PHR study plan
PHR · Give each week a clear focus.
8 weeks · About 7 hours per week
Employee and Labor Relations
Map the full employee-and-labor-relations domain into a one-page outline covering employee engagement, discipline and termination, work rules, and union dynamics
Distinguish the coverage and core requirements of the major labor statutes (NLRA, LMRA, LMRDA, RLA, WARN, USERRA) without confusing one statute's rules with another's
Sequence the standard union organizing process from authorization card signing through election, certification, and first-contract bargaining
Explain the rights of employees, the obligations of the employer, and the meaning of unfair labor practices during an organizing campaign
Your checkpoint
A one-page labor-law comparison table (statute, who it covers, key employer obligations, common violation) plus a 25-question self-quiz scored at 80% or better
Employee and Labor Relations
Draft a progressive discipline process that specifies each step, the documentation required at each step, and the exceptions that justify skipping steps
Differentiate the procedures and documentation demands of a misconduct investigation from those of a performance-improvement conversation
Compare grievance handling, mediation, arbitration, and peer review as dispute-resolution mechanisms, stating when each is appropriate
Construct defensible termination scenarios and identify the facts that would make each one risky
Your checkpoint
A written discipline-and-investigation playbook (steps, documentation checklist, escalation triggers) applied to three short fact patterns with a stated recommended outcome for each
Talent Planning and Acquisition
Build a workforce-planning model that links projected demand, current supply, and a stated gap-closing strategy
Conduct a job analysis and convert the results into a competency-based job description and selection criteria
Compare sourcing channels and evaluate them against cost-per-hire, time-to-fill, and quality-of-hire metrics
Design a structured selection process that reduces bias, including structured interviews, scoring rubrics, and valid pre-employment assessments
Outline an onboarding sequence with milestones at 30, 60, and 90 days
Your checkpoint
A complete hiring package for one role: competency-based job description, structured interview guide with scored rubric, and a metric dashboard defining time-to-fill, cost-per-hire, and quality-of-hire
Business Management & Risk Management
Translate an organization's strategy into three HR priorities and state the metric that would prove each one worked
Read a basic income statement and balance sheet and compute the ratios an HR professional would be asked to defend (labor cost as a percentage of revenue, return on training investment)
Differentiate functional, divisional, and matrix structures and predict the HR challenges each creates
Apply a change-management model to a planned HR initiative and identify the stakeholder and communication steps
Identify the risk-management exposures most tied to employment practices, workplace safety, and HR data privacy
Your checkpoint
A two-page business case for one HR initiative that includes a budget, an ROI calculation, a risk register with three named risks and mitigations, and a mid-point timed practice test of 50 questions scored and reviewed
Milestones
Week 2: Score 80% or higher on an untimed Domain 5 question set of at least 40 items; every missed item is logged with the reason it was missed
Week 4: Complete a timed 50-question mixed set across Domains 5, 2, and 1 and record per-domain accuracy; any domain under 70% gets a scheduled remediation block in weeks 5-6
Week 6: All six domains have at least one page of original notes written in your own words, and the two lowest-scoring domains are identified for focused retesting
Week 8: Score 75% or higher on two consecutive full-length timed practice exams, with no single domain below 65%