MGT 370 Online Strategic Human Resources Management Fall 2015 Joe Black Distinguished Adjunct Professor Ageno School of Business Golden Gate University CONTACT INFORMATION Phone: 916 215-9580 cell Email: joe@knuckleheadstrategist.com CLASSES START August 30 December 12, 2015 INSTRUCTOR BIO Professor Black is the Founding Partner of Knucklehead Strategist Inc., software enabled, strategic capabilities consulting firm to leaders seeking smarter ways to deliver on their game plan. www.knuckleheadstrategist.com helps leaders think talent when they think strategy by leveraging the player development system of championship sports teams. The process is a powerful integrating mechanism that distills the essence of a company's philosophy and strategy into a clear talent discovery process which results in measurably greater performance, fewer missed opportunities; more wins, fewer losses. Joe s corporate and consulting career over thirty years in startups to large, global companies leading design and development of talent management, succession planning, leadership development, business process improvement and change management, performance and reward systems. Clients include Nike, Motorola, Wells Fargo and Applied Materials. Previously, he held senior human resource management and organizational development positions with American Airlines, Cooper Labs, Eaton Corporation and GenCorp.
His academic background includes doctoral studies in Psychology and Education from the Pepperdine University, a Masters of Science in Organization Development degree from Pepperdine University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Parsons College. Professionally, Joe is active with the Strategic Management Society, Organizational Development Network, Human Resource Planning Society and the Gestalt International Study Center. COURSE DESCRIPTION Analyzes the critical role of human resource management in achieving an organization s strategic objectives. Examines techniques for developing a holistic, integrated approach toward the various human resource functions that is aligned with the organization s strategy. Compares and contrasts models of traditional human resource management with strategic human resource management and the application of strategic HR in a variety of traditional and nontraditional organizational settings. STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES Students who successfully complete this course will: (1) Develop a framework for understanding traditional HRM approaches; (2) Increase their skills in HRM by discovering new and innovative talent management approaches and; (3) Apply this knowledge and understanding while working as a member of a field research project group to develop insightful strategic human resource management approaches that are usable, simple and bottom line driven. Upon completion of this course, students will be knowledgeable and have the ability to: 1. Form strategic partnerships with organizational business units Develop strategies that align with the organization s vision and mission Select, train/develop/motivate and retain capable and qualified employees Ensure that individual business units requirements are met 2. Provide expert advice and counsel in core areas of HRM Use HR solutions to understand and meet business needs and requirements Keep abreast of environmental scans and changes that impact human resource management Research and employ best practices 3. Develop, implement, monitor and effectively assess core HR policies, procedures and processes Design and/or update employee handbooks that cover major policies and procedures Audit and evaluate HR processes for effectiveness, efficiency and essentiality
4. Apply and adhere to statutory and legal requirements when administering HRM policies and procedures Understand and apply legal statues as appropriate to manage human resources Be cognizant of the need to constantly and continuously research laws that impact the legality of managing human resources Ensure that monitoring processes are in place to keep the organization in compliance with labor laws 5. Become change agents and lead change within organizations Create effective channels of communication that provide reciprocal (bottoms up/tops down) interactions and processes regarding infrastructure changes 6. Input and retrieve demographic data using state of the art HRIS systems Ensure that employee data is accurate and updated in timely manner Provide user friendly processes to input and retrieve employee data requested for making business decisions 7. Manage cross-functional activities, i.e., globalization, cultural, ethnic, teams, etc. Develop and administer policies and procedures that address diversity, employee involvement, emotional intelligence and cultures PREREQUISITES MGT 346, Human Resource Management REQUIRED TEXTS Charles R. Greer, Strategic Human Resource Management - A General Management Approach, 2nd Edition, 2001, Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-027950-1 COURSE RESOURCES http://internet.ggu.edu/university_library/mgt370.html COURSE ASSIGNMENTS Weekly Online Assignments Class Participation: Online class participation is a very important part of the learning process. You are expected to participate in weekly online discussion boards. You will need to log into the course regularly, daily in fact, to check announcements, participate in discussions and access course reading, exercises, assessments, etc. Students who wait until the last day or so to post will receive an automatic 10% penalty. Since each of you bring a unique background and set of experiences to this class, a key ob-
jective of class participation is learning from each other. You will be evaluated on both the quality and quantity of your responses. Readings: Traditional approaches to strategic HR are available primarily through the reading of the assigned textbook. You are expected to do the assigned reading. I will have a section in my weekly lecture on information from the textbook. If you have questions or comments regarding the textbook that are not addressed in the Lesson or discussion sections, please feel free to raise them as part of the in-class discussion. Lecture: In addition to commenting on textbook materials, the weekly Lecture includes alternative ideas and concepts to challenge existing strategic HRM thinking. I expect students to exercise their curiosity and go beyond what conventional thinking says about the topic. You will be asked to respond to discussion question(s) to determine your understanding of these ideas and concepts. Evaluation criteria: Evaluating your online class participation, papers and exams is based on what I call the 3 Cs o Contrarian -- new and non-traditional ways of thinking o Creative -- exercising your natural abilities to imagine and o Content -- the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned Weekly Online Discussion Guidelines: Online class participation is a very important part of the learning process, as well as an important component of your grade 20%. Since each of you bring a unique background and set of experiences to this class, a key objective of the online discussion is learning from each other. You will be evaluated on both the quality and quantity of your online discussion posts /responses. What online discussion IS: an in-depth analysis of the Discussion question that requires the student to use higher level of critical thinking skills to respond. This requires a demonstration of an understanding and application of the materials provided for the week (i.e., textbook readings, journal readings, lectures, and websites) through: o Synthesis of the materials; o External research (e.g., books, journals, websites, etc.); and o Examples of personal experience. What online discussion IS NOT: personal opinion without reference to internal/external materials and personal experience, or chitchat with your classmates. In terms of quantity: o Every Student is expected to respond to the Discussion question posted by the Instructor. o Overall, every student is required to post at least 2 additional times during the week, either in response to classmate post or the students original post following the guidelines posted in this course syllabus.
