How can postgraduate study enhance your career and annual salary?

It’s a statistic that HR professionals might react to with fear, confusion, optimism or a combination of all three: around 40% of current Australian jobs have a high probability of being automated in the next 10-15 years, according to research by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia.

What is certain is that to facilitate the replacement of traditional roles with more sophisticated ones, the HR function will have to play a significant part. This is particularly significant given the costs linked to the poor management of redundancies and employee displacement.

Meanwhile, organisational change management (technological and workforce change) and corporate social responsibility are contributing to a growing demand for HR skills, according to Deloitte’s report, The Future of Work, Occupational and education trends in human resources in Australia.

This is expected to drive future growth in the HR workforce, increasing from 218,000 in 2016-17 to 245,000 in 2021-22. The average annual growth rate of 2.3% is higher than the 1.5% per annum growth forecast for the entire Australian labour force.

So how can HR professionals ensure they keep their sought-after skills relevant so that they can tackle the challenges of the future of work? According to Dr Alan Montague from RMIT University, studying a postgraduate qualification in HR management can help build on the skills and knowledge developed through undergraduate study and work experience, and provide opportunities to apply these skills in evolving workplace settings.

Moreover, further study in HR can facilitate future career development and assist in accelerated progression in HR across a diverse range of industries (such as health, construction, law, government and engineering).

Dr Montague added that applied teaching methods (such as work-integrated learning and authentic case studies) aligned to what occurs in workplaces can be invaluable to students in HR by enabling them to develop a practical understanding of how academic theory can be implemented in solving real-world problems.

For example, this might include case studies in designing and implementing a recruitment strategy that accounts for an organisation’s changing skill requirements due to technological change, or applying adult learning principles to develop a training program to meet the needs of an organisation’s current or emerging workforce.

The Deloitte report also found that the average annual income of HR workers with a postgraduate qualification in Management and Commerce was $137,324 in 2016-17, and this is forecast to rise to $160,132 in 2021-22.

For workers who have completed a postgraduate qualification in Management and Commerce, a lifetime wage premium of 48% (relative to workers with no post-school qualifications) is directly attributable to their qualification.

Designed to equip you with the tools necessary to contribute to businesses on a global scale, the online Master of Human Resource Management at RMIT University will see you learn how to tackle a broad range of HR issues, relatable to real-world situations and current trends.