Leeds University Business School students win CIPD prize

Minus temperatures and several inches of snow didn’t halt the annual Leeds University Business School Human Resource Management in Practice awards ceremony.

Minus temperatures and several inches of snow didn’t halt the annual Leeds University Business School Human Resource Management in Practice awards ceremony.

Students from the MA Human Resource Management (HRM) wowed the judges with a series of team presentations in a bid to win the title of HRM in Practice Team of the Year. Each team presentation was the culmination of a hands-on project, partnered with a company in the industry.

Teams were challenged to identify the three main HR challenges facing the organisation over the next five years and explain how they would address them.

The winning team was awarded HRM in Practice Team of the Year, congratulations to Jumoke Ajayi, Nidhi Menon, Elanor Boyes, Dearbhia Mohan, Xiaoqi Bian, and Qianwen Ma.

Students also heard from guest speaker Jonny Gifford, Senior Adviser Organisational Behaviour at CIPD, who hosted a HR decision making masterclass.

The Management in Practice pathway is part of the CIPD-accredited Masters degree, which is designed to prepare students for a career in human resource management.

Jumoke Ajayi, who was on the winning team, explained how she developed her analytical skills during the project, “Almost every week there was a new problem or task, requiring us to look at each task as a whole and decide how to approach it”.

Jumoke also noted the diversity of nationalities in her team, “I learnt the importance of diverse teams and ensuring every group member’s voice is heard. A lot of our ideas would not have been as well developed or versed without the input of each member and their unique way of thinking”.

Read more about the MA Human Resource Management.