PREPARATORY COURSES
MG0200 Understanding Organizations
The course provides an overview of the core areas of management theory and organizational behaviour with a special emphasis on issues of organizational structures, culture and values, employee motivation and job design, leadership and power, group processes as well as organizational learning and knowledge management. It will help participants understand the complex relation between individuals, groups and organizations and will introduce the concepts and the tools for effective management of the human capital. It will also help them understand how they can become change catalysts by performing their leadership role as managers; how they can manage knowledge; how they can inspire people to put extra effort for achieving the organizational vision and for outstanding performance and results. Through case studies, videos and discussion, students will have the opportunity to exercise their critical thinking and build people management skills by applying organizational theory to a broad range of organizational types, settings, and challenges.
MG0300 Understanding the Business Environment (Prer.: MG0200)
Today's human resource practitioners must be able to fully grasp the major business elements of their organization in order to act as key strategic players. This course aims at enhancing students' business understanding by making them familiar with the basic concepts, standards and practices of accounting and finance. Specifically, by the end of the course students will be familiar with basic financial statements, the analysis and recording of transactions and will be able to prepare and understand the balance sheet, income statement and statement of cash flows. The course will also offer a framework and tools for analyzing financial decisions based on the principles of modern financial theory and will cover issues such as corporate capital budgeting and valuation, options, market efficiency, corporate financial policy, etc.
DS0250 Research Methods and Statistics (Prer.: MG0300)
The course introduces the concepts of descriptive and inference statistics which are useful in business research and practice. The emphasis is on applications rather than mathematical theory and by the end of the course students will be able to choose the relevant statistical approaches for a variety of practical problems, conduct basic statistical analyses using appropriate statistical software, interpret statistical results and communicate the conclusions of the analyses to a wider business audience.
CORE COURSES
HR0200 Corporate Strategy and Human Resources Management (Prer.: MG0200)
The course provides an integrative framework for the whole programme. It will explain basic principles of business strategy and the process through which strategic decisions are made. Students will become familiar with key strategy elements, such as how firms select the market, product, and areas in which they compete, how they position themselves in these areas, how they interact with their external environments, how they adjust to changes, and how they decide and implement structure and policies that enable them to achieve their overall goals. The role of the HR professionals in the process of corporate strategy formulation and implementation will also be outlined.
HR0300 Employee Selection and the "War of Talent" (Prer.: MG0200)
The course provides an overview of basic principles of selection and recruitment, as well as the current trends in that area. It will emphasize the value and the strategic implications of good selection for an organization and it will explain concepts and selection tools, such as job analysis and psychometric testing, interviews, CVs, references etc. It will also cover issues such as on-line recruiting and winning the war for talent, i.e. how companies can attract and retain the best people. An interviewing skills workshop, will complement the knowledge gained through this course and will provide students with skills on preparing, delivering and evaluation a selection interview.
HR0500 Strategic Performance Management I: Training, Employee Development and Appraisal (Prer.: HR0300)
This course focuses on the integration of performance appraisal, training, management development and career management systems that form the nucleus of a strategic performance management system in an organisation. Such systems need to be mutually reinforcing to achieve the accountability, development, maintenance and motivation of human resources in the enterprise. The course will offer an overview of principles and processes of performance appraisal, and specifically on how an HR manager can communicate to employees how they are performing on the job and establish a plan of improvement. Several performance appraisal methods will be analysed, such as goal setting or management by objectives, 360 degree feedback, behaviourally anchored rating scales (BARS) and many other techniques. It will also focus on personnel training and development and it will include program development processes, identification of training needs, design and administration of training courses and evaluation. The importance of career development policies and processes as part of the HR function for employee retention and organizational sustainability will also be discussed.
HR0800 Strategic Performance Management II: Compensation and Employee Benefits (Prer.: HR0500)
This course focuses on the organizational reward system and specifically on issues of fair compensation and benefits as well as on how they can be aligned with the overall strategic goals of the corporation. The main components of a compensation system such as job descriptions, analysis and evaluation (e.g., ranking, classification, factor comparison and point method), pay structures and salary surveys will be explained and an overview of incentive plans e.g., merit pay, gain sharing, profit sharing, stock options, ESOP will also be provided. Issues of organizational justice and fairness will also be an important element of this course.