In terms of timeline: o The first posting should be by midnight Wednesday of each week. Please note that initial postings submitted after midnight Saturday will receive an automatic 10% late penalty. o Any postings submitted after the close of the week will not be counted toward your grade. In terms of quality: o Examples of content of your posts include: o Using references (provided in-class or researched by the student; i.e., text book chapters, peer reviewed journal articles, books, web sites, etc.) to support your points/opinions. o Providing additional information to the discussion. o Elaborating on previous comments from others. o Presenting explanations of concepts or methods to help fellow students. o Presenting reasons for/against a topic in a persuasive fashion. o Sharing your own personal experiences that relate to the topic. o Providing a URL and explanation for an area you researched on the Internet. o Synthesizing large amounts of knowledge and information contained in the lectures, textbook readings, journal articles, websites, class activities, discussion boards, etc. o Discussion quality will be evaluated as: A (Excellent- Graduate Level Response), B (Good), C (Average), D (Below Average), F (Unsatisfactory). Discussion board postings will be graded on the rubric below. A few words about references: o The ideal references should come from peer-reviewed journal articles. Databases that I prefer to use include: PROQUEST, ABI/INFORM Global or Business Source Premier. To access the databases, please contact the GGU librarian. o If using references from websites ensure that the sources are reputable. Anyone can create a website, but only information from reputable sources is considered credible. If in doubt, leave it out! o Although Wikipedia can offer information, it is not considered a reputable source in graduate work. Therefore, do not use it as a source of information. o Remember to cite all references using the APA format. Group Project: The group project involves researching a real company, analyzing your findings and producing an innovative talent management strategy (the deliverable) to improve the PERFORMANCE of the company. You will need to exercise your collective imagination talents to come up with an application that utilizes the various theories, concepts, methodologies discussed online, as well as your own ideas and theories your gain from the assigned readings and other data sources your group comes up with.
To enhance your learning experience in such areas as strategic thinking, imaginative problem solving and talent management decision-making, you will work in teams to apply course material to a real-life company. After all, learning theory says in part instruction in the absence of application is incomplete because it occurs in a kind of artificial learning environment. http://www.ideaedu.org/sites/default/files/objective3.pdf The company we will study is Zoetis (zô-eh-tis) http://www.zoetis.com. Each team will assume the role of a talent management-consulting firm, with a particular focus and expertise in the area talent discovery. Talent discovery means more than traditional recruiting. Specific steps in your team s process should include: o Research Zoetis to understand their competitive philosophy and strategy. In other words, investigate such questions as, who are they where are they going how they plan to get there along with other questions your team identifies. o Identify opportunities/problems Zoetis will face now and in the future. For example, what is their approach to talent management? What do they need to do more of, less of, or change to become more effective at finding and keeping top-notch talent? What can Zoetis do to improve the process? (Need to think of this talent discovery as a process, not an event) o Develop an evidence-based approach to your team s talent management strategy that covers situation, problems/opportunities, and solution. o Your presentation format can be done in any number of ways of presenting, just so long as it s creative! There are 5 milestones to track, monitor and measure progress. They are Milestone 1 - due Week 3 agree on the teams leadership, role and responsibility, group rules of the road for managing process, conflict, communications, etc. ALL posting for all milestones must be done on team discussion boards. Milestones 2, 3, 4 and 5 are designed as cyber campus posts whereby the team tracks their progress to date. Milestone 2 is due Week 5 - start researching the company. As an example of what your deliverable might look like, explore among team members, questions such as How can the ideas of business strategy thought leaders like Porter, Prahalad & Hamel, Becker & Huselid, McKinsey & Company and others be used to improve Zoetis sales management s talent management efforts? This is just an example. Teams need to brainstorm other ideas that come from a variety of classroom discussions, assigned readings, Internet research, etc.
