BUS 536 | People Development Strategies That Build Competitive Advantage | 4 credits | 7 wks
The course provides the graduate learner with the opportunity to study the most recent thinking related to building competitive advantage through servant-leadership approaches to human resource development. This course requires students to leverage the broad content areas specific to the field of human resources (compensation/benefits, HRIS, employee wellness and safety, employee assistance, employee relations, training and development, selection and staffing, organizational development, performance management systems, job design, career development and human resources planning) in identifying, recruiting, developing, renewing, and retaining human assets that add maximum value to the strategic imperatives of the organization (from the perspective of leaders). This course builds on the concept that the deep-level diversity found in human competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities, values, etc.) contributes the most important resource to accomplishing preferred outcomes and establishing competitive advantage. This can most effectively be realized through an approach that first teaches leaders the value of their own diversity, development, and maximization of talent (a microcosm perspective) before broadly engaging the diversity, development, and maximization of organizational talents at large (a macrocosm perspective). New emphasis has been added to this course to reinforce skills specific to proactively dealing with the conflict resolution that comes with managing diversity, adding more emphasis on performance management and retention using talent inventories and on life-mapping in the life of leaders.