No organization can exist, let alone function without people; without their resources of human knowledge, skills, experience, creativity and effort. The concept and the field of human resources management has emerged clearly only over the past decade or so, extending its scope well beyond the role often attributed to the traditional personnel function. It is no longer simply the administration, servicing, and control of personnel through a series of employee-related activities, nor is it simply the management of people at work. In recent years it has emerged as a strategic activity that ensures the organization develops and allocates its human resources in harmony with its other strategic plans and corporate objectives. The field has changed, not only in its content but also in its approach, its scope of coverage, and its conceptualization and appreciation of the role and importance within the organization of the human resources and in the quality of performance demanded of the human resource manager and his or her staff.

The Human Resources Management concentration aims to equip students with a comprehensive base of knowledge and abilities in general management and business on which is built a fundamental appreciation, knowledge and skill base in the field of human resources management. This preparation is appropriate to employment either in a general management role or as a member of the human resources management function of an organization. Within the human resources management function, the graduate would be prepared to progress either in a generalized role or within one of the emerging specialist fields such as recruitment, selection and placement, human resources development, compensation and benefits, and industrial relations.