Course list

People may assume that it's employee satisfaction or commitment to their job that promotes higher performance, but it's engagement. In this course, you will examine the foundational drivers of engagement and explore the components of successful engagement initiatives. When completed, this course will help you identify strategies for bringing about engagement in organizations.

In companies where 60-70% of employees are engaged, shareholder returns are approximately 24%. Compare that to companies where only 50-60% of employees are engaged: shareholder returns are as low as approximately 5%. Similarly, teams with high engagement experience 4.1% turnover, as opposed to approximately 14.5% turnover for teams with low engagement.  These figures clearly illustrate the significant impact that managers and HR professionals can have if they better understand what impacts the engagement of employees.

In this course, you will learn about perceptual and psychological processes that impact the way that individuals interact with people who are demographically dissimilar from them. You will examine psychological processes that impact personnel decision making within organizations. This understanding will help HR professionals to design better practices and will help line managers to more effectively leverage the potential among employees from diverse backgrounds.

The course will also help you understand why “Diversity” is now often referred to as “Diversity & Inclusion” by explaining what inclusion is and how it differs from diversity. Why is inclusion so important, and what are its building blocks?

The management of diversity, equity, and inclusion has evolved from "counting the numbers" to "making the numbers count." Organizations that no longer look at inclusion as having a good mix of diverse people, but as a way to fully engage employees, partners and customers have an opportunity to compete globally. Diversity, equity, and inclusion must be embedded in an organizational culture to make a positive impact on performance.

This course, based on the expertise of Cornell University Professor Lisa Nishii, differentiates diversity from inclusion and how organizations often miss the real opportunity. Students assess three levels of inclusion and identify evidence that can be used for each level to assess presence and effectiveness. HR executives and leaders share their perspective on diversity and inclusion and how they made the shift to inclusion at organizational, managerial and work group levels.

Inclusion is a relational construct. It's ultimately about how your team functions and performs based on the quality of social connections, openness to learning, agility, and depth of decision making. How can you foster greater inclusion within your workgroup? Throughout these modules, you will be asked to reflect upon your own experiences and apply the lessons in the modules in your own role.

You will examine the concept of climate, specifically inclusive climates, as well as learn about the specific behaviors and skills you need to demonstrate in order to be successful in shaping an inclusive climate.

Symposium sessions feature three days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions to explore today’s most pressing topics. The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

Join us for the next Symposium! From the workplace to our homes, discussions about diversity and inclusion are necessary to become aware of our biases and promote action and change. Throughout this Symposium, you will examine and dissect key diversity and inclusion topics like psychological safety, belonging, and equity. By participating in dynamic and relevant dialogues, you will discover a variety of perspectives and create genuine connections with participants from diverse industries and backgrounds.

Upcoming Symposium: January 2025 

All sessions are held on Zoom.

You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete the certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.

In this course, you will learn how to make disability inclusion an explicit part of your overarching business strategy. Starting with a a broad overview of the role HR professionals play in addressing this issue, you will maximize workplace disability inclusion and minimize disability discrimination across the employment process. You will discuss the importance of inclusion for people with disabilities, employers, and the business case for aligning disability inclusion with a company's strategic human-capital, diversity, and customer-service imperatives. You will also dive into the implications of effective HR policies and practices in the recruitment and hiring process, career development and retention initiatives, and compensation and benefits programs. Finally you will utilize metrics and analytics to measure the employee benefit of inclusion in your organization.

In this course, you will explore the emerging initiatives in technology to actively recruit and hire individuals on the Autism Spectrum. The course will encourage you to assess implications for human resource policies and practices in this area. You will then look into the opportunities and challenges encountered across the employment process in designing and implementing these kinds of initiatives, and evaluate the importance of creating a workplace culture that embraces a diverse workforce, including individuals with disabilities, and those who are neuro-atypical.

This course focuses on effective recruitment, screening, selection, orientation, on-the-job training, and preparatory supervisor and workforce training for neurodiverse employees. You will build a workplace culture inclusive of individuals who are neurodiverse with considerations for career advancement, retention, and performance management. You will also build internal and external support systems to support success for those employees. Finally, you will use metrics and analytics to determine the program's effectiveness at the individual and organizational levels.

In this course, developed by Professor Diane Burton, Ph.D. of Cornell University's ILR School, you will learn the skills necessary to reassert your HR role as a trusted, neutral advisor to employees at all levels within your organization. Students will develop coaching skills and learn how to foster a coaching culture while managing organizational HR needs with the most effective response for each situation.

Human resource professionals must navigate and deal with a wide range of legal and policy issues in the workplace. They must know the responsibilities and boundaries of their own role, and they must assess issues and consult appropriate legal or expert counsel.

This course will help current and aspiring HR managers and staff to establish a structured framework for systematic analysis of employee issues that may have legal implications. It focuses on the layers of employee rights, the HR role, appropriate consultation with legal counsel, and the use of a step-by-step process in the assessment of workplace issues. By the end of this course, you will develop a systematic foundation for managing employment law issues.

How It Works

I have always been passionate to voice the voice of the unheard and provide an opportunity to bring everyone to the table. This certificate gave me the experience, tools and skills to do so... It was exactly what I needed.
‐ Josiah E.
Josiah E.

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