Employees are key to any company’s success, so every company is well-served by competent human resource professionals. The trouble is, according to a faculty member at the Naveen Jindal School of Management, there is a growing shortage of well-trained HR personnel.
Dr. Jeff Weekley, director of the new Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management program launching in fall 2017, is leading the UT Dallas effort to educate a new generation of HR leaders prepared to address that need.
Weekley explained that the role of an HR executive is to concentrate on the people side of the business.
“Nothing gets done in an organization without the right people in the right place and right time with the right skills who are focused on the right things,” Weekley said. “They think through the people implications of the business strategy and make sure the right HR systems are in place to produce the talent needed to execute it.”
The 120 semester-credit-hour program offers students a solid business core with specialized training in human resource management. An education of this kind prepares students well for careers as compensation analysts, recruiters, training coordinators or employee-relations specialists, all roles that can prepare them for advancement in leading the HR function within an organization.
“A company could have the best strategy and the best products in the world, but it will not go anywhere without the right people,” he said. “JSOM has been offering a concentration in organizational behavior and human resources in the BS in Business Administration program. It has been great, but it also has opened our eyes to the fact that HR can and should be available as a stand-alone degree.”
Weekley and his team have assembled an advisory board of chief human resources officers from various well-known local companies like Texas Instruments, Lennox, State Farm and Cinemark to review the curriculum, provide site visits and speakers and otherwise help launch the program, which is mostly modeled on curriculum guidelines set forth by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
“We did make one change that Jindal School administrators feel is important and in line with educating graduates to be innovative and proactive,” Weekley said. “The SHRM recommends labor relations as a core and change management as an elective. We flipped those. The pace of change in business is occurring at a rate never before seen. Companies that can manage those changes effectively have a key advantage over their competitors.”
The program’s advisory board members have all generously volunteered their time because they believe in the mission. “They’ve all confirmed the gap between demand and supply,” Weekley said. “In Texas there are about a dozen or so HRM programs, but they’re almost all south of the Metroplex. If you project the demand for entry-level HR jobs here in DFW, the shortfall is about 600 employees.”
According to Weekley, research is beginning to show the impact of human-resources practices company performance and even stock valuations.
“If you get it right, you can generate a lot of excess value,” he said. “If you don’t, you can destroy a lot of value as well.”
Classes will be taught by faculty members that have vast industry experience — people like Dr. David Ritchey and Edward Meda, who have headed HR and leadership training departments.
“The folks that are teaching the core are all pros, so it’s not just words from a textbook,” Weekley said. “They will be able to teach the students how it’s actually done.”
Students looking to immerse themselves the HR-related extracurricular activities while at UT Dallas can take advantage of multiple resources associated with the program. These include the Society for Human Resource Management at UT Dallas, an active, well-regarded student chapter of SHRM that was recognized with a 2015 – 2016 Student Chapter Superior Merit Award. They can also connect with DallasHR, a local SHRM affiliate that does student outreach by providing monthly luncheons with guest speakers, networking opportunities and funding for students to attend conferences.
