Human Resource Development

1. Human Resource Development (HRD)

2. What Is Human Resource Development (HRD) • A Knowledgeable and skilled workforce is necessary to succeed in the modern economy as such proper education, training and development has become an essential part of organizational strategy. • Since HRD ensures that people are adequately trained and developed for present or any future work requirement, It has gained due importance in todays dynamic environment. • HRD is a process of developing human expertise through education, training and development, and organizational development, to enhance the knowledge, skills, and performance of people. • HRD is a set of systematically planned activities designed to provide opportunities to people to develop their knowledge, skills, expertise, and productivity. • By developing human knowledge and skills, HRD seeks to improve overall satisfaction and quality of life, whether it is for personal prosperity or group gain, or for the benefit of an organization, community, nation, or humanity as a whole.

3. Meaning of HRD • Learning forms the core of all HRD activities with major focus on workplace learning and performance. • HRD engages people in training programs, education and development courses that help them acquire proper competence necessary to meet current and future work demands. • Besides training and development, coaching, career development, team building, and organizational development are also some important aspect of human resource development. • HRD is concerned with the development of human resources in terms of knowledge, skills, and potentialities to achieve organizational, group and individual goals.

4. Definition of HRD • Depending upon different perspectives, approaches and realm of practice, HRD has numerous definitions. • HRD has major influence from the school of economics and psychology, often taking a systems approach, and emphasizing on learning, human performance, and organisational development. • One of the earliest definition of HRD was given by Harbison and Myers (1964). They defined HRD as “the process of increasing the knowledge, the skills, and the capacities of all the people in the society”. Influenced by the economic school, they emphasised on higher skill level of employees and their full utilization in the process. • Taking a psychological approach, and emphasizing on behavioural change and adult learning, Nadler (1970), defined HRD as “a series of organized activities conducted within a specified time and designed to produce behavioural change”. • Jones (1981), combined both psychological and economic approach and emphasizing on performance, as well as organizational and personal goals, defined HRD as “a systematic expansion of people’s work-related abilities, focused on the attainment of both organization and personal goals”.

5. HRD Process • One of the primary objective of HRD is to help people cope up effectively with the unsatisfactory state of day-to-day activities. • To ensure that desired goals are achieved it is very critical to design and implement HRD programs with due diligence and care.  • The most common approach while designing and implementing an HRD intervention is based on the systems theory where a four-step process is adopted. • Need assessment • Design • Implementation • Evaluation

6. HRD Process – Need Assessment • HRD need assessment is an important process employed to determine the gap between the current capabilities and competencies of existing employees and required optimal level. • It helps identify specific area for intervention along with the participants who would require such involvement. • HRD need assessment involves three important consideration: • Organizational analysis: An assessment of KSAs of current pool of employees and their readiness to meet current and future requirement • Task Analysis: Identifying specific skills and competencies to carry out job successfully including assessment of work environment, time constraints, equipment, safety, and performance standards. • Person Analysis: It helps determine employees’ readiness to perform a task including evaluation of personal abilities, attitude, beliefs, motivation, input, output, consequences and feedback. • HRD need assessment helps • Priorities for particular HRD efforts • Define specific training and HRD objectives • Establish evaluation criteria

7. HRD Process – Design • The design process involves a set of specific activities essential for the proper formulation of the entire program such as: • Selecting the specific objectives of the program. • Developing an appropriate lesson plan for the program. • Developing or acquiring the appropriate materials. • Determining who will deliver the program. • Selecting the most appropriate method or methods to conduct the program. • Scheduling the program. • Design phase helps in determining the content and suitable setting for the program. • It helps determine whether program will be on the job, in a classroom, online, or other; whether it will be delivered as a lecture, discussion, role play, or simulation, or whether the program will be developed in-house or purchased. • Consideration for goal, budget and delivery methods are important reliction of this phase.

8. HRD Process – Implementation • Post need assessment and designing, the HRD program or intervention is implemented using most appropriate methods so that it becomes effective. • Delivering such programs may pose numerous challenges such as executing them as planned, creating environment that enhance learning, or any other problems that may arise during program. • Broadly there are two kinds of program delivery: • Off-the-job method where generally lecture like classroom training, computer based training, or games and simulation based training are employed. • On-the-job method where generally job instruction technique, job rotation, coaching and apprenticeship training methods are employed.

9. HRD Process – Evaluation • In the final phase HRD process is evaluated by measuring their overall effectiveness. • Evaluation may involve information on participants’ reaction to the program, assessing their learning and use of new learning on actual job; and whether the program has improved the organization’s effectiveness in terms of some concrete measures like bottom line. • Such information allows managers to make better decisions about various aspects of the HRD effort, such as: • Continuing to use a particular technique or vendor in future programs • Offering a particular program in the future • Budgeting and resource allocation • Using some other HR or managerial approach (like employee selection or changing work rules) to solve the problem • It is important that HRD professionals provide evidence that HRD programs improve individual and organizational effectiveness.

