Human Resource Personnel Benefit From General Psychology Courses

If you walk into a large corporation's human resources (HR) department, you will find a number of professionals working in several different capacities. Among them will be someone on payroll, another will be a benefits director, a third handles safety and health issues and there are also recruiters. Still, the largest percentage will more than likely be devoted to, for lack of a better term, employee relations.

If you were to examine the academic careers of all those in employee relations, you will find one particularly striking element in all their resumes. Each and every one of them took their share of courses in psychology. Think about it and it makes sense. When your job is all about handling issues faced by your employer's personnel, psychology can provide an array of techniques and tools no other field can.

After all, psychology is the science of the human mind and behavior. Corporations have deployed these armies of professionals as a way to ensure internal harmony and maximum efficiency out of their workforce. In many ways, having one or two psychologists on staff for everyday issues is a good cost effectiveness. It certainly beats hiring an independent consultant every time a department has a relatively minor tiff.

This doesn't mean these HR professionals come with their own chaise lounges. Actually, working in human resources is a white collar professional position. A clean and private office, desk and computer are standard fair. Hours can be particularly long, especially if you are in labor negotiations during a strike or something similar.

As for education, there are many on-campus and online colleges that offer accredited curriculums in the field. It is actually an interdisciplinary field that also incorporates such disciplines as business administration, law, and finance, as well as a number of behavioral sciences. Many top HR personnel also don't stop with their bachelor's degree. Very often they go on to night or online class until they achieve their master's.

As far as the occupation's future, while it did take its hits during the last recession, the Bureau of Labor Statistics believes this was only a temporary setback. Overall, they reported over 900,000 people working in one aspect of HR or another. They project that an additional 200,000 will be needed by 2018. This growth rate is well above the national average.

There is a lot of room when it comes to salary, dependent on years of experience, education and place of employment. The Bureau reports salaries range from $42,000 to $67,000. It can get much, much higher and with some foresight and hard work it can lead to a senior executive position.

Yet at the core of the profession, it's all about trying to maintain harmony and maximum efficiency out of a work force. As the bulk of company personnel is still composed of human beings, having some education and training in general psychology makes plain common sense. Often, those in this profession wish to go that extra distance and should look into graduate scholarships when that time comes. After all, the field is all about dealing with people, and that's the natural domain of the discipline.