The Master’s Degree Programme in Work Relations features a strong interdisciplinary structure, due to the type of professional abilities it is aimed at providing.

Students willing to apply for the Master’s Degree Programme in Work relations are required to hold a university degree in the following classes (former MD 270/04):
- L16 (science of administration and organisation)
- L18 (science of economics and business management)
- L14 (science of legal services)
- L20 (communication sciences)
- L33 (economic sciences)
- L36 (political science and international relations)
- L40 (sociology)
- LMG1 (master degrees in law)
- L08 (information engineering)
- L24 (psychological sciences and techniques)

or degrees in equivalent study programmes of former educational systems (former MD 509/99 or prior to MD 509/99).

To access to the Master’s Degree Programme in Work Relations, students are advised to possess a background knowledge in law, economics, and organisational subjects, based on what detailed in the Education regulation of the degree programme.

A proper personal background is also required, the assessment of which takes into account the university curriculum, with specific reference to the degree class, the university training credits obtained in the scientific and disciplinary sectors of economic and law areas, and the weighted average of the scores obtained at the exams taken.

The knowledge of the English language is also required at least at level B1 of the Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR).

The Master's degree programme in Labour Relations, given the type of professionalism it aims to train, is characterised by a strongly interdisciplinary slant; for this reason, it is advisable for those intending to enrol in the course to have acquired basic knowledge in the legal, economic and organisational areas.

In light of this, three requirements are necessary for access to the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations:

(1) possession of a degree in the classes (ex DM 270/04):
- L16 (administration and organisation sciences)
- L18 (economics and business management sciences)
- L14 (legal services sciences)
- L20 (communication sciences)
- L33 (economics)
- L36 (political science and international relations)
- L40 (sociology)
- LMG1 (master's degrees in law)
- L08 (Information Engineering)
- L24 (Psychological Sciences and Techniques)

or degrees from the equivalent courses of study of the previous regulations (ex DM 509/99 or pre DM 509/99);

(2) an adequate personal preparation, verified in relation to the weighted average of the marks of the examinations taken and the university credits obtained in the scientific-disciplinary fields of economics and law;


The above-mentioned requirements must be met at the time the application is submitted, with the exception of the university degree, which may be obtained by the registration deadline.

For the academic year 2024/25 for students holding a degree in the above-mentioned classes and with a weighted average of at least 25/30, personal preparation, by virtue of the curricular requirements, will be considered adequate and the candidate will be admitted to the course without further verification.

If even one of the above requirements is not met, an oral admission test will be required.

The admission test will cover basic notions of:
- Political economy;
- Public and private law;
- Corporate organisation.
The notice indicates, in an appendix, the material on which candidates can prepare for the admission interview.

Students enrolled in other master's degree programmes or with a previous academic career must apply as indicated in the admission notice.
Examinations taken in the previous career are assessed and possibly validated by resolution of the Departmental Council. Students may only be admitted to the second year if at least 27 credits from the previous career are recognised.

The course of study annually proposes the selection board, which is decided by the Departmental Council, usually in July.

Expert in Human Resources and Work Organisation
Management of human resources (as employee or consultant); management of recruitment, selection and placement processes through specific selection tools (profile analysis, analysis of internal and external labour markets, advertisements, selection tests and interviews, verification of process efficiency with turn-over rates); training of people in order to develop lacking or missing skills, also through the use of negotiation techniques and skills in the management of agreements and employment contracts; management of training tools (analysis of training needs, design of the path, use of teaching methods, delivery, verification of satisfaction and learning, detection of training costs); management of horizontal and vertical mobility of people, within career paths, management of reorganisation processes (redesign of units and organisational roles, modification of operating systems and organisational powers, measurement and management of organisational wellbeing; assessment of horizontal and vertical mobility of people through the redesign of career paths, management of job and individual performance evaluation for remuneration and promotion purposes through evaluation techniques (management by objectives, scorecards); management of remuneration and incentive policies through the use of specific techniques (design of the remuneration curve and variable remuneration systems) statistical analysis of the efficiency and effectiveness of human resources management processes and quantitative assessment of their impact on business results (HR and People Analytics); management of organisational change, particularly during digital transformation projects and/or evolution towards Industry 4.0 through the application of change management techniques and storytelling tools; legal management of labour relations and individual relations through the application of labour contract expertise.

