Professional Master in HR & Organization:
the Directors’ word
19 July 2022
In a hectic academic year, the Professional Master’s in HR & Organisation at BBS has rediscovered an in-presence dimension that is particularly congenial to it.
Attentive to human relations and international by nature, it offers continuous opportunities for exchange with students, companies and Faculty from all over the world. We asked its Directors to tell us about the past year and to identify the strengths of a course with an excellent placement level.
Tell us about the academic year that has just ended, which represented, among other things, a return to face-to-face teaching activities. How did it go, from your point of view? And, if it is true that not only students learn but also teachers, what are the experiences and discoveries you will take with you into the coming year?
In recent years, we have had to face new challenges, and without a doubt, in 2022, we have welcomed the return to presence. Both teachers and students have been asked to be more flexible. The response has been proactive and cheerful: we now find ourselves more confident in using new technologies, more expert at designing and managing training often poised between presence and distance, and increasingly good at teamwork, despite everything. People have always remained at the centre of our efforts, so the return to presence has been essential, and we hope the future will be on our side. On the other hand, we were happy to see that the choice of always focusing on inclusive education, open to all the innovations necessary to continue involving all students, proved to be the best. With the return to presence, we finally got confirmation that we managed to create stimulating relationships and constructive relational dynamics even in an uncertain and changing context.
New technologies and human relationships. Both these aspects are fundamental within a training course in personnel management. How do they coexist within the Master’s programme, and how can each enhance the function of the other?
Our Master’s is mainly chosen by students who have decided to make relationships the primary focus of their work. Indeed, the human relations aspect is central to our Master’s program. We had seen this in the participants’ desire to meet in person and, when this was not possible, to interact online for teamwork and group activities. The year we experienced was a perfect synthesis of technology and human relations. We used all possible digital technologies to enable hybrid training management. Still, there was also a strong desire to develop interpersonal human relationships by meeting in person. This second aspect had its fullest expression in the ‘live’ holding of an international exchange between our students and the IAE Paris Sorbonne Business School.
The international exchange held with the IAE Paris Sorbonne Business School was particularly important. Could you tell us how this project came about and how it was carried out? Are similar exchanges planned for the next editions of the Master’s programme?
The international exchange involving IAE and BBS students took place last April. It allowed us to host French students in Bologna and bring ours to Paris. They were very intense learning moments, characterised by teamwork, company visits, testimonies from organisation experts and personnel managers, and Italian and French excellences with an international scope. Above all, they were characterised by the strong interaction between the two classes. The objective was to encourage learning between students with different experiences, cultures, and academic and work backgrounds over ten days spent together between Bologna and Paris. And, of course, there was no shortage of leisure time to visit and immerse oneself in the cultural fabric of these two beautiful cities. We will undoubtedly plan new international exchanges in the following editions of the Master’s programme.
The results regarding the placement of students in the Master in HR & Organisation are mainly positive. This data reveals the ability of this type of course, which is international and in many respects innovative, to interpret the needs of today’s market. What are the challenges and professional opportunities awaiting future students? What will be the most sought-after and exciting positions in this sector?
The Master’s is international and entirely in English, with a high percentage of foreign students and offers an exchange experience. These aspects make it particularly aligned with the needs of contemporary companies. The need to manage people from different cultural backgrounds and located in multiple countries is now a transversal characteristic of organisations, from large multinationals to innovative start-ups. Moreover, the Master’s course is, on the one hand, firmly focused on Digital HR issues and on learning the importance and use of People Analytics tools, and on the other hand, on the more psychological and behavioural aspects of human resources. This double focus is in line with what is expected in the future, namely the growth of automation and digitalisation, accompanied by an equally strong humanisation. The latter means valorisation in companies of what human beings cannot be automated or digitised: empathy, curiosity, creativity, communication skills, relationality and leadership.
