On-Campus Course Schedule for Summer 2021

MPS HR Capstone

The HRM Capstone is the culminating experience of the Georgetown Master’s in HRM program. It represents a crowning achievement as a capstone does in architecture, and provides students with an opportunity to apply the HR knowledge, skills and competencies gained from all their coursework to complex real-world organizational challenges. Through the culminating experience, students complete unique and original projects that make a creative contribution that advances an organization or the HR profession. This contribution may take the form of a consulting engagement with a partner organization or an applied research project. Depending on the nature of your project, you may work individually or on a small team — under the guidance of an expert advisor. Your semester-long project may be broad-based or focused on a specialized area of HR, and requires you to demonstrate mastery of the seven program learning outcomes: creative & critical thinking, global competence, ethical reasoning and values, applied problem solving, information literacy, technological competence, and communication. Note: This course is a core requirement for the MPS degree. A grade of “B” or higher is needed to pass this course.

Change Management Comms

Communications, as a management discipline, must not only be swift to react, but be forward thinking to anticipate and help solve future problems. Change Management Communications is increasingly where practitioners can demonstrate greatest value, as businesses, and their employees, navigate uncharted waters at a furious pace. This hands-on class will help prepare practitioners to identify and act on the communications implications of change. Using a mix of case studies, practical workshops, and group discussion, students will sharpen communications skills, from storytelling to consultative listening, by looking at them anew through the change “lens.” The forces driving change are not simply impacting individual companies but upending entire industries, and spawning entirely new ones. Such change compels companies to rethink their business strategy, reposition themselves in the marketplace, and redefine their value proposition to customers. Business leaders need to acquire new communications skills to help employees take actions to reach new goals. In-house communications teams must reimagine themselves to fulfill their new role. The class will address these, and other, aspects of change. Participants will be encouraged to explore communications, business and other readings – the point being that practitioners need to ‘connect the dots’ between information and issues beyond the traditional boundaries of communications be effective change partners.

Note: This course is cross-listed with the Master's of Public Relations & Corporate Communications program. Department approval is required to obtain a seat in this course.

Creating and Maintaining High-Performance Organizations

Across industries and geographies, rising customer and employee expectations, and unprecedented technological disruptions are rewriting the management playbook. These emerging trends have propelled sustained high performance to the top of the corporate agenda, and present forward-thinking HR professionals with an opportunity to help drive business performance. This course will equip you with the knowledge and skills required to support the achievement of business objectives, institutionalize a culture of high performance, and build leadership capabilities to meet future business needs. Blending theory and practice, the course takes a holistic view of the organization, and provides best practices for creating productive cultures and teams, as well as a variety of evidence-based tools and techniques for executing actionable HR strategies. Through real-world case studies, team-based learning, and action learning projects, you will develop the competencies needed to turn great strategy into great performance by leveraging talent, culture, and organization design.

Learning & Development

In our increasingly dynamic and digital world, the skills and capabilities that employees need to succeed are changing rapidly. Learning and Development (L&D;) is no longer a luxury, with business leaders looking to HR professionals to upskill and reskill employees in the most cost-efficient and time-effective manner as they executive their organizational strategy. This course focuses on the most important theoretical and practical factors in designing and implementing outcome-based L&D; programs, from needs assessment, to learning and transfer of training, program design, and evaluating learning impact. You will also explore learner-centered traditional and technology-based training methods, and proven frameworks for developing career growth. Modeling rigorous instructional design strategies, the course provides a set of practical tools and actionable techniques that will help you build a solid foundation in L&D.; You will gain the knowledge, skills and confidence needed to take on the skills challenge, as well as future learning and talent development challenges.

Research Process and Methodology

As scientific research output on human resources management continues to grow rapidly, there is wide acceptance of the need for HR professionals to embrace evidence-based practice. This requires using the best available scientific evidence, as well as systematically gathering organizational facts, data, indicators, and metrics. Exploring the fundamentals of research methods and data analysis, this course is designed to help you become a more sophisticated consumer and producer of research. As a consumer, the course will equip you with the skills to make informed, critical, and cautious use of published research. A central focus of the course is preparing you to produce high-quality research. You will learn how to formulate research questions, design research projects, and collect, analyze and interpret data using qualitative and quantitative methods. Employing a learning-by-doing approach, you will develop your research and analytical skills, and gain the foundational knowledge and skills to leverage HR research and analytics for effective problem-solving and decision-making.

Theories of Diversity and Inclusion

Note: Understanding and making differences matter has become a strategic imperative with rapidly changing workforce demographics and increasing global interconnectedness. As a result, the study and practice of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), which are based on the social and normative construction of differences, have taken on heightened importance. This course explores contemporary and emerging DEI trends and challenges, and the theoretical underpinnings of the field of DEI in the American and global historical context. It provides foundational theories, models, and concepts required to develop effective diversity and inclusion strategies and programs. Practitioner values, ethics, agency and competencies are closely examined throughout the course, to help you understand the critical role of diversity and HR professionals in building a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture. Through case studies, portfolio coaching, and a variety of experiential exercises, you will learn the fundamentals of DEI and develop the knowledge and skills required to help organizations leverage diversity for competitive advantage.