Human Resource Management Minor

Today, most successful organizations regard people as their most important asset and the effective management of human resources as central to their business strategy. HR professionals now take on significantly more leadership roles, which has led to an increase in human resource management (HRM) jobs in the U.S. and globally.

By studying human resources, you will learn to manage employees and help them maximize their professional potential. Regardless of your career path or goals, HR is a vital part of all organizations, and knowing its practices and purpose as a business function will boost your career, enable you to understand how people act in a professional environment, and help you meet and adapt to their changing needs.

The Human Resource Management (HRM) Minor at Purdue University requires that students take OBHR 33000 and either MGMT 44428 or MGMT 44301 as well as three elective courses among those listed below. 

Required Courses (Students must take OBHR 33000 and either MGMT 44301 or MGMT 44428)

• OBHR 33000: Organizational Behavior

  This course investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and organizational structure have on behavior within organizations and how such knowledge can be used to improve an organization’s effectiveness. Topics include motivation, leadership, group processes, organizational structure, technological innovation, and conflict management, with emphasis on developing management skills and application of organizational behavior theories.

• MGMT 44301: Managing HRM or MGMT 44428: HRM

  These courses introduce modern Human Resource Management (HRM) policies and practices, including how it is used to create and implement competitive advantages. Topics focus on the nature of managerial work, recruiting, selection, performance measurement and feedback, compensation, and employee benefits, as well as the roles that individuals must play as managers responsible for executing these systems.

Elective Courses (Students select 3 courses from the following electives)

• MGMT 44362: Leadership and Organizational Change

  This course considers a multitude of perspectives on leadership theory and practice, including leadership in the context of organizational change and the unchanging principles of ethics and integrity that are fundamental to effective leadership. Cases reflecting leader successes and failures are used to improve leadership and avoid pitfalls.

• MGMT 44429: Talent Management

  This course focuses on the employer-employee relationship and how managers work with employees to improve their performance. Attention is given to the history of labor relations and performance management in work settings, with an emphasis, however, on contemporary approaches to managing the employer-employee relationship and the systems for managing employee performance.

• MGMT 44430: Staffing: Talent Acquisition

  This course focuses on the effective management talent flow into and through organizations. It covers workforce planning, recruiting and selection, career transitions and other workforce movement. It is designed to give students the skills to recruit and select the best talent to help drive organizational strategy. It will also prepare students to evaluate methods for job analysis and selection, learn how to design and ask interview questions that are behaviorally anchored and focused on organization-person fit and person-job fit.

• MGMT 44431: Compensation: Total Rewards

  This course examines the tangible and intangible aspects of compensation through the lens of a total reward philosophy of an organization in order to attract, motivate, and retain their human capital. It also provides an overview of the considerations necessary to develop a compensation system that is internally and externally equitable and fiscally responsible, including the use of job evaluation and salary surveys.

• MGMT 44433: Leading Teams For Electives Coming

  This course will explore the specific challenges associated with leading teams, some of which include: building and designing teams, managing information exchange within and across teams, structuring effective group decision processes, igniting creative thinking, enabling complex problem solving, managing team diversity and conflict, and managing systems of teams

• MGMT 44690: Negotiations and Decision Making

  This course focuses on developing negotiating skills. Students will improved their ability to diagnose negotiation situations, strategize and plan upcoming negotiations, and engage in more fruitful negotiations even in situations where they are dealing with difficult negotiation counterparts. Because negotiating agreements is as much art as science, learning in this course will take place mainly through experiential exercises, with research on negotiations used to supplement the experience.