10. Functions of HRD • HRD can be a stand-alone function or it can be one of the primary functions with the realm of human resource management (HRM) department. • McLagan (1989) identified three primary HRD functions: • training and development • organization development • career development

11. Functions of HRD – Training and Development • Training involves providing employees required KSAs and competencies needed to do a particular task or job. • Development activities focus on longer-term impact like preparing for future work responsibilities along with increasing employee capabilities to perform their current jobs. • Once employees become proficient in their jobs, HRD activities focus more on developmental activities like coaching and counselling • Coaching helps employees to accept responsibility for their actions, address any work-related problems, and achieve and sustain superior levels of performance. • Counselling help employees deal with personal problems that may interfere with the achievement of these goals. • HRD training and development programs also ensure that managers and supervisors have the knowledge and skills necessary to be effective in their positions. • These programs may include supervisory training, job rotation, seminars, and college courses.

12. Functions of HRD – Organization Development • Organization development (OD) is the process of improving the effectiveness of an organization and the well-being employees through planned interventions. • At macro level, OD interventions intend to enhance the effectiveness of the organization as a whole. • At micro level OD interventions are directed at individuals, small groups, and teams. • In its od intervention roles, HRD generally functions as a change agent. • The HRD professional may carrying out intervention strategy, facilitating the planning and implementation of actual change process to the desired effect.

13. Functions of HRD – Career Development • Career development is “an ongoing process by which individuals progress through a series of stages, each of which is characterized by a relatively unique set of issues, themes, and tasks.” • Career development includes career planning and career management. • Through career planning an individual, assess his or her skills and abilities to establish a realistic short term and long term career milestone. • Career management refers to taking necessary steps to achieve that plan. • HRD activities helps in preparing employees for future responsibilities and put them to a deterministic career development path.

14. Evolution of HRD • 18th century - Apprenticeship training programs • 19th century – Manual schools • Industrial revolution – Factory schools • 20th century – Assembly production line • World War I – Job Instruction Training (JIT) • Human Relations movement – Social structure, work behaviour, motivation • World War II – Training within Industry (TWI) • 1950s-60s - Trainers as new professional • 1970s – Training role expanding beyond classroom • 1980s – Greater changes to training, expanding realm of intervention • 1980s - Coining of the term Human Resource Development • 1990s – Strategic HRD • 2000s – High performance work systems

15. Importance of HRD • While importance of HRD in training and development, organizational development and career development need not be overemphasized, some recent trends and challenges posed by the global dynamic economic environment further amplifies the importance of HRD in today’s business. • HRD helps: • Competing in global economy • Elimination of skill gaps • Increasing workforce diversity • Need for life long learning • Facilitating organizational learning • Addressing ethical dilemmas • Managing high performance work systems

16. Goals of HRD • Some primary goals of HRD are: • Develop individual capabilities to enhance individual performance and to realize their full potential • Make people more competent by helping them develop new KSAs and prepare them for future requirement • Create more committed workforce • Create an environment of trust and respect • Increase employee acceptability towards change • Manage change through OD interventions • Employability and adaptability •  Access to organization proficiency. • Increasing quality and efficiency. • Promotion in growth and individual development. • Integrating people into business. • It should however be noted that HRD goals must be strategically aligned to the organizational goals.

17. HRD & HRM - HRM • Human Resource Management (HRM) deals with effective selection and utilization of employees to achieve goals and strategies of organization, as well as the employees. • Some of the key functions of HRM are: • Human resource planning • Equal employment opportunity  • Recruitment and selection  • Compensation and benefits  • Employee relations  • Health, safety, and security  • Human resource development  • Organization/job design • Performance management and performance appraisal systems • Research and information systems

18. HRD & HRM - HRD • HRD is a primary function within the HRM department. • In recent years there is a shift from traditional training function to also include career development, organizational development and individual development activities alike coaching and counselling. • The HRD function, though a part within HRM, is sometimes also seen as a new discipline. • The core function of HRD include: • training and development • organizational development • career development

19. Strategic HRD • Today the most important challenge as well as opportunity for HRD professionals is to play a more strategic role in the functioning of the organization. • They need to adopt a more “strategically integrated HRD. • The strategic capability of HRD can be realized in three primary ways: • Directly participating and aligning to organizational strategic process • Providing training and development to line managers in the concepts and methods of strategic management and planning • Providing training to all employees aligned with the goals and strategies of the organization.

20. Closing Notes on HRD • HRD, is a part of the larger human resource management system. • It mainly refers to training and development, career development, and organization development programs and processes. • To be effective HRD must be aligned with the organizational goals and strategies. • The HRD professionals also need to have expertise on a number of competencies to meet the challenges facing organizations in this new century. • These challenges may include increasing workforce diversity, competing in a global economy, eliminating the skills gap, meeting the need for lifelong learning, becoming a learning organization, and addressing ethical dilemmas. • Finally, HRD interventions need careful consideration when operationalized for effective impact. • The systems or HRD process framework - assess, design, implement, evaluate – should be given due diligence and utmost consideration when deciding a HRD program or intervention.