Milestone 3 is due Week 9 - make sense of the data coming in from the research. Milestone 4 is due Week 12 - start formulate how the data will be analyzed and brainstorming the team members ideas on how the talent management solution will be framed. Milestone 5 is due Week 15 Each team presents. Group presentations will be the last session of the course, Week 15, when each team makes a formal presentation via cyber campus at a prescribed date and time. All teams post at the same time. On what and how their talent discovery solutions are, the benefits to the company and how best to implement. Mid Term: Open book, reflective paper. Final Exam: Open Book, case study, supervised exam. The use of references The ideal references should come from peer-reviewed journal articles. These can be found in the GGU library s databases - located at http://internet.ggu.edu/university_library Databases that I prefer to use include: PROQUEST, ABI/INFORM Global or Business Source Premier. If using references from websites ensure that the sources are reputable. Anyone can create a website, but only information from reputable sources is considered credible. If in doubt, leave it out! Although Wikipedia can offer information, it is not considered a reputable source in graduate work. Therefore, do not use it as a source of information. Remember to cite all references using the APA format. GRADING POLICY: Course Components Points Course Weighting Weekly Discussion Questions/Quizzes 10 Discussion weeks @ 20 points each 200 20% Group Project Milestones 1-5 200 20 points each 20%
Course Components Points Course Weighting Mid-term exam Week 9 Final exam Week 14 Group project Week 15 200 20% 200 20% 200 20% TOTAL 1000 100% Details of course assignments are given below. Final grades for this course will be based on your participation and performance in class discussions and activities, written assignments, milestone postings and final group presentation. The course will be graded according to continuous assessment, midterm, group project and a final exam. Language skills: Please pay particular attention to the language skills you use. Points will be deducted from assignments containing deficient English, spelling mistakes and typos. Late work: All work turned in late will be graded down 20%. For example, if your mid-term case study assignment earned 90% but was turned in late, it will be graded down to 70%. Assignments will not be accepted after the last day of the course and neither can the final exam be taken after the date given. Class participation and assignments discussion board postings will be graded on the rubric below: Grade Skills A Range 95 100% Clearly stands out as high quality to excellent work. An A grade work could be used as a model for other students to emulate. Shows excellent grasp of subject matter. The writing shows excellent in-depth analytical thinking. It is very well written and organized. Additional input is provided, relevant to the subject, from outside sources or personal experience.
Grade Skills B Range 90 94% Represents very good work. Shows thorough grasp of subject matter. Shows good thinking and analysis. It is well written and organized. Additional input is provided, relevant to the subject, from outside sources or personal experience. C Range 85 89% Represents average work. Shows adequate level of thinking and analysis. Standard of writing and organization is adequate. Some level of additional input is provided. D Range 70 84% Work is below average, passing by only a slim margin. Writing is rather general, superficial, or incomplete and not very well written. Indicates little thought or effort on the part of the student. F Range Below 70% Work is clearly unsatisfactory. It is poorly written, shows poor analysis and misses important elements. Fails to meet minimum acceptable standards. COURSE COMMUNICATIONS Students can make an appointment for consultation by phone. If you have general course questions that are not related to a specific session topic, you can contact me by creating a discussion item under course home. If it is confidential, you may email me. I will respond to course communications within 24 hours. PLAGIARISM: Academic dishonesty is the failure to maintain academic integrity. It includes both cheating and plagiarism. The term cheating is the act of obtaining or attempting to obtain, or helping in obtaining, credit for academic work through any dishonest, deceptive or fraudulent means. The term plagiarism is intentional or negligent presentation of another person s idea or product as one s own. More details regarding academic dishonesty can be found on page 141 in the Golden Gate Catalogue which can
be accessed via the www.ggu.edu website. Penalties for academic dishonesty of any type can result in being withdrawn from the course up to expulsion from the degree program. COURSE CALENDAR & ASSIGNMENTS Week Topic Assignments Details on Cyber Campus Week 1 HRM Conceptual Framework Syllabus Overview Learning Objectives Group Project Introductions - Relationship Building Post introductions Week 2 What is Strategy? Chapter 1 Instructor will form teams at end of Week 2 Week 3 Investment perspectives of HR Chapter 1 - Continued Milestone #1 due Week 4 Aligning talent management with business strategy - HR environment Chapter 2
Week Topic Assignments Details on Cyber Campus Week 5 HR Legal environment Chapter 3 Milestone #2 due Week 6 Strategy Formulation Chapter 4 Week 7 Strategy Formulation Chapter 4 - Continued Week 8 HR Planning Chapter 5 Week 9 Mid-Term Cyber Session Milestone #3 due Week 10 Strategy Implementation Introduce the talent management concept of developing talent evaluation skills for frontline managers Chapter 6 Week 11 Strategy Implementation - Reward and development systems Chapter 7
Week Topic Assignments Details on Cyber Campus Week 12 Performance Impact of HR Introduce the talent management concept of innovative talent reviews so senior managers can make smarter staffing decisions Chapter 8 Milestone #4 due Week 13 HR Evaluation Chapter 9 Week 14 Supervised Final Exam Week 15 Team Presentations Milestone #5 due