HR University

The Office of Personnel Management and the Chief Human Capital Officers Council have launched the first phase of the new Human Resources University, a one-stop training center for federal HR professionals.

HRU will include courses offered by OPM, other participating federal agencies and private training vendors in a combination of classroom and online offerings, OPM said. Users will be able to register and track all courses offered through HRU.

OPM said HRU will be rolled out in three phases. The first involved launching the basic framework of the website, which offers several OPM-approved HR courses from across government, human resources career maps, success factors for HR professionals and career guides for each specialty area.

Phases two and three of the initiative will roll out in the coming months, OPM said. The second step centers around building relationships with interested vendors to develop and offer new HR-related courses, and the third will focus on bridging the approved competencies and course curriculum into a certification program for the federal HR professional.

Thus far, the course catalog includes classes on some basic HR subjects like conflict resolution, setting basic pay and hiring reform. The catalog also offers some IT-related courses that we may not have seen even just a few years ago, with topics such as managing a flexible workplace and collaborating across organizational boundaries.

"The roles and responsibilities of the HR profession are emerging and growing and the HR University is the first step at creating a single source for consistent human resources training," OPM Director John Berry said in a statement.