Senior Professional in Human Resources ® (SPHR ®) Exam Prep

135 Hours / Access Length: 12 Months / Delivery: Online, Self-Paced

Course Overview:

Learn about the exciting world of today's Human Resource Management and prepare for the SPHR ® Exam throughout this online course. This HR management course weaves together solid human resource principles, timely research and recent events, such as the latest rise in unemployment and financial problems facing the U.S. and other countries. This course highlights important challenges facing managers and employees in today's business climate. Interesting case studies explore real companies and organizations in-depth and delve into some of today's most effective, unique approaches in dealing with HR issues. In addition, this course provides study materials to help prepare for the SPHR ® Exam.  The SPHR ® Exam Study Guide will be utilized throughout the course to supplement the Human Resource Management textbook and provide review materials for exam prep.  Upon completion of this course, students will have the skills necessary to serve as Human Resource Managers, as well as the preparation needed to sit for the SPHR ®  exam. 

This course prepares a student to take the HR Certification Institute ® (HRCI ®) SPHR ® certification exam.

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: Business Management/Leadership and Strategy

In this unit students will learn strategic human resource management skills that include establishing HR policies and procedures, learning HR roles and competencies, and how to incorporate a financial budget. Students will also learn organizational strategies beginning with the organization’s mission and business plan and learning why an organization’s structure, system, culture, and processes must support its strategy.  Finally, students will evaluate the stages of global HR management and its’ effectiveness on an organization’s technology, methods of budgets, metrics, and audits.

Lesson 2: Talent Planning and Acquisition

This unit discusses all aspects of employment discrimination including civil rights acts, equal employment opportunities, affirmative action, age and disability discrimination, and hiring non-citizens. Through human resource planning students will learn a strategic planning model, the alignment between business and human resource planning, and forecasting and implementing employment needs and plans. Students will gain knowledge of job analysis and competency modeling, learn how to create effective job descriptions, and methods of job analysis. Finally, students will learn effective ways of recruitment beginning with the interviewing process and following through to negotiating job offers and employee agreements.

Lesson 3: Learning and Development

Throughout this unit students will learn the principles of training, development techniques, training delivery and effectiveness, and management as it relates to talent, performance and change. Students will also learn the ADDIE model of training, the principles of andragogy, and five building blocks for creating a learning organization. Students will be able to explain organizational interventions and how training and development functions interact with other human resource functions. Finally, this unit will compare and contrast various on and off-the-job training methods and how they can be used for classic conditioning, operant conditioning, and social cognitive theory.

Lesson 4: Total Rewards

This unit discusses the relationship between compensation and other human resources functions (i.e., staffing, performance evaluation, training and development, and employee relations). Students will learn effective compensation methods and the procedures for establishing pay grades. This unit will also explain the incentive compensation system and how to incorporate profit sharing, gainsharing, and ESOPs. Students will gain a clear understanding of the economic factors affecting compensation including inflation, interest rates, demographic trends, and pay competition.

Lesson 5: Employee and Labor Relations/Employee Engagement

Within this unit students will learn employee relations, engagement, and involvement strategies. Students will describe the employee life cycle, learn ways to measure job satisfaction with the characteristics model, and steps for creating and carrying out a diversity and inclusion initiative. This unit will discuss several labor relations and management acts, as well as union representation of employees.  Finally, students will be able to recognize unfair labor practices and use negotiation and bargaining strategies.

All necessary materials are included.

Certification(s):

This course prepares a student to take the HR Certification Institute ® (HRCI ®) SPHR ®) certification exam.

The HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®) does not endorse any particular preparation program or offering. We encourage prospective certification holders to use a variety of resources that reflect their learning styles and needs. Purchasing a certification product is NOT required and HRCI does not guarantee that an individual will pass based on the purchase of a certification preparation product.

To be eligible for the SPHR ® you must meet one of the following conditions for education and experience:

• Have at least four years of experience in a professional-level HR position + a Master’s degree or higher,
• Have at least five years of experience in a professional-level HR position + a Bachelor’s degree, OR
• Have at least seven years of experience in a professional-level HR position + a high school diploma.

aSPHR™, SPHR®, SPHRca®, SPHR®, GSPHR®, SPHRi™ and SSPHRi™ are all registered trademarks of HR Certification Institute.

• Cable and DSL internet connections are recommended for the best experience.

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 2 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone (Webinar / Live Online sessions)

• Microsoft Windows 7 or 10 (Home, Pro)
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is denoted in the above course outline.