep in mind, with an associate's degree you will probably only be able to get entry-level positions in this industry. A bachelor’s degree program can also be pursued through an online learning format, an on-campus format, or a hybrid of the two.
There are many different areas within business that you can choose to pursue with your degree. For instance, you could work as a bank manager, a project manager, or you could start up your own business. If you have a particular interest in an area, such as construction, you also could try your hand as a construction manager. Typically, the specific business area you become employed in will be somewhat dictated by the area of concentration that you choose while completing your business degree program.
You can expect to take classes such as: global issues of human resources, negotiation strategies, analysis of human resources management, history and implications of organized labor, and business employment law. If you pursue your master’s degree you will take classes regarding how to control human resources costs, how to find the appropriate employees for specific jobs, employment laws, and how to implement conflict and management techniques. Feel free to peruse any of the schools on our site that are appealing to you. Take a moment and request that they send you a free information packet to show you what they have to offer you. With a formal degree and training in human resources you will be able to seek employment as a benefits assistant, a compensation technician, a human resources specialist, a recruiter, or a human resources assistant. If you obtain your bachelor’s degree you will be able to work as a labor relations manager, a training and development manager, a compensation specialist, or a job analysis specialist.
Human resource management is an up and coming field. As a manager that plans, coordinates, and helps execute administrative functions in an organization, they are a complete necessity within the contemporary business world. They specialize in working as a connection between management and employees. Because of the broad range of work they do, and the necessity of their position, human resource managers are employed in nearly every industry. They are a growing field with an increase in the number of job opportunities. Some of the common areas human resource managers work in are:
• Mediation
• Recruitment
• Education and information for workforce issues
• Coordination of workforce
• Training and development
• Health and safety
If you enjoy being a leader who communicates effectively with everyone in the office, human resource management is a good fit for you. The job of a human resource manager consists of being purely inclusive within everything they do, and ensuring that everyone who wants to speak allowed to express their wants, needs, or grievances.
Bachelor’s degrees are the most common required degrees for human resource management jobs. For a mid-range position within the field, a bachelor’s degree in Human Resource management is ideal, but other degrees such as business management, information technology, or finance would also be acceptable with the right work experience. It can be difficult to find work as a human resource manager with an associate’s degree or less. For upper-range jobs in human resource management a master’s degree may be required. Acceptable master’s degrees include a master’s in human resources and a master’s of business administration (MBA). Extra certifications are always a plus in the human resource management field. While they are optional additions to a degree program, some businesses prefer candidates that are certified through organizations such as The Society for Human Resource Management, and the Human Resource Certification Institute. Certification often includes registration for and completion of an exam. Doctoral programs for human resource management do exist, but they are unnecessary for most human resource manager positions.
Human Resources Bachelor’s Degree Programs
Bachelor’s programs are often the minimum requirement in education for a position in human resource management. A four-year program is very common within the field. You will learn the basics of human resources if you are obtaining a degree within the subject, but some other bachelor’s degrees are also acceptable for human resource management positions. Whatever you obtained your degree in, there are certain courses and aspects of business that are necessary in order to be placed as a human resource manager.
A recommendation would be to obtain your degree within the field. The courses are required for a reason, and if you want to work in human resource management the course lessons will be priceless in helping you with the work itself.
Here are some of the courses that are a part of a degree in human resource management.
Employment Law:
The study of law which covers employment relations. These laws vary from establishing and terminating the relationship. It also covers topics such as discriminatory practices that are prohibited, wage regulation, employees’ access to job opportunities, jobsite safety law and employment health law.
Benefits and compensation:
As more and more companies understand the quality of having the best talent working for them, they see more reason to have competitive benefits and compensation for their employees. This course teaches you how to identify the unique needs of individual companies, and balance the costs and benefits of different compensation strategies.
Employee Training and Development:
This course focuses on the concept that employees are the most valuable resource available. You learn about developing policies, practices, and procedures that offer the best training and development for employees. You will build your understanding of assessment within training and development, of administering and designing programs, and evaluating the effectiveness of your program.
Conflict Management
Your ability to mediate conflicts in the workplace is one of your highest needed skills as a human resource manager. This course gives you the tools to be able to do just that. Focusing on conflict resolution’s history, it’s established doctrines, and the systems that are being innovated today, conflict management as a course will give you necessary information for the mediation world. Possibly needed as a prerequisite, mediation as a course is also very helpful in understanding the concepts throughout conflict management.
Industrial Psychology
Being able to evaluate and apply the scientific process to your work as a human resource manager is very important. Industrial psychology not only teaches you about job satisfaction and personal selections, but also on environmental effecting factors and research strategies into complex organizational issues. The ability to question organizational issues from all sides and figure out the best solutions is what being a human resource manager is about. This class helps bring you to that level.