Expert in Human Resources and Work Organisation
As experts in the functions of administration, management, business organisation, labour and industrial relations, with regard to the three areas of training (legal, organisational and economic), the following professional profiles can be assumed:
- employee or collaborator of companies or employer entities that have in-house offices dedicated to personnel management, human resources development, and/or management of labour relations;
- employee or collaborator of professional firms and/or companies operating in the field of Human Resources management consultancy, or in the field of management consultancy, with particular reference to the organisation of labour relations;
- employee or collaborator of employers' associations, including as an expert in industrial relations);
- employee or collaborator of trade unions representing the interests of workers;
- employee or collaborator of private and public entities engaged in the labour market (e.g. public employment agencies; employment agencies; agencies authorised to mediate between labour supply and demand; personnel selection and/or outplacement agencies);
- employee in employment consultancy firms (also with a view to obtaining the relevant professional qualification);
-labour consultant, after having completed the apprenticeship and passed the State Examination) with own or associated firm;
- employee or collaborator of entities, private or public, operating in the field of work safety (e.g. ASL, Inail, etc.);
- employee or collaborator of research organisations engaged in the study of the labour market (e.g. INAPP, Eurofoundation, ETUI etc.).

Expert in Human Resources and Work Organisation
Self-employed (in the economic-legal area and especially in labour consultancy, after completing the apprenticeship and passing the State Examination for Labour Consultants. Human resources offices in private companies and public bodies, including local ones. Management consulting companies. Employment agencies (also supply agencies). Employers' trade union associations. Workers' trade union associations. Training centres and institutes. Research centres.

The Master's Degree programme in Labour Relations aims to train participants interested in professional (management/executive) roles involved in the various profiles of labour relations, within public or private organisations, including and in particular those affected by processes of transformation in a digital sense and Industry 4.0, in particular, with regard to contracts and labour disputes, industrial relations (areas, objects, strategies and tools), human resources management and development (search, selection, training and development, evaluation and incentives, career paths), also in a data-driven manner (HR and People Analytics), corporate and work organisation (micro design of roles and macro design of organisational forms and networks), risk prevention, safety management and organisation, employment consultancy, active labour market policies (promotion, employment incentives and protection, employability policies, etc.).). The professional roles of reference can be found in the Human Resources Management function of production or service companies, whether public or private, in management and business management consulting companies, in the labour consultant profession, in associations representing companies (industrial, commercial and service, craft) and workers (trade unions). The course is structured so as to deepen the interdisciplinary study of labour relations through the teachings belonging to the fundamental disciplines of labour law, human resources organisation and management, and labour economics. Interdisciplinarity is the qualifying feature of this master's degree programme, and this distinguishes it in an original way within the framework of the university system's current educational offerings. Moreover, compared to its original version, today this course updates its theoretical and practical instrumentation to the transformation that work and business organisation are undergoing as a result of the new information and communication technologies (ICT), providing participants with the interpretative keys and practical tools for the management of labour relations in the digital age and Industry 4.0. In particular, the course of study develops around three main thematic areas - legal, economic, organisational/managerial - and is divided into two distinct components, appropriately balanced during the two-year course.
The first provides the basic professional skills in statistics (mono and multivariate statistics and regression analysis), labour economics (labour supply and demand, comparative analysis of Italian and European labour markets, state interventions in active policies), labour organisation (organisational structures and organisational behaviour) and (labour) market law (types of labour contracts and their regulation), accompanied by the accompanying knowledge and skills relating to the history of work and its organisation and public economic law (the relationship between the state and the labour market, EU integration and the new economic constitution, the rights of economic freedom and social rights). The second part of the course provides the specific, applied professional skills of statistics applied to business data (HR and People Analytics), HR information systems (HRIS - human resource information systems), human resources law (rights, obligations and responsibilities of the employer and employee), industrial relations law, human resources management (human resources management strategies and models, recruitment, training, evaluation and development, remuneration) and organisational change communication and management (change management and storytelling). This second part incorporates and responds to the ongoing evolution of the organisation of business and work, and thus of labour relations, as a result of the evolution and increasing spread of digital technologies (digital transformation), updating the concepts and tools of labour law, organisation and economics.

The vocational outlet profile consists of:

Expert in Human Resources and Work Organisation

The graduate of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations during the course
acquires specific verbal and written communication skills, so as to be able to
- supporting in a group discussion in a factual manner, stating one's own opinions correctly and contributing constructively to group work, particularly on the topics covered by the course;
- present and present to a qualified audience, even in a concise manner, a topic of interest relating to the themes of the course of study;
- drafting written research reports and summaries of them orally
- make practical use of computer software, in research activities, and audiovisual media in public presentations, also for teaching purposes.
- master the specialised language related to the course subjects in English and attend the course lectures that will be delivered in English.

