DURATION: Full Time MSc = 12 months/EXEC Part Time = 24 months
INVESTMENT: £7,995
LOCATION: LONDON, KINGS CROSS
DATE: MSc FT, Jan – Dec 2024 EXEC MSc, Jan 2024 – Dec 2025
Success as a manager and business leader depends not just on what you know but how you apply what you know. There is learning and then there is the VaLBS learning experience. Our MSc portfolio is designed to provide managers with specialist knowledge and with it, one of the most advanced and practical foundations in understanding the world of business.
The VaLBS MSc Talent Management & Employee Engagement is at the cutting-edge – designed for the executives of today and tomorrow – a unique blended learning programme, combining grounded theory with the latest evidence based research and practical insight driven by Harvard case method teaching backed up with VaLBS SCART learning methodology.
Our unique all-year-round calendar allows you to combine studying for your MSc with your family and work commitments. The programme is designed to suit your lifestyle and study preferences – the programme is delivered in what we call compressed block format – complemented by remote study from home/office in between classes. The VaLBS MSc Talent Management & Employee Engagement has a set curriculum of 13 modules of the most relevant subject areas – each carefully integrated to complement one another.
- CRITICAL THINKING & DECISION MAKING
- FUNDAMENTALS OF MANAGEMENT
- BUSINESS & MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS
- STRATEGY AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
- LEADERSHIP & ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
- EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
- TALENT PLANNING & RESOURCING
- TALENT DEVELOPMENT ARCHITECTURE
- PERFORMANCE, REWARD & ORGANISATION DESIGN
- STRATEGIC SERVICE MANAGEMENT
- WORKFORCE ANALYTICS
- ORGANISATION PERFORMANCE
CRITICAL THINKING & DECISION MAKING
This fundamental module explores the basic tenets that can guide a manager to critically examine existing evidence and/or research that underpins the decision-making process. To this end, students learn the core principles and techniques of critical thinking, alongside related soft systems thinking methodology and problem-solving tools and techniques that are required for most organisational issues; whilst negating challenges such as incomplete information, uncertainty, risk and groupthink.
Students are also exposed to certain basic statistical tools used in analysing/interpreting data relationships, for example regression, correlation, causation, bias, and decision trees that help to understand problems with more clarity. Finally, students explore standards for high-quality judgment and decision making and how easily managers may fall short of these standards in various ways, and how decision making can be improved using real case study examples.
STRATEGY & STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
This module offers students the “essential” tool-kit for understanding business strategy and the strategy process – the key ideas, concepts, and tools that are necessary to successfully exercise strategic management. The course explores the various concepts and methodologies that distinguish competitive advantage through competitor differentiation, whether profit seeking or otherwise in varying industries.
Students will be able to analyse and understand an organisation and its external competitive environment, including the cultural, political, technological, legal and ethical dimensions; assess an organisation’s internal value-creating activities and processes, the building of strategic capabilities, and identify/evaluate appropriate strategic options on current and future performance.
Students also explore the important maxim that strategic analysis and strategy formulation are only as good as the ensuing strategy implementation in creating value/sustainability. Strategy implementation is a key challenge for all organisations, and thus the balancing of strategic and operational goals, together with appreciating the interconnectedness of strategy, structure and systems along with performance measurement is extremely important. By the end of the module, students will be able to demonstrate a high level of ability and skill in strategic thinking, strategic analysis, synthesis and decision-making.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT I & II
The module provides a deep understanding of employee engagement and its impact in the workplace. The concept of employee engagement is constructed from its roots dating back 100 years to Taylor’s scientific management whilst students undertake a re-appraisal of the Hawthorne experiments alongside visiting theories and models that include: motivation, commitment, expectancy, goal-setting, incentives, (in)equity/justice, trust, satisfaction, conflict, needs, trait, self-efficacy, OCB, EI, wellbeing, leadership, teams/group etc.
The course focuses on engagement strategies of organisations and the role and importance of line managers in optimising individual and team performance through effective employee engagement and the challenges and issues that constantly appear in the work environment. A number of case studies are used to evaluate employee engagement in real scenarios with resulting critical analysis and insight.
FUNDAMENTALS OF MANAGEMENT
“You have to know the past to understand the present.” Carl Sagan
This module provides students with a primer on underpinning management thought in terms of concepts and practice in organisations – retracing modern management developments over the last hundred years. A chronological review is undertaken of the management ‘giants’, their contributions and legacies that persist, alongside the myths and misinterpretations that continue to ‘infect’ management thinking today. A number of case studies are used to apply, contrast and compare the models and theories and their enduring relevance.
LEADERSHIP & ORGANISATION BEHAVIOUR
This module provides students with a thorough understanding of what effective leadership and organisation behaviour are and what difference they make. The course assesses roles and behaviour of the people, providing an understanding of the complexity of organisations and introducing key issues in contemporary management, drawing on critical evaluation of competing leadership/management theories and empirical research/ evidence.
