Global Development Institute Blog

The MSc Human Resource Management Enhancement Programme (HRMEP) has been developed over seven years, with support at school and faculty level, to offer closer student engagement with a wide range of organisational contexts in the field of HR practice, with a focus on the professional, cultural and social dimensions of their experience.

HRMEP aims to equip learners with a robust theoretical framework for careers in human resource management and at the same time to provide students with an opportunity to gain insights into practice-focused human resource practice across a wide range of management contexts and sectors.

In addition to our face-to-face lectures in 2022-23, we also hosted lecture sessions online, with guest speakers joining us from London and Brussels. One lecture was delivered by the Operations Manager, Hannah Rebecca Findlay, from Morrinson Wealth Wellbeing on Thursday, 20th October. The topic of the session was on ‘best practice in financial wellbeing: supporting employees’ financial resilience’.

David D’Souza, the Membership Director of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) also delivered an interactive session to us on Thursday, 17th November. Based on students’ questions, which were collected prior to the session, David shared his own experiences to our students and gave them suggestions on career development in HRM in the UK and globally.

Finally, Mr. Haydn Schofield, who is a member of the top team of professionals in the field of international communication in the European Commission, joined us from Brussels in a session hosted on Thursday, 24th November. Mr. Haydn gave us an overview on the European Commission and used examples to explain people management and communication from a cross-cultural and cross-national perspective. Special thanks to Isabelle Van Keirsbilck, in the European Commission, for organizing and facilitating the session.

Student Feedback

Students from the MSc HRM (ID) Programme gave feedback and reflection on their experience of the lecture sessions.

Feedback on lecture by Hannah Rebecca Findlay in Morrinson Wealth Wellbeing:

The lecture was very detailed and great. I love the way Hannah taught. She is nice and humour. She gave us a lot of information, which is really helpful. I have learned the importance of providing financial education to employees. The interactive part with everyone uses the system to post messages and feelings on the whiteboard was also very interesting, as it is quite impressive that Hannah uses this little device to get everyone involved in this session and encourages us to interact in the class, especially those shy students, like me. I love the lecture so much and it is a very inspiring lecture. By the way, I hope I can achieve financial freedom as soon as possible.

 Feedback on lecture by David D’Souza in CIPD:

I think the lecture is useful, especially the suggestion on my career development of HRM consultancy, which gives me some helpful advice. The content of this lesson is relatively deep, and David has rich experience and unique insights in HR. The information on CIPD is also helpful. I’m so glad that I can gain some experience from David’s ideas and his experience. After the session, I’ll visit the CIPD website to get more information on the certificate to help me on my future career.

Feedback and reflection on Haydn Schofield in the European Commission:

In the lecture, I understand how an international organisation operates. Mr. Haydn’s working experiences about managing people in different culture, race, educational backgrounds and personality made me impressed. In addition, before the lecture, I felt the EU was so far away from the daily life, however, after the lecture, I changed my opinion. They are working with our daily life. It is really impressive. The only pity is that due to confidential issue, the lecture is not recorded.

Many thanks, again to our colleagues, Hannah Rebecca Findlay in Morrinson Wealth Wellbeing, David D’Souza in CIPD and Isabelle Van Keirsbilck and Haydn Schofield in the European Commission. We are very glad to have been able to work together with all of you again this year and we look forward to continuing our cooperation in the future!

Dr Lujia Feng, Programme Director MSc Human Resource Management and Development (Distance Learning), Global Development Institute

Note: This article gives the views of the author/academic featured and does not represent the views of the Global Development Institute as a whole