Human Resources Management

Course Description

Human Resources Management is an introduction to personnel administration; emphasis on the basic personnel function of both the personnel specialist and the operating manager. UWF states that critical issues stressed include selection, compensation, OSHA, EEO, unions and discipline.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, MAN is the Management prefix. The University of West Florida publishes this at 3 semester hours through the Department of Business Administration, College of Business. It is offered at approximately 15 Florida institutions.

⚠⚠ This course gates UWF's entire human resources sequence — MAN4341, MAN4350 and MAN4384 all require it, and it is itself gated by standing rather than by a course. Plan it early or lose a year.

Note UWF's framing: the basic personnel function of both the specialist AND the operating manager. That second audience is the larger one. Most people who apply this material never work in an HR department — they supervise people, and the hiring, documentation, discipline and accommodation decisions they make are where organisations actually incur risk.

⚠ The legal content is the part that matters most and dates fastest. Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA, the FMLA, the FLSA and OSHA are federal frameworks with genuine consequences, and a supervisor who mishandles an accommodation request or an overtime classification creates real liability for their employer. UWF names EEO and OSHA in the description for good reason.

Florida context worth knowing: Florida is an at-will employment state and a right-to-work state, so union density is low and the union material will feel more historical here than in other regions. ⚠ At-will is widely misunderstood to mean "no rules" — it does not. The federal protections above apply regardless, and Florida adds its own civil rights and workers' compensation frameworks.

⚠ The contact-hour figure is derived — the University of West Florida publishes none

UWF's catalog publishes a credit value in semester hours, the college and department, and prerequisites. It does not publish contact hours or terms of offering for any course. Every contact-hour value in a UWF guide in this repository is derived. The figure applies the standard lecture convention of 15 contact hours per credit, giving 45 hours for 3 semester hours. Confirm the meeting schedule and delivery mode with the department.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the role and evolution of the human resources function.
• Distinguish the responsibilities of HR specialists from those of operating managers.
• Describe strategic human resource management and its alignment with business goals.
• Conduct job analysis and write job descriptions and specifications.
• Describe workforce planning and forecasting of staffing needs.
• Describe recruitment methods and evaluate their effectiveness.
• Describe selection methods and their validity and reliability.
• Describe the legal framework governing selection decisions.
• Describe equal employment opportunity law including Title VII, ADA, and ADEA.
• Explain disparate treatment and disparate impact and the difference.
• Describe reasonable accommodation and the interactive process.
• Describe orientation, training, and employee development.
• Describe performance appraisal methods and their common failures.
• Describe compensation structure, job evaluation, and pay equity.
• Describe benefits and the legal requirements governing them.
• Describe wage and hour law including exempt and non-exempt classification.
• Describe workplace safety, OSHA obligations, and workers' compensation.
• Describe labour relations, unions, and the collective bargaining process.
• Describe progressive discipline and lawful documentation practice.
• Describe termination, separation, and the risks surrounding both.
• Describe employee relations, engagement, and retention.
• Apply ethical reasoning to a human resources decision.

Optional Outcomes

• Apply the material to a real organisation or case study.
• Work effectively in a team with defined roles and deadlines.
• Present and defend a recommendation to a business audience.
• Use AI-assisted tools appropriately and verify their output.
• Build a portfolio artefact suitable for showing an employer.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Role and evolution of the HR function
• HR specialists and operating managers
• Strategic human resource management
• Job analysis and descriptions
• Workforce planning
• Recruitment methods
• Selection methods, validity, reliability
• Legal framework for selection
• EEO law: Title VII, ADA, ADEA
• Disparate treatment and disparate impact
• Reasonable accommodation and the interactive process
• Orientation, training, development
• Performance appraisal and its failures
• Compensation and job evaluation
• Benefits and their regulation
• Wage and hour law and classification
• Safety, OSHA, workers' compensation
• Labour relations and collective bargaining
• Discipline and documentation
• Termination and separation
• Employee relations and retention
• Ethics in HR decisions

Optional Topics

• Applied case studies and live organisations
• Team practice and role definition
• Presenting to a business audience
• AI-assisted tooling and its governance
• Portfolio development

Resources & Tools

• The HR text the instructor assigns — Dessler's Human Resource Management, Noe's Fundamentals of Human Resource Management, and Mathis and Jackson are the three in common use.
• SHRM (shrm.org) — student membership is inexpensive and includes substantial resources; the toolkits and sample policies are what practitioners actually use.
• EEOC guidance (eeoc.gov) — free; the agency's own guidance documents are clearer than most textbook summaries, particularly on accommodation and harassment.
• US Department of Labor (dol.gov) — free; FLSA classification, FMLA and wage-and-hour material straight from the regulator, including its elaws advisors.
• OSHA (osha.gov) — free; standards, recordkeeping requirements, and the free 10-hour training that is a genuinely marketable line on a resume.
• Florida Commission on Human Relations and the Florida Division of Workers' Compensation — free; the state-level layer that federal sources do not cover.
• The UWF library's business databases — included in enrolment; industry reports and practitioner sources sit behind paywalls a student already has access to, and most never find out.
• LinkedIn Learning — frequently free through UWF or a Florida public library card; strong on specific tools, weak on judgement.