The graduate of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations during the course
training matures an autonomy of judgement that enables it to
- making judgements on the efficiency of the behaviour of the individual company or entity (production or service) and the degree of coherence between its product or service idea and the labour relations policy implemented;
- understand the interdisciplinary dimensions (legal, economic, organisational) that qualify and govern labour relations;
- study in depth and autonomously the specific disciplinary perspective that a given problem pertaining to labour relations in a company requires;
- understand the company roles (and their motivations) that intervene in various ways in labour relations: the employer, the employee, the manager and supervisor, the human resources manager, trade union representatives.

Autonomy of judgement is the result of the acquisition of knowledge and skills during participation in all the subjects that make up the course of study. It is verified through the assessment tools and methods provided for and used by each of them. Further verification of the acquisition of autonomy of judgement takes place through the assessment of the degree of autonomy and ability to work both in groups (project work) and individually during the work placement and the activity assigned in preparation for the final examination.

The graduate of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations during the course of study is:
- subjected to both deductive (through attendance at lectures and exercises) and inductive (through preparation and discussion of cases, simulations, individual and group research work) learning modes;
- able to apply the research methodologies and professional techniques learnt in the classroom to concrete work situations;
- in a position to continue in any subsequent courses of study.

Learning skills are attained in the course of study as a whole, living the learning experiences both individually and collectively (study, research, group work, preparation of the final examination, company internship).
Learning skills are assessed through continuous forms of verification during the training activities, with the aim of ascertaining the participant's ability to be autonomous in retrieving data, designing research projects, managing their own time and self-learning skills.

Economic area
The graduate of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations learns (knows) during the course of his or her training:
- the core concepts and scientific language of business disciplines;
- basic statistical notions and techniques for the detection, measurement and quantitative analysis of labour market phenomena (elementary statistics, sampling, questionnaire design and processing of collected data);
- the fundamentals of microeconomics and macroeconomics to analyse labour demand and supply, as well as the understanding of economic policies on labour and, more generally, to compare and understand the functioning of international and, in particular, European labour markets;
- the determinants influencing enterprise and worker behaviour and the role of institutions in the labour market;
- the effects of digitisation on employment levels, working conditions and quality.
The knowledge and comprehension skills listed are attained by course participants through: participation in theoretical framework lectures, tutorials, seminars; guided personal study; independent study.
The verification of the achievement of learning outcomes is carried out through written and/or oral examinations.
The final moment of verification is the writing of the dissertation.


Economic, mathematical-statistical area
The graduate of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations learns (knows) during the course of his or her training:
- the core concepts and scientific language of business disciplines;
- basic statistical notions and techniques for the detection, measurement and quantitative analysis of labour market phenomena (elementary statistics, sampling, questionnaire design and processing of collected data);
- the basics of microeconomics and macroeconomics to analyse labour demand and supply, as well as the understanding of economic policies in the field of labour and, more generally, to compare and understand the functioning of international and, in particular, European labour markets;
- the determinants influencing enterprise and worker behaviour and the role of institutions in the labour market;
- the effects of digitisation on employment levels, working conditions and quality, gender balance in the labour market.
The knowledge and comprehension skills listed are attained by course participants through: participation in theoretical framework lectures, exercises and innovative teaching activities (team-based learning), seminars; guided personal study; independent study.
The verification of the achievement of learning outcomes is carried out through written and/or oral examinations.
The final moment of verification is the writing of the dissertation.


Legal Area
The graduate of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations learns (knows) during the course of his or her training:
- definitions, contents, models (also internationally compared) and established protection techniques in labour law and industrial relations;
- legislation relating to the various types of employment contracts and labour market regulation;
- the rights of economic freedom as well as social rights as recognised and protected in 'multilevel constitutionalism';
- the rights related to the collective representation of workers, forms of collective participation and the various levels of bargaining;
- the legal consequences on worker protection of digital transformation and 'major transitions', in the perspective of sustainable development.
The knowledge and comprehension skills listed are attained by course participants through: participation in theoretical framework lectures, exercises, innovative teaching activities (team-based learning), seminars; guided personal study; independent study.
The verification of the achievement of learning outcomes is carried out through written and/or oral examinations.
The final moment of verification is the writing of the dissertation.


