Higher Education HR Management and Academic Workforce Training Course

Course overview

Higher education HR teams work within a workforce model unlike most commercial organisations: academic freedom, collegial governance, fixed-term research funding, professional-services career structures, workload allocation, union recognition and regulated equality duties all shape people decisions. HR practitioners must advise credibly when a faculty seeks to restructure, a department faces a capability concern, a research contract is ending, or leaders need evidence of pay and workload inequity. This course equips participants to manage those issues with defensible processes, reliable workforce data and an informed understanding of the academic employment context.

Participants examine the full higher education employee lifecycle, from workforce planning and role design to academic recruitment, job evaluation, performance management, employee relations and succession planning. They learn to build workforce plans that distinguish academic, research, teaching-only and professional-services populations; apply HERA-style role-analysis principles; interpret workload and headcount data; design fair fixed-term contract processes; and prepare evidence-based recommendations for senior leaders. The course also addresses consultation, grievance, disciplinary and capability cases in unionised and collegial environments, alongside equality impact assessment and practical approaches to reducing workforce risk.

Delivery combines instructor-led teaching with realistic university cases, spreadsheet-based workforce analysis, consultation planning and facilitated decision-making exercises. Participants work on a running institutional scenario involving faculty growth, funding uncertainty and staff concerns. By the end of the week, each participant produces an Academic Workforce Management Action Plan containing a workforce dashboard, role and resourcing recommendations, a risk register, stakeholder map and a 90-day implementation schedule that can be adapted for their own institution.

The course is designed for HR professionals and people managers who already understand core HR practice and now need to apply it confidently in universities, colleges, research institutes or academic health partnerships.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Develop a faculty-level workforce plan using headcount, FTE, contract-type and turnover data
• Analyse academic and professional-services role requirements using HERA role-analysis principles
• Build an Excel workforce dashboard showing vacancy, fixed-term, workload and succession risks
• Design a fair recruitment and selection process for academic, research and teaching-focused roles
• Prepare an equality impact assessment for a proposed workforce restructure or policy change
• Apply structured consultation planning to academic change proposals involving recognised unions
• Construct a defensible capability or performance-management case file for an academic employee
• Produce a 90-day Academic Workforce Management Action Plan with owners, milestones and controls

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Higher Education HR Business Partners — who advise faculties and professional-services divisions on complex workforce decisions
• HR Managers — who need consistent processes for academic, research and professional-services staff
• Faculty HR Managers — who translate institutional policy into practical local workforce action
• Employee Relations Advisers — who manage consultation, grievance, discipline and capability matters in unionised settings
• Academic Workforce Planning Analysts — who turn FTE, contract and vacancy data into resourcing recommendations
• Departmental Administrators and Faculty Managers — who support recruitment, workload planning and staff-change implementation

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience of core HR activities such as recruitment, employee relations, performance management, policy interpretation or workforce reporting. They should be comfortable reading HR metrics including headcount, FTE, turnover and absence, and using Microsoft Excel for filters, formulas and basic charts. Familiarity with their institution’s HR policies, union recognition arrangements and academic staff categories is useful, but not essential. Participants do not need prior HERA accreditation, employment-law qualification, Power BI experience or advanced statistical knowledge. This is not a beginner HR course; complete newcomers should first gain grounding in general HR practice.

Training methodology

The instructor uses short, focused teaching segments to introduce higher education workforce models, followed by hands-on application to a realistic university case. Participants work with anonymised staff datasets in Excel, assess role evidence against HERA-style factors, draft consultation and equality-impact documents, and rehearse decisions through faculty leadership and union stakeholder scenarios. Small-group critiques compare alternative approaches to fixed-term employment, workload pressure and capability management. Each day adds a component to the final Academic Workforce Management Action Plan, with instructor feedback and peer challenge before individual application planning.

Course outline

Day 1: The Higher Education Workforce Context

• Academic, research, teaching-only and professional-services workforce segments
• Academic freedom, collegial governance and managerial accountability
• Headcount, FTE, establishment and funded-post distinctions
• Higher education employment models and fixed-term research funding
• Faculty operating models and devolved HR responsibilities
• Workload allocation models and capacity-planning inputs
• Workforce risk categories for universities and research institutes

Workshop: Participants map their own institution’s workforce segments and produce a faculty workforce-risk heat map for the course case.

Day 2: Workforce Planning, Role Design and Resourcing

• Demand-and-supply workforce planning for student, research and service activity
• Scenario planning for enrolment volatility and grant-funded staffing
• FTE modelling, vacancy rates and turnover calculations in Microsoft Excel
• Succession-risk analysis for academic leadership and specialist technical roles
• HERA role-analysis principles and evidence collection
• Role design for teaching, research and knowledge-exchange responsibilities
• Academic recruitment selection criteria and structured assessment methods

Workshop: Using an anonymised faculty dataset, participants build an Excel workforce dashboard and recommend a resourcing scenario.

Day 3: Performance, Development and Employee Relations

• Academic performance expectations across teaching, research and service
• Objective setting where outputs include scholarly and collegial contributions
• Capability-management evidence, support plans and review milestones
• Development planning for early-career researchers and academic leaders
• Grievance, disciplinary and dignity-at-work case triage
• Recognised union relationships and local consultation protocols
• ACAS Code of Practice principles in formal employee relations processes

Workshop: Participants prepare a capability support plan and case-management chronology for an academic performance scenario.

Day 4: Equality, Change and Consultation

• Equality impact assessment for workforce policy and structural change
• Pay, progression and promotion data analysis by protected characteristic
• Fixed-term contract review and objective-justification documentation
• Redeployment, redundancy and selection-pool design in universities
• Consultation stakeholder mapping for faculties and central services
• Change communication for academic and professional-services audiences
• Risk registers and decision logs for people-change programmes

Workshop: Teams complete an equality impact assessment, consultation plan and risk register for a proposed faculty restructure.

Day 5: Strategic HR Delivery and Action Planning

• Translating institutional strategy into faculty people priorities
• HR metrics for governing bodies, executive teams and faculty boards
• Microsoft Power BI workforce dashboard design principles
• Workforce governance, data ownership and reporting cadence
• Prioritising interventions using impact-effort and risk matrices
• Writing evidence-based recommendations for senior academic leaders
• Ninety-day implementation planning and benefits tracking

Workshop: Participants present their Academic Workforce Management Action Plan and receive instructor and peer feedback on implementation priorities.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, HERA (Higher Education Role Analysis), ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions