It is the competence center for questions regarding Human Resource Management, Leadership, and Employment Law settled at Schleswig-Holstein‘s westcoast. Local organizations are thus brought together with research groups and students of the university establishing synergetic effects: Organizations benefit from our experts' scientific knowledge, students learn based on real-life organizational problems how the business works, and the WinHR strengthens the Westcoast area with its insights gained from various collaborations.

HR-related problems are naturally multidimensional and can only be solved by applying interdisciplinary approaches. To reflect the most important aspects of HR, experts and researchers in economics, law, psychology, and information technology joined to build up the Westcoast Institute of Human Resources to face the diversity of this topic.

Our activities are threefold comprising teaching, research, and consultancy.

Teaching

Students are highly interested in Human Resources Management. As an institute that is doing research and consultancy, we guarantee excellent courses based on the scientific state-of-the-art to raise the employability of our graduates.

Our main aim is to design the study profile "Human Resources Management" with regard to content and didactics in an optimal way for our students. Selectable by five of our study programs, the HRM-profile turned out to be the most popular. Our design, which summarizes the interferences of contents but also respects the characteristics of the different study programs, offers specifically defined and carefully coordinated chances for course selection in this profile.

Research

Our research focuses on human behavior and its interaction with organizations and other work-related situations. We conduct research in collaboration with different partners from research and practice to answer questions out of the broad area of Human Resources Management. In our research and consulting activities, we focus on topics of human behavior in work and work-related contexts (leadership, organization, job performance, compliance, etc.).

Consultancy

Organizations can count on the WinHR as a strong partner when facing complex HR-related problems. Change processes, personnel selection and job performance are only a few examples of situations, that may imply risks and be a challenge every organization. In those situations, it is advantageous to collaborate with a partner who is seen as neutral and goal-oriented by all stakeholders. With broad expertise in four disciplines, the WinHR has excellent preconditions to bypass risks and use evolving chances.

At WinHR, we are conducting research on relevant future-oriented topics of HRM. Our main goal is the applicability of our results.

We conduct research on the following topics:

• Labor Shortages, Migration and Human Resources Management - Organizational Needs and Action Plans
  • Survey on Labor Shortage, Migration and HRM in Schleswig-Holstein
  • Bachelor Thesis: Guidelines for the Integration of Refugees
• E-Recruitment and E-Assessment
  • Validation of a Web-Based Personality Inventory
  • Student Project: Gamification of Web-Based Tests
  • Bachelor Thesis: Active Sourcing
  • Bachelor Thesis: Recruiting Videos
• Employee Loyalty - Antecedents and Consequences of Employee Loyalty and Organizational Attractiveness
  • Student Project: Criteria of Organizational Attractiveness
• Leadership - Leading Freelancers and Coping with Low-Performance

Here is a selection of potential projects:

• Benchmarking of the Human Resources Management Practices
• Development and Evaluations of Organizational Processes
• Development of Competency Models
• Development of Instruments for Personnel Development (e.g. Guidelines for Appraisal Interviews)
• Development of Instruments for Personnel Selection (e.g. Management Studies, Structured Interviews)
• Development of Instruments for Controlling and Performance Management
• Analysis of the Effectiveness of Compensation and Rewards
• Development of Specific Communication Concepts for Compliance and Change
• Employer Branding

These examples of possible projects leave space for individual requests. If you have specific ideas, please do not hesitate to contact us.

For Organizations:

By cooperating with WinHR, you and your organization my benefit from certain aspects:

• Scientifically proven methods
• Low involvement of your organization's personnel's time
• Know-how-transfer of state-of-the-art knowledge
• Motivated and goal-oriented teams in conjunction with quality assurance by the WinHR's professors
• Close contact to young potentials and tomorrow's graduates
• Publicity caused by mentioning your organization in scientific publications and local press releases

For Students:

• Projects with real-life problems
• Taught content is applicable
• Intensive learning experience (methods you applied stay longer in mind)
• Useful contact to organizations
• Insights into the work-related real-life
• Applied project management