Master’s Degree Programs in Human Resource Management
It is becoming more frequent to require a master’s degree for the higher levels of human resource management positions. Your work experience plays a large role, but the best companies are expecting more education credentials from their employees as well. A master’s degree can be a great addition to bring you over the top and insert you into the human resource management world. Having any MBA is an enormous achievement, and looked at quite highly in the human resource management world, but having an MBA that is focused in human resource management, or a master’s degree in human resource management itself, can be looked at even higher than a more diverse MBA. The courses that apply to human resource management are varied between basic MBA courses and specialized courses for human resource management. The basic courses help cover management overall, executive processes, and more fundamental business strategies that should be taken into consideration throughout your time as a human resource manager. Others focus more on theory and relations, more in depth looks at issues you most likely covered in your bachelor’s degree program. Here are some common programs for an MBA with emphasis on human resource management.
Corporate Strategy:
Working across business in “multi-business” organizations is a specific and growing challenge. Corporate strategy teaches the basic ideas of strategies, leadership factors, organization within these types of organizations. Creating a sustainable environment while allowing for differences is what this class teaches, and while it is a more fundamental course for an MBA, it applies very well to the human resource management field.
Managing Organizational Diversity:
This course is built to help you understand your place within an organization, cultures, and subcultures, and your responses to difference. It is a very important course and enhances a human resource managers ability to work with differences between organizations and manage diversity within those organizations.
Cross Cultural Management
Any program with the human resource management field will include courses on cultural differences and how to be ready for them. Working in multicultural environments is a fantastic opportunity for organizations. Being unable to deal with the challenges that come along with those opportunities, though, can be detrimental to an organization. Human resource managers are the tip of the spear when working with those challenges. Managing ambiguity and uncertainty, intergroup conflict, cross cultural communication, and self-awareness are all aspects of this course.
Managing Human Capital:
Identifying needed talent, where to find them, and how to keep them as motivated and productive as possible are enormously important skills within a business. Business success depends deeply on these skills. Managing human capital teaches you how to do these things. It will also dive in deeper depth to concepts like hiring, performance evaluation, compensation, effective managers, and managing your own human capital.
Labor and Employee Relations:
This course reviews methods and concepts which affect labor relations. Working with collective bargaining, and focusing on case studies is often a focus for the course. You will also learn more about conflict management and mediation.
Salary Statistics for Human Resource Managers
Human resource management is a growing field, and is predicted to continue along that trend for at least the next ten years. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States, human resource manager positions have increased in number by nine percent in the last decade. That is much higher than the average growth in number for positions in other fields. Because of this growth in demand, as well as the increase in realization of the importance for people within this field the average pay is around $51 per hour, or about $109,000 salaried pay. Human resource managers work an average of 40 hours per week, with common time off compared to other positions in varying fields.
Job Qualifications
Businesses that are looking for human resource managers are doing so for good reason. The necessity for someone who understands the relations within an organization is larger and larger. As we find ourselves in an increasingly globalized world, with large corporations combining smaller businesses and making them work together, there is a need for people who can make that work. That experience does not come at the drop of a hat though, and businesses understand the need for highly skilled workers in this field. It will not due to just have a degree if you want to work as a human resource manager. You will need experience in an expansive area, and a good amount of time working in the field before finding the manager positions open and available to you.
On average, a business that is searching for a human resource manager will ask that person to have five years of experience in the human resources field before they will be recognized as a legitimate applicant. Of course, having a master’s degree helps to an extent, but the need for experience is blatant, unchanging, and expected across businesses and fields. Experience is wanted in a multitude of areas as well. Human resource management is a very broad field in some respects. Knowing where to focus can be difficult. Having an idea of what exactly within the human resource management field you would like to do can greatly help you understand what to focus on. If you are still not sure on the exact position you would like to have, there are some good fundamental characteristics that organizations look for in a human resource manager candidate. Here are some examples of areas that you should try to get experience in. If you want to get a job as a human resource manager, these are important fields to focus on.
Like any other management position, the ability to effectively lead others is completely essential. You will certainly have a team of people whom work alongside and underneath you. Your ability to communicate effectively, to bring them together, and to get the job done as efficiently as possible is deeply important. Not to mention that your position is based on the ability to bring others together overall throughout the business, so your ability to do that well on a smaller level says a lot about your abilities overall.
Management Experience:
Have you held the title of manager before? While you are working your way toward human resource management, more fundamental, generic, or lower level management positions will be very helpful. Not only will you gather the experience in leading others, your will also learn about the hard skills of managing an organization in some aspect. Being a manager also means being able to work well between other management and employees. It is your duty to make both as comfortable as possible while making sure they all get what they are expecting (at least to some extent).
