The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) at Nicholls State University wins the SHRM case competition to stay undefeated in Louisiana since 2016.

The SHRM program at Nicholls offers a chance for students to learn how to help companies hire and keep employees. The program focuses on recruiting, hiring, terminations, and performance management, among other things. 

“All of the people-side of the business is what we kind of focus on,” Faculty Advisor Melanie Boudreaux stated. 

Nicholls has a student chapter for the National SHRM, and they are affiliated with the Bayou SHRM and connected to Louisiana SHRM. Nicholls also has the largest SHRM student chapter in the state, Boudreaux mentioned. 

“That helps our students network with HR professionals throughout the state and the region,” Boudreaux said. “A lot of our students get jobs from being a part of the student organization.”

Any student can join the SHRM student chapter as well. The student chapter meets bi-weekly and helps students with interviews, networking, resume building, setting up LinkedIn, and more. Boudreaux said that they also have guest speakers come in from time-to-time. 

Boudreaux explained how the student teams are given a case that involves a business layout with an HR issue. These cases are based on real world problems within businesses. 

This year the case was a bank that had trouble hiring and keeping employees.

“With the great resignation, companies are having a hard time finding and keeping good talent,” Boudreaux said. 

The students had to come up with a solution on how the bank could keep good people on their staff. 

This year Nicholls brought two teams, an undergraduate team and a graduate team. These teams won first and second place. 

“It was a great experience. Everybody that was there for the conference was extremely nice. They [the teams] were very educated and very professional,” SHRM competitor Nick Hill stated. 

“It felt great to hear Team 24 get announced first. We are proud to be from Nicholls and represent the school,” SHRM competitor David Vial said. 

Boudreaux stated that she thinks that all of the business classes help Nicholls students become successful, mainly because the Department of Business pushes their students to give presentations, think in a strategic manner and find data to back up their answers, and show the students how to solve a business problem in the real world.

“This is an attribution to all of their [the students] courses they have gotten in the College of Business,” Boudreaux stated. 

To learn more about the SHRM program at Nicholls visit: https://www.nicholls.edu/business/shrm/