Launch of new business degree

Launch of new business degree

It's common knowledge that good workplace relations add to the business bottom line.

And a new business degree major will provide graduates with the skills to foster cooperative workplace relationships and avoid the pitfalls of mismanaged and negligent employment relations.

AUT University's Bachelor of Business degree (BBus) with a combined major in Human Resource Management and Employment Relations is being launched next week.

AUT Professor of Employment Relations Ray Markey says the demand for skills in the area of people management has grown exponentially.

"Human resource management has become increasingly important as part of a more strategic approach to management and deployment of human resources," he says.

"In the New Zealand environment post the Employment Relations Act (2000), an understanding of employment law and the role of actors external to the organisation, such as trade unions, have also become critical for managers.

"However, there is increasing recognition in business of the need for a holistic approach to people management by combining Human Resource Management and Employment Relations/Industrial Relations disciplinary paradigms."

Professor Markey says New Zealand universities have been slow to recognise this need in their course offerings and the new specific combined major will meet the gap.

AUT students can choose the new major from semester one starting in February.

Guest speaker Professor Tom Kochan from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will launch the new major on Wednesday, February 7, at the reception for the annual conference of the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) in Auckland.

Tom Kochan is the Professor of Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management and Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT. He is co-director of both the MIT Workplace Center and the Institute for Work and Employment Research.

He is co-author (with Paul Osterman, Richard M. Locke and Michael J. Piore) of Working in America: A Blueprint for the New Labor Market and author of Restoring the American Dream: A Working Families' Agenda for America.

AUT University Bachelor of Business HRM / ER major launch:

Date: Wednesday, 7 February, 2007
Venue: Auckland University Conference Centre
22 Symonds Street
Auckland
Time: 5pm-6:30pm

Ends

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