Career Pathways

• General and operations manager (SOC 11-1021) — the broadest destination, and the one most graduates reach through a functional role first.
• Human resources specialist (SOC 13-1071) and human resources manager (SOC 11-3121) — the specialist role is the normal entry point; the manager role follows experience.
• Training and development specialist (SOC 13-1151) and compensation and benefits analyst (SOC 13-1141).
• Project management specialist (SOC 13-1082) — and note that project work is entered from every discipline, not only from business.
• Logistician and supply chain analyst (SOC 13-1081), purchasing agent (SOC 13-1023), operations analyst (SOC 13-1111, management analyst).
• Management trainee and rotational programmes — ⚠ these recruit on a fixed annual cycle, often a year ahead. Students who wait until spring of their final year have already missed most of them.
• ⚠ Florida employer landscape: healthcare systems (AdventHealth, Orlando Health, BayCare, Baptist, Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola) are among the state's largest employers and run substantial HR and operations functions; hospitality and theme parks (Disney, Universal, and the cruise lines out of Miami, Port Canaveral and Tampa) are operations-intensive at enormous scale; defence and aerospace (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, and the Navy presence around Pensacola); logistics and distribution around Jacksonville and Central Florida; agriculture and food processing; and state, county and municipal government.
• Small and family business is a genuine Florida destination, not a fallback — the state has a very high rate of small business formation, and the SBDC network at Florida universities, including UWF, provides free consulting.

AI Integration

Management is being changed by AI in two distinct ways, and they need separating. The first is AI as a tool a manager uses. The second is AI as something a manager must govern — deployed in hiring, scheduling, performance evaluation and forecasting, where the consequences fall on people.

• Where AI tools genuinely help managers: drafting documents and correspondence, summarising long material, preparing meeting notes and first-draft plans, analysing survey and operational data, and rehearsing a difficult conversation before having it.
• ⚠ Where they fail: they fabricate confidently — including citations, statutes and figures; they do not know your organisation, your people, or your context; and they produce fluent text that reads as considered when nothing was considered.
• ⚠⚠⚠ Employment decisions are the highest-risk application, and this is not hypothetical. AI screening tools have been shown to reproduce and amplify bias present in historical hiring data. Under United States law the employer is liable for discriminatory outcomes regardless of whether a vendor's tool produced them, and disparate impact does not require intent. The EEOC has issued guidance specifically on this.
• ⚠⚠ Regulation is arriving and it is not uniform. Several jurisdictions now require bias auditing or candidate notification for automated employment decision tools. Where your employees and applicants are located determines what applies — not where your office is.
• Never put employee or applicant personal data into a public AI tool. Personnel records, medical information, disciplinary matters and compensation data must stay in controlled systems. This is a common and serious early-career mistake.
• ⚠ A human must own every consequential decision. "The system flagged it" is not an explanation you can give an employee, a regulator, or a court. Keep a person accountable, and be able to state the reason in plain language.
• Academic integrity: the course policy governs and policies differ. Read the syllabus, ask if unclear, and disclose what you used when asked. In a course teaching judgement, outsourcing the judgement defeats the purpose — which is a practical point, not a moral one.

Special Information

⚠⚠ A standing requirement — 45 completed hours — not a course prerequisite

• UWF publishes: "Completion of 45 hours of college course work is required prior to taking this course." That measures how far through a degree you are, not what you have studied.
• ⚠⚠ UWF uses more than one threshold in this prefix. Most MAN courses require 45 hours; MAN4280 and MAN4441 require 60; MAN3802 requires none. Do not assume the number carries across courses — read each entry.
• These are easy to overlook because they name no course and so never appear in a prerequisite chain.
• ⚠ Transfer students should confirm how their credit counts toward the total. Accepted transfer hours normally count, but dual enrolment, credit by examination and developmental coursework are treated differently by different institutions. Ask College of Business advising rather than assuming.
• Business colleges commonly layer further gates on top — admission to the major, a minimum grade point average, and a minimum grade in each core course. Confirm all of these against your own catalog year.