Knowledge of Human Resources Software
Having background knowledge is important within any career. In human resource management, it falls into a few categories. Some of those categories are especially impressive when applying for positions. Understanding how to operate commonly used human resources software is a huge perk. Not having to be trained as much makes you more hirable, and the proven background means you know what you are doing on the job. As a human resource manager, you make extremely tough decisions that affect people’s livelihood, the businesses success, and the happiness of an entire employed population. The decisions you make will decide many factors in a company. Who to hire, how to train them, what they should be paid, what positions are inadequate and who’s job should be terminated. These are just a few examples of the types of decisions human resource managers make on a daily basis. You must be able to weigh the options well. Experience in making tough decisions, with a history of doing so effectively and appropriately is a big plus in the eyes of businesses searching for human resource managers.
Interpersonal Communication:
Human resource management is fundamentally based on interpersonal communications. Your ability to interact with people is essential. If you have no experience in that aspect, you are entering a very different field than you understand. Being able and willing to listen and understand employees and people from all levels of an organization is the very first necessity in order to be a human resource manager. Not only understanding, but showing understanding is crucial as well. Your ability to make people feel heard, understood, and that you are doing everything in your power to remedy situations is a fundamental piece of the position. Keeping a positive relationship between yourself and all colleagues is important as well. If you can’t get along with a colleague, how do you expect to mediate problems they are involved in?
Experience in these areas is crucial. Be ready and able to prove that you are an expert across all of these issues.
Being disorganized means a lack of ability to take on multiple projects at once. Any manager knows that you need to be able to juggle several projects at the same time, and human resource management is no different. Your ability to effectively deal with issues, plan events and parties, listen across the business, and keep conversation pathways wide open are all necessary at all times. You will be in charge of many projects, and being knowledgeable on all the details while also having your actions and things together gives you these abilities. Being able to move effortlessly between these things is important.
Types of Job Prospects
Human resource manager positions are becoming more and more frequent across industries. The exact style of business matters little when it comes to inter-business relations. Everyone needs to have a well-functioning system, or else the business won’t be functioning and therefore lacking. The exact name and specific focus of your work can change quite drastically though, depending on the needs of the business. Since human resource management can vary greatly, and is a broad field overall, you can get placed in a multitude of areas, focusing on completely distinct aspects of human resource management. Here are some job prospects to look for, and how they can vary.
Administrative Service Managers
This position falls under a more fundamental manager sphere, but continues to focus on the interrelations of employees and upper management. They often are the managers who plan and coordinate supportive services for an organization. This can be anything from deciding and implementing ways to distribute mail, to putting together educational events for employees to learn about their safety, rights, and discrimination laws.
Compensation and Benefits Mmanager
The compensation and benefits manager is the person in charge of salaries, bonuses, benefits packages and everything else along these lines. They don’t just sign the checks, but design and implement a strategy to effectively incentivize, motivate, and manage workers. They are constantly doing research into the packages offered across the field and comparing those to their organizations. They work to entice new employees, keep the best talent onboard, and keep a talented team happy.
Job Analysis Specialist: A job analysis specialist works to ensure the positions across a company are effective, necessary, and not lacking in some area. They constantly research the usefulness of positions, attempting to get rid of old positions that are outdated or inefficient. They are also looking for areas where the company could use new positions, or could innovate their positions in order to improve the company in some way. They can be especially helpful when a company is downsizing or expanding.
Training and Development Manager: If you are a person who enjoys teaching, instructing, and bringing new people into the group, training and development could be a fantastic fit. A training and development manager creates and implements the training programs for new employees. This is an extremely important job because it sets the tone for the expectations and work of new employees. The training and development manager also oversees evaluating the development of peoples’ careers. They set performance metrics, hold evaluation meetings, and discuss long term career plans with workers.
Labor Relations Manager
Labor relations managers act as mediators or liaisons between companies and their employees. They work to avoid strikes, litigation, or other large-scale problems that can drastically harm the business. Working with the employees is a constant conversation. The labor relations manager is a friend to the labor unions, employees, and workers groups. They know the labor laws deeply, and apply they expertise in communication to consistently include everyone from CEO’s to brand new employees in conversation. Human resource managers are an expanding field, with a great deal of opportunities for growth, job prospects, and educational programs. Your programs will teach you how to effectively communicate with employees and employers from every level. You will learn how to mediate tricky situations, and help repair grievances from any party involved. You will also learn how to assemble events, educational gatherings, meetings, and speeches in order to better inform and help your work force. It is a human resource manager’s job to make work the best it can possibly be. The best environment, the best pay for the work employees do, the best benefits for employees, and the best productivity for the company. It is a career for people who enjoy helping others build their dreams, and helping them do it.