Do you love working with people and helping them achieve personal goals and dreams? Are you also interested in how to make a business successful? If you’ve answered yes to these questions, then perhaps studying human resources management is for you. In this article, we'll explain what human resources is, what you'll study in the subject, and the careers available once you graduate.
What are human resources?
Human resources refer to the people who work for a company. An employee's skills and knowledge are valuable assets to a company. You may hear other expressions used when talking about a company’s human resources such as workforce, workers, personnel, staff or simply, people. The human resources of a company are people, without them, there is no company.
Human resources also refers to the department within a company that manages all things related to employees, from recruitment to staffing and training and ensuring the needs of employees are met.
What subjects do you cover in Human Resource Management?
The courses on offer in the subject are many and varied. You could do an undergraduate degree in human resource management, a master’s degree or a doctoral degree in the subject. The courses themselves cover a wide range of subjects:
A degree in human resource management covers such a wide range of subjects that it prepares you for an even wider range of careers and opportunities.
Career paths
As a human resources specialist, you will have the opportunity to work in different areas, including:
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Recruitment and talent management
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Learning, development, and training
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Employee relations
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Performance and reward
Some of the job titles that those qualified in human resources have include Talent Acquisition Manager, Director of Human Resources, Human Resources Manager and many more.
According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a Human Resources Director ranges from GBP 73,000 to GBP 97,000 per year in the UK (Feb 2022). You can expect to earn similar amounts in the US. In Australia, a Human Resources Manager can earn on average AUD 114,00. This is well above the average salary in Australia, which was AUD 67,860 in 2021.
What qualities and skills do you need?
It isn’t just a question of being good with people and being a good communicator that is important for a career in human resources (although they are both incredibly important skills to have in this field). You also need to have excellent organisational and leadership skills.
Human resource specialists need to know about psychology and people development. This helps to ensure the right people are recruited for jobs that suit them. This will allow people to succeed in their work. They also need to be creative problem-solvers, good at critical thinking and comfortable with conflict as the role can and does involve conflict resolution.
If you feel this describes you, then you should consider taking a degree in Human Resources. Helping others to achieve their goals and dreams can be equally rewarding for you as a human resources specialist. Our very own Head of Talent Acquisition at IDP Connect says it beautifully when he says:
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