Human resource management is a broad field that offers employment opportunities for anyone with professional ambition, regardless of the college degree they’ve completed. Colleges and universities should be aware of the wealth of opportunities for students with associate’s, bachelor’s and advanced degrees.
Certifications from HR Certification Institute ®(HRCI®) can help students progress at a faster pace. According to Glassdoor, HR is listed as a top five Best Jobs in America for 2018.
"Workers with certain technical and soft skills, such as creativity, flexibility and good judgement, are at an advantage across industries, from health care to finance to HR, to leverage advances in artificial intelligence and automation," says Glassdoor Chief Economist Dr. Andrew Chamberlain. "That’s because AI is increasingly complementing these jobs, while not replacing the people needed to do them."
It’s vital to embrace newcomers to the HR profession says Dr. Al Gorriaran, SPHR, a faculty member at Capella university’s School of Business and Technology. "HR offices are growing everywhere, particularly in the sophisticated knowledge management and talent arenas. The offices are getting bigger and we’re doing more. That means there’s more opportunity for people to work in HR and the contraction that happened in the 1990s is going in the other direction. CEOs and COOs see the benefits that HR brings to the organization in transformational terms, not just transactional terms."
3 Reasons Why Your College and University Should Partner with HRCI
Here are three reasons why your university should partner with HRCI to help advance students and professionals at all levels advance as HR leaders:
Work With HRCI to Create a New Revenue Stream
Colleges can offer courses to prepare candidates for the rigor it takes to earn one of eight prestigious HR certifications from HRCI. Towson University, for example, offers certification preparation programs for the Professional in Human Resources®(PHR®) and Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR®) SPHR® credentials from HRCI. A major factor in the university’s decision is that the PHR and SPHR are accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA). SHRM credentials are not.
"Its (NCCA’s) standards are consistent with those for Educational and Psychological Testing," says Vicki M. Simek, MBA, Associate Director of Continuing and Professional Studies at Towson University. "We understand that required a rigorous accreditation process on behalf of HRCI. Credential programs must be mature to apply for accreditation so that the reliability and validity data of the test scores is robust. That is important to us and to our students."
Align Certification Prep With Your Business Degree Program
Universities can combine an HR degree programs with a path to earning HRCI certification — some even make HRCI credentials part of capstone courses. The Associate Professional in Human Resources™ (aPHR™) from HRCI is the perfect complement to HR study by students. The aPHR is the first-ever HR certification that can be earned without prior HR work experience.
St. John’s University's Management major offers students the option to focus on HR. St. John’s encourages students to earn the aPHR as a way to help them stand out by demonstrating knowledge of HR fundamentals and commitment to the profession.
Career-changers can also benefit. At Capella, the university is seeing a rise in the number of professionals who are interested in changing careers and joining the HR practice.
"One of the things we’re encouraging our learners to do is to prepare and take the aPHR [from HRCI] if they’ve never worked in the field and want to learn the fundamentals to be successful," Gorriaran says. Many of the career changers, he notes, are from the retail, and from the primary and secondary education fields.
Be Recognized by Top HR Professionals
Colleges and universities can reach a community of credentialed HR professionals who are hungry for additional knowledge and professional development opportunities to help them meet personal and business goals.
The UC Berkeley Extension, for example, attracts professionals from the HRCI-certified community who take the university’s courses to earn recertification credits that are required by HRCI to maintain credentials.
As you can see, there are many ways for a college to benefit from an affiliation with HRCI. Universities can offer certification preparation, make certification part of the HR curriculum, provide professional development opportunities for HRCI recertification credits or do all three!
HRCI staff can work with your university faculty and staff to help determine where your university fits best. Please email the Business Development Team at businessdevelopment@hrci.org