MG0700 Leading and Managing Change (Prer.: MG0200)
In today's rapidly changing business environment, companies must constantly adapt to change in order to survive and prosper. This course aims at offering students the knowledge and skills they will need to face the challenges of organizational change. It examines the innovative and adaptive capabilities of organizations, the reasons people may resist change, and introduces models of the change process and how it could be managed effectively. The course focuses on specific concepts, theories and tools of change management and identifies common mistakes, pitfalls and reasons of failure for change initiatives as well as the factors underlying the successful management of change projects.
HR1000 Labor Relations and the Legal Aspects of Human Resources Management (Prer.: HR0800)
This course explores issues on trade unions (e.g., structure, environment and impact) and the negotiation processes, as well as collective bargaining agreements (e.g., management rights, union security, dispute resolution) established between management and trade union members. Legal issues of HR will also be presented by Greek Law practitioners.
MG0600 Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
Understanding the ethical basis of human behaviour is of fundamental importance for building commitment to organizational goals and for imparting integrity and a sense of the common good in organizational members. The course examines a broad array of matters relating to ethics, including: individual and organizational obstacles to ethics; ethics information processing methods and judging theories; an action-learning framework for ethics leadership; adversarial win-lose ethics methods; integrative win-win ethics methods; dialogic transcendent ethics method; reflection and developing personal and contingency ethics leadership approaches; developing on ethics leadership action-learning plan.
HR1250 International Human Resources Strategies (Prer.: HR0200)
This course addresses the major strategic issues that managers face as they attempt to manage human resources across national boundaries. It incorporates an overview of current international human resource management (IHRM) theory and research and it focuses on issues which evolve from the internationalizing of the SHRM processes. It aims at helping students develop an understanding of the international and comparative factors (such as national culture) that shape human resource management. The management of expatriates, and functional issues concerned with international recruitment, selection and assessment along with comparative rewards will be discussed.
ELECTIVE COURSES
HR0550 Emotional Intelligence for Leadership Excellence (Prer.: MG0200)
Management consists of a set of universal skills that are well understood and trainable. Leadership consists of how each one of us makes a unique difference to the challenges we face with people and projects. It is not about wasting our energy trying to make ourselves more effective by changing our characters. Instead, it is more effective to find new and better ways of ‘being ourselves’ through enhanced insight and skill. The purpose of this course is to assess and improve your readiness to function well as a leader by making your time at ALBA a self-directed journey of learning and development. The specific objectives are to develop an awareness of the knowledge and skills that underlie leadership effectiveness; to obtain individual-level feedback utilizing some of the best existing assessment instruments; to share feedback on your own and others’ skills and to craft a personal leadership development action plan.
HR1800 Diversity Management (Prer.: MG0200)
In exercising effective leadership within a diverse organizational structure the manager relies on certain skills. This course analyses social styles and presents the skills managers should possess to pursue organizational goals. It teaches students current trends in leadership theory and practice and expands the leadership framework to include issues such as top management teams and shared leadership. The course also focuses on teamwork and group dynamics and its practical element aims at developing the skills the students will need to both function as effective team players and manage successfully employee teams in their organization.
IS0700 Human Resource Information Systems (Prer.: HR0300)
This course addresses the impact of Information Technology on HR functions in the broader context of IT-induced organizational transformation. Information Technology has radically contributed to the realization of the fact that organizations are in themselves information and knowledge systems of a social (rather than technological) kind. Special emphasis is placed on the value of Information Technology as a tool unleashing the information and knowledge tacitly controlled by an organization. Furthermore, on a more practical level, students will become familiar with current IS technology and software for HR functions.
MG0500 Negotiations
In the wide sense of the term, negotiating with others (both partners and rivals) is a necessary feature of all managerial jobs. In this course students are introduced into the fundamentals of effective negotiations: how to think strategically, what tactics to engage in, and what goals to aim at. The objective of this course is to improve participants� ability to avoid traps in negotiations and help them see their range of rational options (and their ramifications) in particular situations. The course is designed to provide participants a conceptual framework for preparing and conducting negotiation, and to give them some experience in using this framework.
MG0900 Creativity and Innovation (Prer.: MG0200)
In the information economy, the only chance a business organization has in achieving a lasting competitive advantage comes from new ideas. New ideas, in turn, come from cultivating and refining the intrinsic human ability to think the world afresh and to imagine new possibilities. While the presence of creativity cannot be mandated, it can be fostered and developed. In this Workshop students will be shown ways in which they may develop their creative potential and handle problems both effectively and imaginatively.
