DIGITAL HR AND ORGANISATION

The course is part of the core curriculum of the Degree Programme in Data Analytics for Business and Society and integrates Human Resource Management, Organization and Data Analytics.
The course examines key people-management processes – workforce planning, recruiting and selection, and performance management – with particular attention to the use of data to support organizational decisions. The final part introduces the analysis of individual and collective behavior in organizations, focusing on social influence and contagion mechanisms.
The learning path progressively moves from relatively structured and measurable organizational problems to increasingly complex phenomena: from workforce sizing to selection, from reading behavior through data to performance management, and finally to the emergence of collective behavior.

At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- understand key people-management processes and their interdependencies;
- calculate workforce requirements using concepts such as headcount, FTE, workload and productive capacity, while considering contractual, organizational and professional constraints;
- understand and design the main stages of recruiting and selection processes;
- use people data and indicators to analyze individual and organizational phenomena;
- understand performance management systems, objectives and KPIs;
- distinguish evidence, correlations, interpretative hypotheses and causal relationships;
- understand key mechanisms of social influence, contagion and collective behavior in organizations;
- critically use digital and Artificial Intelligence tools, assessing their outputs, assumptions and limitations;
- present and discuss an organizational analysis, explaining methods, assumptions and decisions.

General knowledge of the main functions of business organizations through the fundamental courses of the bachelor’s degree in economics.

The course is organized into five modules:
1. Workforce Planning & Sizing
Headcount and FTE; full-time and part-time; workload and capacity; productive hours; workforce sizing; contractual, organizational and professional constraints; qualifications; scenario analysis.
2. Recruiting, Selection & Skills
Workforce requirements; job analysis; skills and qualifications; sourcing; screening; selection criteria; interviews and assessment; recruiting funnel; digital tools and AI in recruiting. Generali business case.
3. People Analytics: Reading Behavior Through Data
HR metrics; distributions; segmentation; cohort analysis; turnover; absenteeism; performance and careers; correlation; outliers; bias; confounding variables; correlation and causality.
4. Performance Management & Reward
Objectives and KPIs; individual, team and organizational performance; goal cascading; performance appraisal; feedback; incentives and variable remuneration; behavioral consequences of measurement systems. De'Longhi business case.
5. Social Influence & Collective Behavior
Social influence; peer effects; social contagion; social norms; conformity; information cascades; diffusion through social networks; emergence of collective behavior in organizations.

Teaching materials, lecture notes, datasets, exercises and business cases will be provided by the instructor through the course platform.
References and additional readings for the individual modules will be communicated during the course and made available through the course platform.

The final examination is individual and consists of a written test and an oral examination.
The written test assesses knowledge of the concepts and technical tools covered during the course through theoretical questions, short problems and/or simple applications.
Passing the written test is a prerequisite for admission to the oral examination.
The oral examination consists of the presentation and discussion of one of the exercises or business cases included in the course programme.
Group-work presentations held during the course also prepare students for the oral examination.

written and oral

The instructor is responsible for ensuring the authenticity and originality of all examinations and coursework. In cases of suspected academic misconduct, an additional on-site assessment may be required during the exams, which may differ from the standard format.

The final grade is expressed on a 30-point scale. Passing the written test is required to access the oral examination.
The final grade considers both the knowledge of theoretical and technical contents assessed through the written test and the ability to apply, explain and critically discuss such knowledge assessed through the oral examination.

Teaching activities include:
a) theoretical lectures;
b) worked examples and guided exercises;
c) individual and group exercises;
d) business cases based on real organizational problems;
e) student presentations and class discussions of group work.

PLEASE NOTE: course contents and assessment methods have been partially revised compared with the previous academic year.
Students are therefore required to follow strictly the programme and examination requirements published in the syllabus for their academic year.
Non-attending students are always guaranteed the possibility to take the examination.
Materials required to prepare the exercises that may be discussed during the oral examination will be made available according to the instructions published by the instructor on the course platform.