Getting a master’s degree in a business-related discipline is something that is becoming more and more popular with people who want to run their own businesses. While entrepreneurs, unlike people in traditional employment paths, don’t need to worry about having the right piece of paper to qualify for the management level job they want to do, there is a huge amount of value to the education you can get from a business focused master’s degree when it comes to performing at your best as a leader, and this is something that an increasing number of business owners are starting to take advantage of.
With online degree courses like the one at https://studyonline.rmit.edu.au/online-programs/master-of-hr-management, which is a Master of HR online program, it is possible to study and work towards a master’s while also running your business. This is because online degrees allow you to be flexible about when you study and to work on your course from home, your office or wherever else you need to be!
So, as gaining a degree at the master’s level is easier to access than ever before, the important decision for business owners who want to further their education to make is what they should study. There are plenty of choices, for instance MBA programs, some with specialisms such as marketing, or programs like the Master of HR which go into the most detail about a particular business function and educate you to a very advanced level in this specialism. Choosing what to study is mainly about identifying what is most relevant to your situation, both in terms of what your business does and in which areas you may currently feel your own skills are lacking.
Here are some reasons why you might want to consider the master’s program in HR management:
You Run a Business That Requires a Lot of Manpower
All businesses require people, and as businesses grow, it is only natural that more people are needed to meet increasing demand. However, in some cases, the relationship between the size and income of the business and the number of people needed to make it run at its best is more closely tied. This can be the case if your business requires people to actually deliver its services, rather than to develop products. As an example, a company who specialise in developing software that is then provided on a SaaS (software as a service) basis can grow its customer base exponentially without needing many more people to support it than are needed to initially develop and maintain the product. It will have growing needs in terms of salesforce and in terms of overheads like contract management, but winning a new customer does not mean it needs dedicated staff to work on that customer’s needs. On the other hand, an IT consultancy that provides the staff you need to manage and do in-house software development projects on site for its clients will need to have more people the more clients it has.
If the success and growth of your business naturally comes with a large uptick in personnel, many of the challenges your company will face will be in relation to people management and recruitment. Staff retention will also be a very important thing to your company. Additionally, with a company that has a lot of staff, you need to have the most efficient, effective and compliant business processes when it comes to HR. Making yourself a HR expert by doing a master’s degree in the topic will therefore pay dividends for you.
You Lack Experience in This Field of Management
Perhaps you had a lot of career experience in the corporate world as a specialist in your field before you started a business, but you never had a lot of line management responsibilities and weren’t involved in things like hiring people or giving appraisals. Perhaps you have been running a business for a while, but in the early stages you didn’t need any staff or mainly relied on third party service providers instead of your own employees. There are plenty of reasons why someone who is a competent business owner may feel that the people management aspect is where they are currently missing out on knowledge and experience. People management isn’t just about the interpersonal stuff either, and there are all kinds of considerations when you are bringing employees into a business that may be bewildering to you if it’s not something you know about yet.
Doing a master’s degree is usually a good way to round out your own management skills and fill in any gaps in your knowledge to make you a better manager. By choosing to study HR, you can upgrade yourself when it comes to this part of what you need to do to make your business its most effective.
Your Business is in an HR Adjacent Field
A final reason why you may choose to do a master of HR management degree course rather than other business related courses that are out there is because your business is adjacent to corporate HR, and you want a better understanding of the challenges and needs of your clients. This could be the case if, for example, you run a recruitment agency or a software company whose products are related to business HR. While it is a course that will help you with your own business’s management, it will also give you a detailed level of knowledge about HR that your customers will value immensely and which will also be a valuable asset in showing them that you are the best and most qualified person for them to be working with.
If any of these situations apply to you and you are looking to do an online business-related master’s degree, it is well worth considering HR management as the discipline you start studying. Take a look at some of the courses available online today!
