PHR/SPHR Certification Preparation

The PHR/SPHR Certification Preparation program includes six course modules, a final exam review and preparation session, as well as a one-on-one tutoring session.

1. Business Management and Strategy (2 class sessions)
2. Workforce Planning (2 class sessions)
3. Human Resource Development (2 class sessions)
4. Compensation and Benefits (2 class sessions)
5. Employee and Labor Relations (2 class sessions)
6. Risk Management (1 class session)
7. Review and final exam (1 class session)
8. One-on-one tutoring session (1 class session)

Module 1 – Business Management and Strategy

1. The Role of Human Resources in Organizations: discusses the emerging role of HR professionals as strategic business partners as well as their relationship to other functions within the organization.
2. The Strategic Planning Process: considers the short and long-term goals of the organization when forecasting and budgeting for human resources and the benefits of this process.
3. Scanning the External Environment: explains the purpose of environmental scanning while providing factors to consider and exploring future developments.
4. Organizational Structure and Internal HR Partners: describes the key functions of a business and how HR can contribute to a successful organizational system.
5. Measuring Human Resources Effectiveness: identifies a variety of methods for researching and analyzing the effectiveness of the HR function.
6. Ethical Issues Affecting Human Resources: discusses the role and impact of ethics in the HR function and introduces the organization’s role in social responsibility.
7. Human Resources and the Legislative Environment: covers how laws are introduced and passed, their impact on the profession and how practitioners should influence the legislative environment.

Module 2 – Workforce Planning

1. Key Legislation Affecting Employee Rights: addresses concepts such as employment-at-will, common law tort theories, job-as-property and non-compete agreements.
2. Key Legislation Affecting Privacy and Consumer Protection: discusses how this legislation impacts the HR function.
3. Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action: identifies the anti-discrimination requirements for implementing EEO and affirmative action plans as well as how to reduce discrimination vulnerabilities.
4. Gender Discrimination and Harassment in the Workplace: describes various types of harassment, background on related legislation and appropriate employer responses.
5. Organizational Staffing Requirements: provides techniques for anticipating skills and labor needs.
6. Job Analysis and Documentation: identifies methods and uses for job analysis, discusses the writing of job descriptions and specifications and addresses job competencies.
7. Recruitment: explains how to determine an organization's recruitment strategy and select appropriate internal and external sources that match it.
8. Flexible Staffing: explores alternative staffing methods to meet the needs of today's workforce.
9. Selection: explains how to design appropriate selection strategies including the use and analysis of application forms, interviews, pre-employment testing, drug screening and medical examinations. Introduces realistic job previewing and job orientation.
10. Employment Practices: describes common practices such as medical examinations, relocation practices, employment offers and employment contracts.
11. Organizational Exit: discusses key factors to consider when an employee leaves an organization including downsizing, exit interviews, outplacement, wrongful termination and employer defenses against litigation.
12. Employee Records Management: explains which records must be kept and describes methods for managing them.

Module 3 – Human Resource Development

1. Key Legislation: describes the impact of federal laws and regulations affecting HRD.
2. Human Resource Development and the Organization: defines the functions of HRD and the importance of strategically aligning with the organization and introduces the learning organization.
3. Adult Learning and Motivation: introduces how to incorporate adult learning principles into HRD programs and how to apply various motivational theories.
4. Assessment of HRD Needs: explains the ADDIE model for designing instruction and discusses needs assessments.
5. HRD Program Design and Development: discusses how to design and develop various performance improvement interventions.
6. HRD Program Implementation: defines the steps required to implement HRD programs including pilot programs, content revision, scheduling, marketing, and launching the final program.
7. Evaluating HRD Effectiveness: covers various models and methods for evaluating the bottom line impact of HRD initiatives.
8. Career Development: explains how to accommodate both organizational and individual needs when designing career paths for employees and explores common challenges in career development.
9. Developing Leaders: identifies successful leadership styles within an organization and discusses issues affecting leadership.
10. Organizational Development Initiatives: explores organizational development as a function of HRD while discussing intervention strategies and examples.
11. Performance Management: defines performance management and methods; addresses criterion problems in performance appraisals, performance appraisal methods and rating errors, and legal constraints and documentation issues.

