Published on: Friday, 14 February 2014

The Department of Organisation & Professional Development at CIT’s School of Business recently hosted the Southern Branch of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) event for part-time students of Human Resource Management at CIT.  CIT’s is Cork’s largest provider of HR education, offering a BA HRM, BA (Hons) HRM and Masters HRM which also have CIPD accreditation. 

Wendy O’Sullivan, Programme Manager at CIPD’s Dublin office, outlined to students, the importance of professional body membership and explained that CIT’s HR programmes were closely aligned to CIPD qualifications therefore allowing membership to CIT graduates. She explained that HR now plays a strategic role in organisations and CIPD membership is a badge of employability for HR professionals. HR today is much more than recruitment and selection of staff; it plays a significant role in learning and training, professional development, performance management, mediation and negotiation in organisations.  Margaret McCarthy, HR Manager with Herlihy Centra Group is a graduate of CIT’s HR programme and a leading advocate of CIPD membership for HR professionals.  Margaret informed the students about why she places importance on CIPD membership and gave them insight into details of her career to date and the opportunities for HR professionals.

Catherine O’Brien, another graduate of CIT’s HR programme is HR Manager with Assurant Services in Cork and is current Secretary of CIPD’s Southern Branch.  Together with their PRO, Fiona O’Connor of Tom Smith Associates, HR Consultancy, they gave students the benefit of their considerable professional experience.

Looking ahead to the next decade of Human Resource Management, it is absolutely certain that the nature of peoples’ working lives will undergo dramatic change. Changing technologies, the shifting of the economic landscape and dramatically altered ambitions and expectations on the part of the new generation of workers, will drive the transformation of Ireland. HR professionals will play a strategic role in preparing Ireland for that will be a very challenging road ahead.  Human Resource Management will come into its own as talented people become the key strategic asset in the international competitiveness war. There are many professionals working in companies in this region who are either reporting to managers in other countries or have colleagues around the world reporting to them. 

Speaking afterwards, Don Crowley, Head of Department of Organisation & Professional Development, School of Business, CIT, said that “students have benefited from the evening.  We have a considerable cohort of part-time HR students across Degree, Honours Degree and Masters programmes, all of whom have returned to third level to increase their employability and this event showed them that their hard work is enhancing their career.  Our students were motivated by the CIPD members who themselves have moved through the ranks to HR Manager level.”

The evening concluded with the presentation of Certificates in HR Management & Development to students who have successfully completed their first year of the BA Human Resource Management and thereafter with an opportunity for networking. 
 

Further information on CIT’s Degrees and Masters programmes in Human Resource Management may be found at www.cit.ie/parttime or by t: 021 433 5900.

NOTE: Two photographs attached, as follows:

Margaret McCarthy, HR Manager, Herlihy Centra Group, with part-time students of the MA HRM

Students of the part-time Bachelor of Arts in HRM being presented with their Certificates in HR Management & Development, pictured with Don Crowley, Head of Department, and Course Coordinators Dr Felix Raekson and Olive Murphy O’Dwyer.