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HR Skills and Behaviours

Module description

This practically orientated module is aimed at helping you develop the core and applied skills needed to enhance your career in HRM.  The module aims to help you develop your self-awareness, reflective practice, active listening, questioning and communication skills and personal effectiveness, and improve your business acumen as you develop your HR career. You will have the opportunity to practice some of the key skills and behaviours needed by effective HRM practitioners such as coaching and mentoring, ethical role modelling, employee and stakeholder engagement, and professional courage. You will also develop a clearer understanding of the professional values that underpin effective HRM, and ways of handling the main challenges that HR professionals face.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module offers a series of advanced activities to equip you with the knowledge, skills and resources to further your career in HRM.  Through a combination of practical, reflective, and interactive exercises, this module aims to provide a learning environment where you can explore the fundamental skills and behaviours required by HRM professionals.  Through these activities you will be well equipped to evaluate the best course of action for your intended outcome.  You will also develop the skills to support, develop you and establish effective HR principles and practices that drive employee engagement. 

Skill Acquisition

This module is practical by design and therefore focuses on the skill development from the outset.  Participants will develop a number of skills critical to effective HRM practice including those associated with coaching and mentoring, embedding employee voice and engagement, as well as negotiating and influencing.  In addition to this the module covers a number of important behaviours such as reflective practice, ethical awareness, equality, diversity, and inclusion, examining how HR professionals act as role models within our organisations.

Research in Teaching

Whilst this module is practical by design it nonetheless draws on a substantial base of academic research and knowledge.  Participants will explore research and techniques which underpin key HRM skills and behaviours such as coaching and mentoring, negotiation, and influencing.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Evaluate organisational culture, theories and concepts, organisational behaviour, models and theories of human behaviour, ethics, values and beliefs.
• 2. Evaluate strategies, tools and techniques to build management, coaching and mentoring capability across the organisation.
• 3. Discuss worker voice tools and approaches and how these potentially impact on worker engagement and performance.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Provide advice regarding organisational interventions designed to create desired culture and behaviours.
• 5. Apply management, coaching and mentoring capabilities utilising appropriate tools and methodologies including those associated with the development of yourself and others
• 6. Evaluate worker voice tools and approaches and drive forward the outputs in alignment with organisational goals.
• 7. Present complex information across a variety of channels that are tailored to the audience and can be clearly understood, including across the organisational boundaries, cultures and other disciplines.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 8. Role model ethical behaviour / practices and challenge decisions and actions that are not ethical.
• 9. Discuss the importance of professional courage and influence, identifying how to constructively challenge decisions and utilise influencing techniques to gain buy in.

Syllabus plan

This module is delivered through a series of advanced online and in-person learning activities, applied exercises, reflective assignments and guided independent learning.  As a practically oriented module, a large portion of the delivery will involve case study and role-play assignments that develop the skills and behaviours needed to operate as a Senior HR Professional.  The content is designed around 3 core areas:

1. Organisational culture, theories, concepts, and behaviour
2. Championing the strategies and drivers of employee engagement and coaching and mentoring;
3. Developing professional HR behaviours that drive personal and professional effectiveness

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

All passed components of the module will be rolled forward and will not be reassessed in the event of module failure.

Defer – as first time

Refer – capped at 50%

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Cameron, S. (2021) The Business Student’s Handbook: Skills for Study and Employment. 7^th Edition. Harlow: Pearson.
• Gallagher, K. (2016) Essential Study and Employment Skills for Business and Management Students.  3^rd Edition.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Thompson, N. (2021) People Skills. 5^th Edition. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Watson, G. and Reissner, S. (2014) Developing Skills for Business Leadership. 2^nd Edition. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
• Lancer, N., Clutterbuck, D. and Megginson, D. (2016) Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge.
• Cooper, C. and Hesketh, I. (2019) Wellbeing at Work: How to Design, Implement and Evaluate an Effective Strategy.  London: Kogan Page.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• The module will have a dedicated page available on ELE.

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• As an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development you will also have access to the entirety of the Institute's website, including all published research reports, archived articles from 'People Management', fact sheets, discussion papers and briefings. 

Key words search

HRM Skills, professionalism, ethics, organisational culture, employee engagement