Module 4 – Compensation and Benefits

1. Key Legislation: describes the impact of federal laws and regulations as well as tax and accounting treatment of compensation and benefit programs.
2. Total Compensation and the Strategic Focus of the Organization: explains how an organization's total compensation system promotes external competitiveness and internal effectiveness.
3. Pay Administration: discusses methods for analyzing and determining a job's worth as well as the payroll function.
4. Compensation Systems: explores various methods of pay including base-pay systems, pay variations, pay adjustments, variable or differential pay, incentive pay, pay plans for select employees, and controlling costs.
5. Introduction to Benefit Programs: describes assessing benefit needs and defines indirect compensation programs.
6. Government-Mandated Benefits: covers benefits the organization is required to provide such as Social Security and Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, Workers' Compensation, COBRA, and FMLA and their impact on the organization.
7. Voluntary Benefits: considers non-required benefits such as deferred compensation plans, health-care benefits, disability benefits, flex plans, and other voluntary benefits as well as tax treatment of benefits.
8. Compensation and Benefit Programs for International Employees: discusses issues of comparability of compensation and benefits for expatriate employees.
9. Evaluating the Total Compensation System and Communicating It to Employees: explains the benefits of evaluating compensations systems, determining their effectiveness and communicating it to employees.

Module 5 – Employee and Labor Relations

1. Key Legislation Affecting Employee and Labor Relations: lists federal laws and regulations and their impact on the organization.
2. Employee Relations and Organizational Culture: discusses the influence of a positive organizational culture on the effectiveness of the organization.
3. Employee Involvement Strategies: defines characteristics of employee involvement and provides strategies to support HR's role in immersing employees to contribute to the organization's long-term success.
4. Positive Employee Relations: describes measurement, results analysis, interpretation, feedback, and intervention issues related to employee satisfaction.
5. Work Rules: explains HR's responsibilities in coordinating workplace policies, procedures and work rules whether in a union or non-union environment.
6. Effective Communication of Laws, Regulations and Organizational Policies: considers the employee handbook as a legally binding vehicle for communicating laws, regulations and organizational policies to employees.
7. Discipline and Formal Complaint Resolution: describes workplace behavior problems and addresses the importance of their documentation; identifies union-management grievance process and procedures; illustrates the normal procedure for alternative dispute resolution.
8. Union Organizing: describes the unionization process and how union contracts are negotiated as well as union de-certification and de-authorization.
9. Unfair Labor Practices: identifies both employer and union unfair labor practices and remedies for each.
10. Collective Bargaining: explains collective bargaining, types of contract negotiation, elements of labor contracts, National Labor Relations Board administration and enforcement provisions, and collective bargaining trends.
11. Strikes and Secondary Boycotts: identifies strikes and secondary boycotts and when they are likely to occur.
12. Public-Sector Labor Relations: discusses labor relations within the public sector and the differences between collective bargaining in the public and private sector.
13. International Employee and Labor Relations: explains special employee and labor relations considerations for local nationals.

Module 6 – Risk Management

1. Key Legislation: describes the impact of key federal laws and regulations on occupational health, safety, and security.
2. Safety: identifies practices that can maintain and/or improve workplace safety and keep employees and employers free from danger, risk, or injury.
3. Health: focuses on the overall well-being of employees, both on and off their jobs by explaining health hazards, health-related programs, policies, employer liabilities, and cost-effectiveness of health programs.
4. Security: discusses how to reduce or eliminate the risk of loss of an organizations' assets through various organizational security techniques; addresses workplace violence and workplace privacy issues