Strategic Human Resources LeadershipCornell

Certificate Program

Effective HR leadership goes beyond managing all the tasks and responsibilities carried out by the HR function. It also requires the critical soft skills needed from any leader—courage, judgment, influence, political agility, effective communication—all of these applied to the unique position that HR occupies in an organization.

Written by Cornell University's Christopher J. Collins, Associate Professor and Director of CAHRS, ILR School, this course will teach you to assess competencies for great HR leaders. You'll learn how to provide value to leaders at all levels by supporting and advising them as they execute their strategy. Discover new effective coaching techniques and learn how to become a leader in the unique position that the HR function occupies.

A thorough understanding of your organization's value creation model and ability to develop competencies through processes, technology, and people are essential to ensuring that the HR organization is aligned vertically and horizontally to produce superior results. With this understanding, HR will be able to articulate how it can improve processes, people and customer outcomes, and financial results.

This course, based on the research and expertise of Christopher Collins, PhD, Associate Professor and Director of Executive Education for Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, develops the skills needed to assess how organizations create value and to align the HR function to execute the organization's strategy. Participants analyze the Balanced Scorecard approach as a means of vertically aligning the HR system with organizational objectives. They learn how to create a vertical-alignment strategy and use it to improve HR decision-making, people outcomes, processes, customer outcomes, and financial results. And they learn the skills required to plan and assess horizontal alignment of HR systems and practices. Finally, the course discusses best practices related to workforce partitioning, performance variability, value identification, and employee impact.

The management of diversity and inclusion has evolved from "counting the numbers" to "making the numbers count." Organizations that no longer look at inclusion as having a good mix of diverse people, but as a way to fully engage employees, partners and customers have an opportunity to compete globally. Diversity and inclusion must be embedded in an organizational culture to make a positive impact on performance.

This course, based on the expertise of Cornell University Professor Lisa Nishii, differentiates diversity from inclusion and how organizations often miss the real opportunity. Students assess three levels of inclusion and identify evidence that can be used for each level to assess presence and effectiveness. HR executives and leaders share their perspective on diversity and inclusion and how they made the shift to inclusion at organizational, managerial and work group levels.

Organizations today face a multitude of challenges when it comes to effectively managing their talent.  In mature markets, demographic trends are forcing companies to accelerate their efforts to build a pipeline of future leaders. In emerging markets, companies must develop talent strategies that are both nimble and effective at engaging and retaining key human capital. To achieve these goals, companies need an integrated, systematic approach to attracting, developing, engaging, and retaining critical talent.

Cornell University Professor Brad Bell offers a learning experience that challenges students to dig deeper into understanding their organization's key talent management challenges and uncovers solutions that can be used to overcome these challenges. This course adopts a systems view of talent management in order to demonstrate that various talent practices and processes need to be aligned to create effective solutions. It also examines current trends and cutting-edge thinking in the talent management field.

In recognition of the strong association between employee engagement and performance, many companies have used or considered using engagement surveys. However, many of these efforts are off-the-shelf engagement surveys that are not fully leveraged or tailored to an organization's specific wants and needs or tied into performance management. The purpose of this course is to help managers understand the difference between an average, generic engagement effort and one that has the potential to really drive superior organizational performance. Students will explore the importance of aligning engagement with the organization's strategic goals, review data collection and analysis considerations, and will analyze methods of using engagement data to drive organizational change at the line manager and broader organizational levels.

In this course, you will examine how organizations that are recognized as leaders in this field integrate practices that heighten employee engagement, and find ways to adapt those best practices for your own use. Cornell University Professor Lisa Nishii offers a research-based learning experience that can position leaders to more effectively better navigate the popular (but often misunderstood) area of employee engagement.

More than ever, HR leaders are expected to be proficient in the use of HR data and analytics. However, figuring out where to start with analytics, how to evaluate and critique HR data, and how to best communicate and translate results to the broader organization remain key challenges.

This course focuses on building analytical acumen and taking a strategic view of talent analytics. Using a framework presented in this course, students will examine outcomes and drivers throughout an organization to assess strategic needs. As they complete activities throughout the course, they will also fine tune their evaluative, presentation, and communication skills using critical thinking coupled with analytical best practices shared by Professor Hausknecht.

This course is designed for HR professionals who want to build their organization’s HR analytics capabilities, derive meaning from metrics and results, and tell persuasive stories involving HR and organizational data. With these skills, students will have a stronger voice in using talent analytics to persuade others toward actions that best align with organizational goals.