Corporate area
The graduate of the Master's Degree programme in Labour Relations learns (knows) during the course of his or her training:
- the main organisational schools of the 20th century (F.W. Taylor and the scientific organisation of work; Elton Mayo and the school of human relations; Chester Barnard and the company as a cooperative system; Adriano Olivetti and the company as a community; Taiichi Ohno, the Japanese model, lean production and the modular factory);
- established nomenclature, models and techniques on micro- and macro-organisational design and inter-organisational relations;
- the determinants of organisational behaviour (motivation, power, leadership, decision-making, etc.), of individual and group performance and of the organisation as a whole as a socio-technical system;
- the cycle of the employment relationship between the individual and the company (recruitment, selection and induction; role recruitment, training, evaluation, development and exit) and the main techniques of each moment that compose and qualify it;
- the interpretative models of the evolution of labour relations, trade union relations and the main personnel management policy rationales related to them;
- the topics of innovation and change management from an organisational perspective.

The knowledge and comprehension skills listed are attained by course participants through: participation in theoretical framework lectures, tutorials, seminars; guided personal study; independent study.
The verification of the achievement of learning outcomes is carried out through written and/or oral examinations.
The final moment of verification is the writing of the dissertation.

Economic area
During the course of their studies, graduates of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations develop the skills (know-how) of
- Prepare a questionnaire for a simple survey relating to labour relations (identify appropriate scales for the variables in the questionnaire; determine the size of a simple-structured sample);
- use elementary labour market statistics;
- analysing the relevant labour markets of a given company, using the appropriate labour supply and demand indicators;
- identify the problems that characterise the labour market in which a company operates.
The listed abilities to apply knowledge and understanding are achieved by the course participants through participation in the theoretical framework lectures, tutorials, seminars and any internship experiences.
The verification of the achievement of learning outcomes is carried out in various ways: the writing and discussion of reports, active participation and the running of seminar activities.
The final moment of verification is the writing of the dissertation.


Economic, mathematical-statistical area
During the course of their studies, graduates of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations develop the skills (know-how) of
- Prepare a questionnaire for a simple survey relating to labour relations (identify appropriate scales for the variables in the questionnaire; determine the size of a simple-structured sample);
- use elementary labour market statistics;
- analysing the relevant labour markets of a given company, using the appropriate labour supply and demand indicators;
- identify the problems that characterise the labour market in which a company operates.
The listed abilities to apply knowledge and understanding are achieved by the course participants through participation in the theoretical framework lectures, exercises, innovative teaching activities (team-based learning), seminars and any internship experiences.
The verification of the achievement of learning outcomes is carried out in various ways: the writing and discussion of reports, active participation and the running of seminar activities.
The final moment of verification is the writing of the dissertation.


Legal Area
During the course of their studies, graduates of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations develop the skills (know-how) of
- make legal diagnoses of problems arising in internal and external labour markets, as well as in collective labour relations;
- decide on interventions for the prevention and/or resolution of labour law issues, through the choice and application of the correct and most appropriate legal instrumentation according to the objectives to be achieved with a view to striking a balance between the competitiveness needs of companies and the need to protect the working person;
- use the existing legal instrumentation and the method of industrial relations correctly and in more than purely formalistic terms, also in terms of planning and organisational innovation, with specific reference to human resources management and the management of collective labour relations;
- Critically analyse the effects of digital transformation on labour relations and identify possible forms of protection.
The listed abilities to apply knowledge and understanding are achieved by the course participants through participation in the theoretical framework lectures, tutorials, seminars and any internship experiences.
The verification of the achievement of learning outcomes is carried out in various ways: the writing and discussion of reports, active participation and the management of seminar activities.
The final moment of verification is the writing of the dissertation.


Corporate area
During the course of their studies, graduates of the Master's degree programme in Labour Relations develop the skills (know-how) of
- make organisational diagnoses of the efficiency, safety, fairness and well-being of work situations;
- defining interventions for the resolution of problems underlying organisational behaviour (decision-making, conflict resolution, negotiation, etc.), through the choice and application of models best suited to the specific situation;
- use the main design techniques, i.e. drawing up a role and organisational chart, designing a specific organisational form, as well as the relationships between the various types of inter-company networks;
- understand, interpret and evaluate the evolution of ongoing labour relations, especially with regard to the national bargaining system, contract renewals and the negotiating structure.
The listed abilities to apply knowledge and understanding are achieved by the course participants through: participation in the theoretical framework lectures, tutorials, seminars and any internship experiences.
The verification of the achievement of learning outcomes is carried out in various ways: the writing and discussion of reports, active participation and the management of seminar activities.
The final moment of verification is the writing of the dissertation.