Sustainable Work - Professional Diploma

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Us?
Engaging in Professional Education at the Kemmy Business School  starts with you. Our programmes align with the latest professional and industry needs and are always anchored by international research and best practice. Each programme is carefully co-designed with industry. Critical academic thinking sits alongside practitioner insights drawn from our longstanding strategic partnerships across the Atlantic Corridor and beyond. In choosing professional education at the Kemmy Business School, you will have a range of flexible learning options designed to complement your personal and work life to empower you to take the next step in your career.

What are the Benefits for me and my Organisation?
On completion of the Professional Diploma in Sustainable Work, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate a systematic understanding of contemporary and emerging social, economic, environmental, and technological developments and challenges associated with the future of work and employment.
• Appraise conceptual, theoretical, and empirical foundations of sustainable and inclusive work and employment in an era of digital transformation.
• Critically evaluate the opportunities and difficulties that the future design of work and management of people may present.
• Make informed judgments and evidenced-based decisions on complex sustainable work and employment issues.
• Use various business media to communicate ideas, insights, analyses, and policies to peer and practitioner audiences.
• Engage with key internal and external organisational stakeholders to influence and advocate for a sustainable and inclusive approach to work design and employment.
• Take responsibility for the design of sustainable work and employment initiatives.
• Self-evaluate and take responsibility for your own continuing professional development as a 'T-shaped' professional.
• Provide insightful, original, and creative viewpoints of sustainable work initiatives informed by cutting-edge, multidisciplinary research and knowledge.

Who should be interested in this Programme?
This innovative programme is ideally suited to people managers, line managers, supervisors, HR professionals, and those tasked with leading out on sustainable business transformation or strategic change projects related to digital transformation, and anyone advocating for employees and sustainable workplaces.

What is the weekly learning and time commitment?

• One-Week Online Induction - Before starting the programme, all learners participate in a one-week online induction programme. This introduces the virtual learning environment, the course content, your lecturers and peers. The induction proves particularly useful for those returning to third-level education after a break of several years, helping to ease you into the programme and make you feel confident and motivated about beginning your modules.
   
• Module. Break. Repeat. - This Professional Diploma takes approximately 9 months, typically running from September through to May each year with a 6-week break-in December/January. It is delivered online, allowing you to learn at your own pace, but the average time commitment each week is around 10-15 hours. The programme is made up of four 6-credit modules and two 3-credit modules by the Futures Professional Project outlined above in the Programme Content. Each module of learning lasts 7 weeks. 
   
• A Learning Pattern for Professionals
  • Within each core module there will be a number of live lunchtime sessions, typically lasting one hour.
  • For the Future Focused Professional modules, there will be 6 evening sessions during the Semester, which may last up to two hours each.  Some of these sessions will be dedicated to groupwork involving students from other PD programmes.
  • Each week you will engage with online videos from your lecturers or industry experts, listen to podcasts and draw from a range of business cases and other materials designed to build our knowledge and insights around that week's topic.
  • You will complete short online activities each week. These may include writing a blog on a business issue, contributing to a Discussion Forum, or writing up knowledge or insights you have developed from your research on a particular topic. Activities may be individual or with a peer group, and will draw from the provided content, your own research of the topic, or other resources from within your business, such as a real work example.
  • Individual work is entirely self-paced, however, group work requires each peer group to establish their own schedule, either during work hours, in the evening, or over weekends as appropriate to the needs of the group.
  • From time to time, you will complete a learning assessment. We ensure that these are relevant to your own professional or work context, such as exploring a relevant business case, completing an audit of something in your workplace, or developing a new strategy or approach relevant to you.

Who can I contact for more information? 

For more information on this programme, email PDSustainableWork@ul.ie