I had the opportunity to visit the Business Career Expo in Vancouver last week and was given the opportunity to interact with some of the best and brightest future minds. There were lots of eager students looking to find information on how to advance themselves professionally as they approached the completion of their undergraduate studies.

One scenario stuck out for me. John, a freshly graduated business student, explained to me his fundamental passion for people systems and practices – Human Resources Management (HRM), by another name. One small problem, though: he graduated with a degree concentrated in finance. How could he get himself in a position to pursue his true passion, after finding out ‘too late’ that his discipline of study might be leading him down the wrong path?  I told John that he was probably out of luck and would have to deal with his decision to crunch numbers for the rest of his life…

Just kidding.

I explained to John that he is in an excellent position to pursue his passion of both people and numbers, for the same reason I chose to study HRM during my time at SFU. I was once a wondering soul (you could argue strongly that I still am) who didn’t know what to do beyond school. What could I study for the remainder of my academic undergraduate career that would put me in the best position to pursue my passions after? To me, the clear winner was Human Resources Management.

I chose HRM because I felt it was the only discipline which took a global approach to understanding business in the context of its enormous open system of financial, accounting, human capital and marketing influences. It was the only course of study that truly integrated the other disciplines – Finance, Accounting, and Marketing – in a way that could be practically applied as I evolved from a student to a professional. Add to this HR’s holistic progression into a strategic, metrics-focused hub, and you have the theoretical and practical pieces in place to truly understand and enact change in the ways business is thought and practiced.

In applying this approach to understanding business, I feel that John – with his a finance concentration – is well prepared to tackle the complexities of strategic Human Resources practice. Taking into account his underlying passion for people practices and his background in the analysis of quantity-rich financial measures, he is perhaps a step ahead in understanding how the increasingly integrated business will evolve to create value for its growing list of stakeholders. In other words, his understanding of quantitative finance will mesh perfectly with the metrics-hungry approach of HR.

In a previous post, I urged the notion that the practice of human resources now IS business. This post continues to speak to that nature. To those who have a drive to understand how systems of any kind affect people, how are you integrating HR?