⚠⚠ Three ideas from this course that prevent expensive mistakes

• Document contemporaneously, factually, and consistently. Most employment disputes turn on what was recorded at the time. A record written after a dispute begins is worth very little, and inconsistent enforcement of a rule is itself evidence.
• ⚠⚠ Discrimination does not require intent. A neutral policy that disproportionately excludes a protected group can be unlawful under disparate impact unless it is job-related and consistent with business necessity. This is the single most misunderstood idea in employment law, and it is why selection procedures must be validated rather than merely well intentioned.
• ⚠ Misclassifying an employee as exempt is a common and costly error. The FLSA test turns on duties and salary, not on job title and not on whether the employee agreed. Back-pay liability accumulates quietly for years.

⚠ Florida-specific employment context

• Florida is an at-will employment state — either party may end the relationship at any time for any lawful reason. ⚠ "Any lawful reason" is the operative phrase: at-will does not permit discrimination, retaliation, or dismissal for a legally protected activity.
• Florida is a right-to-work state, so union membership cannot be required as a condition of employment and private-sector union density is low. The collective bargaining material will feel more historical here than in the industrial Midwest — though public-sector units, including education, are present.
• Florida's minimum wage is set by constitutional amendment and rises on a published schedule, diverging from the federal figure. ⚠ Check the current rate rather than relying on a textbook, which will be out of date.
• The Florida Civil Rights Act parallels federal protections with its own filing procedure through the Florida Commission on Human Relations, and deadlines differ from the federal ones.
• E-Verify obligations apply to Florida employers above a size threshold — a compliance requirement students frequently have not heard of.

⚠⚠ MAN3301 gates the human resources sequence

• Three UWF courses require MAN3301 Human Resources Management: MAN4341 Performance Management, MAN4350 Recruitment and Selection, and MAN4384 Strategic Human Resource Management. Together with MAN4402 Human Resource Law and MAN4330 Compensation and Benefits they form a coherent HR concentration.
• ⚠ MAN3301 itself is gated by standing, not by a course — 45 completed hours. So the whole HR sequence is unavailable until a student is roughly halfway through a degree, and the three courses above then sit behind it. Plan the sequence early or lose a year.
• Three of these courses are offered concurrently with graduate sections (MAN5347, MAN5351, MAN5331), which is a signal about pace — see the note where it applies.
• ⚠ If you want the SHRM or HRCI credential path, the sequence matters more than any single course. See the certification note below.

Certifications and credentials worth knowing about

• Human resources: SHRM-CP (Society for Human Resource Management) and PHR (HRCI) are the two entry-level credentials. ⚠ SHRM-CP can be sat by students in their final year at SHRM-aligned programmes, and student membership is inexpensive — ask the College of Business whether UWF's HR curriculum is SHRM-aligned, because it changes your eligibility timing.
• Project management: CAPM is designed for people without project experience and is the realistic student credential; PMP requires documented leading experience and comes later. PMI student membership substantially reduces the exam cost.
• Operations and supply chain: APICS/ASCM CPIM and CSCP, and ISM's CPSM for purchasing. Six Sigma Green Belt is widely recognised in manufacturing and healthcare operations.
• ⚠ A degree and a certification do different jobs. The degree is durable; certifications are current, specific, and expire. Employers ask for both and neither substitutes for the other.
• Experience beats both for most of these roles. An internship, a student organisation officer post, or a real project you can describe outperforms a certification with no practice behind it — and SHRM and PMI both run student chapters worth joining.

Transfer, articulation, and how Florida course levels work

In the Florida Statewide Course Numbering System the first digit is the level: 1 and 2 are lower division, 3 and 4 upper division, 5 and above graduate. ⚠ A lower-division course generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement — which matters in this prefix, where MAN2021 and MAN3025 both introduce management and only the second is upper division.

⚠⚠ Business programmes add a layer SCNS does not. Many Florida business colleges are AACSB accredited, and AACSB programmes commonly limit how much upper-division business coursework may transfer in — frequently requiring a substantial share to be taken in residence. A course can articulate under SCNS and still not count toward the major. Check the receiving programme's residency rule before relying on a transfer.

⚠ UWF states of its BSBA capstone that it "must be taken at UWF." Residency rules of that kind are common in business programmes and are worth checking early, because they cannot be worked around late.

Course format and position in the curriculum

• Lecture with case analysis, team project work, and written and oral reporting. ⚠ Management courses are graded substantially on communication, which surprises students who expected a quantitative business course.
• ⚠ No fee notices appear anywhere in the MAN prefix, and no "permission is required" marking except on the BSBA capstone. Enrolment is gated by standing and by MAN3301.
• Ask about delivery mode. UWF offers substantial online provision in the College of Business, and an online section of a team-based course demands more self-management, not less.
• UWF publishes no contact hours or terms of offering. A course offered in one term only will delay a sequence by a full year if missed — confirm with the department.

MAN3301 is 3 semester hours at the University of West Florida.