How will my HR courses pay off?

UConn’s Graduate Programs in HRM courses prepare you to succeed in the ever-evolving field of HR with a proven return on investment.

Graduate courses in HRM  reflect UConn’s commitment to academic excellence, experiential learning, and globalization. Our comprehensive curriculum is grounded in academic research and designed specifically to develop strategic HR skills. Each course offers real-world, collaborative learning with high-achieving peers and accomplished faculty. The HRM curriculum reflects the skills needed for human resource leaders to be collaborative partners with senior management, including core business skills like business acumen, diversity and inclusion, HR metrics and talent analytics, human capital development, and ethical leadership. Courses are 3 credits each. Fall and spring sessions are 7 weeks long, summer sessions are 6 weeks in duration.

Core Classes and Descriptions

MENT 5377 – Human Resource Metrics and Talent Analytics

Description: Creating and managing appropriate metrics is vital to enabling the development of high-­achieving people in organizations and maintaining an effective human resource function. Introduces techniques for developing effective metrics and identifies connections between human resource metrics and other performance measurement systems commonly used in organizations. 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.

MENT 5401 – Managing Risk in the Workplace

Description: 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.

MENT 5639 – Diversity and Inclusion

Description: 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. 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.

MENT 5650 – Interpersonal Relations, Influence, and Ethical Leadership

Description: This course examines the communication challenges and difficult conversations faced by business professionals. 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.

MENT 5675 – Business Acumen and Strategic Human Resource Management

Description: 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.

MENT 5676 – Human Capital and Workforce Capability Development

Description: 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.

MENT 5680 – Talent Management Through the Employee Lifecycle

Description: 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.

MENT 5681 – Human Capital and Teams

Description: 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.

MENT 5805 – Human Resource Management Capstone

Description: 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.

Elective Options and Descriptions

BLAW 5220 – Employment Law

Description: 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.

MENT 5138 – Managing Organizations

Description: 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 workforce. This course examines topics such as leadership, motivation, team dynamics, organization structure, design and culture, conflict, power and politics.

MENT 5223 – Managing Innovation and Change

Description: Students will learn both the theory and practice underlying successful organizational change, providing them with the understanding necessary to become effective change agents. 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.

MENT 5250 – Consultative Management for Business Function Professionals

Description: Introduces students to the consultative style of management required for functional professionals to be effective with their internal clients. Draws on a wide range of management theory and practice to help students develop the interpersonal, analytical, and technical skills required for consultative contributions. Addresses such topics as relationship and internal client management, intervention frameworks and their application, project management, ethical issues in consulting, and implementation issues.

MENT 5420 – Employee and Labor Relations

Description: 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.

MENT 5674 – Negotiation Strategies

Description: Effective negotiation 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.

MENT 5678 – Total Rewards and Performance Management 

Description: 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. Covers 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.

Capstone Course

The final course in the MSHRM program is MENT 5805 - Human Resource Management Capstone. It is the culmination of all previous coursework completed in the program. Students apply their knowledge to a “real-world” HR problem of their choosing. Students often choose to tackle an issue in their current organization, though this is not a requirement. In this hands-on course, you will gain competence at systematically addressing complex human resources challenges commonly faced by organizations. You will come away with a set of tools that you can use in the future to identify, analyze, evaluate, and solve these HR-related challenges. Though this is not a thesis-based course, a final paper outlining your course experience is a component of the course requirements.

International Trips

Graduate students in HRM may enroll in an international travel course for elective credit. An international trip enhances the academic coursework presented in the classroom setting and enriches your learning experience by challenging your beliefs, values, and assumptions and giving you a new perspective on how business is done in other cultures.

The international learning experience brings a dimension to learning beyond completing classroom work.

Contact Moira Rosek for more information about upcoming trips.

Fees

Fees and Financial Assistance

The Graduate Programs in Human Resource Management fees are $1,150 per credit for 2024-25.

The total Cost of Attendance (COA) includes direct educational costs (i.e., tuition, fees, housing, and food) and indirect costs.  Indirect costs include books, course materials, supplies and equipment, transportation, miscellaneous personal expenses, loan fees, and professional licensure or certification, if applicable.  For additional information about the Cost of Attendance at UConn, please visit https://financialaid.uconn.edu/cost/

Financial Aid

For Financial Aid information for graduate students, please contact our Office of Student Financial Aid Services.

Students may be eligible for veteran’s tuition assistance, corporate, or educational reimbursement. Veteran tuition waivers may not be applicable during the summer session; check with your sponsoring agency or organization for additional details.  Check with your employer about tuition reimbursement.  We can arrange to bill your employer or sponsor directly for your program fees – for more information please contact Moira Rosek at hrm@business.uconn.edu.

Scholarship opportunities are being offered by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).  The SHRM Foundation will award a total of $100,000 in scholarships to national SHRM members pursuing a degree in Human Resources. For more information, please visit the SHRM website.

Veteran’s Benefits

A variety of benefits including tuition waivers, assistance, and allowances are available for veterans and some dependents of veterans, depending on your service details.  For information regarding veteran’s benefits for graduate students, visit http://www.veterans.uconn.edu.