HR9999 Dissertation (Prer.: any course(s) that is/are related to the topic of the dissertation)
The Dissertation is a research project of a student’s special interest in a faculty member’s area of expertise. The students will have the opportunity to construct a detailed plan of a research project; to review specific literature on the selected topic; to identify relevant research questions from the literature; to be able to turn general research questions into empirical ones; to select and justify an appropriate research design; to select and employ suitable methods or techniques to investigate the empirical questions; to analyze financial or social data and to write a report covering a review of the relevant literature, the research questions, an explanation and justification of the design, a description of the conduct and analysis of the research, and a discussion of the findings in relation to the literature and methodological issues.
WORKSHOPS
HR0900 Psychometric Testing Workshop (in Collaboration with SHL Greece) (Prer.: HR0300)
The purpose of this workshop is to familiarize the HR postgraduate students with the general principles of Occupational Testing, combined with a short briefing regarding the use of psychometric tools for employee recruitment and selection. This is a two day training course and will provide the participants with registration as qualified users to Occupational Testing Level A & B.
HR1400 The Human Resource Scorecard Workshop (Prer.: HR0800)
This workshop explains the basic principles of the HR scorecard and it will provide a step-by-step guide on how to use it in an organization.
Experienced consultants from Hay Group S.A. will deliver this workshop in a practical and innovative way.
HR0600 Coaching for Excellence Workshop (Prer.: HR0500)
The purpose of this workshop is to help participants comprehend the importance of coaching in the workplace and to develop their giving-and-receiving-feedback skills through practical role-plays and games.
HR0700 Assessing Behaviors in the Workplace (Prer.: HR0500)
This workshop will train participants in Focused Behavioral Interviewing (FBEI), one of the most reliable methods in assessing behaviors in the working environment. They will have the chance to learn and practice on the methodology of FBEI, under the close guidance of experienced practitioners.
MG0100 Team Building Workshop
The aim of the workshop is to provide participants with a fulfilling and lively event, in order to introduce them to the importance of teamwork. By taking part in planned outdoor & indoor activities and exercises and through mutual support, the team enables itself to overcome difficulties and built strong bonds. Furthermore, this process will result into the formation of the groups that participants are going to work with during their studies.
HR1300 Job Evaluation Workshop (Prer.: HR0800)
Through the years, Job Evaluation methodology has been widely used to analyse, clarify and value work within organizations, with a primary aim to link the measured contribution of jobs with pay arrangements. Nowadays, the extended know how consolidated through the study of a significant variety of organizations, provide Hay Group with the insight to move forward. The systematic mapping of roles and structures through the elements of Job Evaluation, reveals a new perspective for identifying bottlenecks and gaps in organizations. Through the advanced application of job evaluation, areas for improvement interventions can be spotted to ensure optimization of hierarchical and lateral synergies. This course is intended for individuals who want to build on the Job Evaluation skills, as well as learn the linkages of Hay Job Evaluation to other HR functions. As such it is designed for professionals who are accountable for valuing work in their organizations, including compensation management, organization effectiveness and Human Resources development.
SK0300 Interviewing Skills Workshop
'What makes a successful interview?' This workshop aims to explore the factors behind successful interviews. Although the workshop focuses mainly on the skills of the interviewee, it also goes into the exploration of the role of the interviewer. In the business world, interviews are frequently part of organizational activities. One of the most frequently encountered cases of interviewing is job interviews. During the workshop, participants develop the skills required for successful job interviews, when acting as candidates for a job, and learn the role and skills of interviewers. The main topics covered during the workshop include: different interviewing styles, steps for a successful interview, preparing for the interview, understanding what employers look for, managing verbal and non-verbal communication during the interview, post-interview tasks.
HR1500 The HR Simulation Game (Prer.: HR0800)
This simulation game takes place towards the end of the Program. The HR Game is highly interactive and includes elements of fun and competition. Teams of 4-5 participants compete in qualifying rounds of 4-5 teams, with each round being increasingly difficult. Each exercise is graded and teams are rewarded points according to their responses and based on a clearly grading scheme. Participants are engaged in activities that involve setting selection criteria, staff management and resource management. The HR Game is concluded with the ultimate challenge of presenting an innovative system, policy or practice for their organization.