The module furthers student understanding of organisation design and change, culture and values, power, politics, capabilities, individual /team dynamics and performance through the application of different models and frameworks and real world case studies.
BUSINESS & MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS
This module will provide students with the depth and rigour to understand and evaluate organisation/market behaviour and performance in real world scenarios. Topics include the rationality of human behaviour, group behaviour and ‘prisoner dilemma’ scenarios, Maslow’s hierarchy, human capital, decision rights and the application and challenges of Incentives/compensation in organisations.
The course scrutinises the theory of the firm and transaction costs, firm production and decision-making/risk, market supply/demand and price elasticity, industry monopolies, corporate governance, the principal-agency problem, property rights and cost-benefit analyses. Students will also learn the logic of market interaction, business opportunities and strategic behaviour.
TALENT PLANNING & RESOURCING
The module provides a deep understanding of strategic approaches to managing people and an awareness of a range of issues which have strategic significance for talent management in organisations. Students will develop the ability to apply models and frameworks within a global context on topics such as talent recruitment & resourcing, onboarding, stewardship, talent pipelines, talent systems, succession and workforce planning/downsizing and the impact of organisational culture and values.
Students will be able to critically review how different business strategies influence the choice of talent management strategies, structures and processes and how organisations successfully overcome significant people management challenges in various scenarios.
TALENT DEVELOPMENT ARCHITECTURE
The module provides a deep understanding of strategic approaches to developing leaders and managers and an awareness of a range of issues which have strategic significance for talent development in organisations. Students will develop the ability to apply models and frameworks within a global context on topics such as talent pools and pipelines, capability and competency assessment, promotion selection, coaching, leadership/management learning and the impact of organisational culture and values.
Students will be able to critically review how different business strategies influence the choice of talent development strategies, structures and processes and how organisations successfully overcome significant talent development challenges in various scenarios.
PERFORMANCE, REWARD & ORGANISATION DESIGN
The module provides a deep understanding of strategic and operational approaches to managing people with regard to performance, reward and organisation design. Students will develop the ability to apply models and frameworks within a global context on topics such as performance appraisal, performance systems, job roles and decision rights, reward/incentives, target-setting, (in)equity, individual/team unit relationships, and both the forming and impact of organisational leadership, culture and values.
Students will be able to critically review how different business strategies influence the choice of people management strategies, structures and processes and how organisations successfully overcome significant performance-reward challenges in various scenarios. A number of global case studies are used to both illustrate and challenge theories and applied frameworks and accepted wisdom.
STRATEGIC SERVICE MANAGEMENT
This module provides students with an understanding of service management with an integrated approach to the three core strands: customers, employees and service operations. Students will be exposed to key concepts, tools and techniques looking at a variety of organisations in real world scenarios and learn to appraise the challenges and issues faced by service organisations. Again, by using a systemic approach, students will look to solve a range of service delivery designs and management problems.
The toolkit includes service definition and strategy, quality and customer experience, supply/demand and waiting lines, Six Sigma, productivity, performance, supply chain and quality management. The module is also designed to enable students to align service delivery system and process design to the strategic requirements of the organisation.
WORKFORCE ANALYTICS & HC REPORTING
This module provides students with the ability to understand the context, importance and relevance of human capital management through the use of workforce analytics, measurement and reporting and the challenges/issues faced. As such, students are equipped with the knowledge and technical insight to produce and analyse management information that assists in solving business problems whilst enhancing people management effectiveness in an organisation. Case studies include a cross section of industry sector scenarios, both public and private.
Areas covered include HR scorecards, workforce planning, performance indicator hierarchy, roadmaps & metric trees, descriptive/predictive models, data challenges, management ‘gaming’, benchmarking with its limitations and constructing a Human Capital report as a means of providing an overarching framework.
ORGANISATION PERFORMANCE
This module provides students with an advanced understanding of organisation performance, investigating various strategic models and systems used in organisations across a variety of industries and the challenges faced, in terms of their implementation, relevance, appropriateness and maintenance.
The module will develop critical skills in relation to the selection and use of information for the purpose of organisational performance evaluation and develop the skills necessary to participate in managerial and strategic decision processes. As such, students will gain a technical insight into strategic objectives and critical success factors, strategy mapping, strategic alignment through KPIs, management control and risk, targets and reward, behaviour and performance evaluation, BU linkage and conflict, change implementation and operating cultural issues and implications applied to real world case scenarios.
PROGRAMME LOGISTICS
STUDY HOURS REQUIREMENT: 1800 hours including 506 class based plus online tutorials/webinars
F2F CLASS DELIVERY: Regular ‘compressed blocks’ of (1 evening plus 2 day) + 1 x 5 day
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT: Cumulative SCART plus exam
AWARD: MSc Talent Management & Employee Engagement (VaLBS)
