Essentials of Human Resource Development

HRD is an effort to develop capabilities and competencies among employees as well as create organisational environment conducive to the employees development. While introducing HRD in an organisation, the following requirements must be carefully though:

·         A desire on the part of the human resources to find better methods to improve quality and productivity

·         Removal of hurdles from the organisation affecting productivity of the employees

·         Requires skills, attitudes and ability in the persons engaged in HRD programme

·         Proper rapport between the HRD deptt. and the key personnel in the organisation

·         Involvement of the personnel of the organisation to get a lot of information for understanding the dynamics of the organisation for developing HRD programme.

·         The need for suggesting the introduction of only such simple methods which can be implemented by the HRD division without much costs

·         Human resource information system (HRIS) to keep continuous track of every employee and use performance appraisal

·         Member of HRD team should possess a pleasant personality common sense, imagination, enthusiasm, objectivity and the sense of humour required to induce change towards HRD

·         The HRD department must be ready to face resistance to their ideas and dispel these with facts, patience and consideration

·         The HRD department must make all the employees in the organisation understand the implications of new methods through seminars, lectures, role plays or any other method.

Organisational Effectiveness

: A sound HRD system is perhaps the most important element in organisation effectiveness which not only ensures smooth performance but also long-term survival and growth of the organisation

The HRD can play effective role in:

·         Optimising the use of employees for the growth of the organisation

·         Enabling employees to grow with the organisation

·         Helping in the congruence of individual aspirations and organisational

             expectations

·         Promoting collaboration and team spirit by establishing a climate of trust,

            openness and interdependence

·         Maximising the effectiveness of the employees and organisation

·         Maximising managerial effectiveness by having an involved, commited and

            highly motivated team of managers

·         Building or acquiring the skills necessary to meet existing and long-term

            organisational needs.

·         Providing a favourable work environment and consciously fostering an open,

            largely participative management style based on trust and cooperation

·         Achieving good employer-employee relation through regards for basic human

                        values.

Organisational effectiveness results from trained and developed employees working in a healthy organisation climate which results from both individual development interventions and organisational development plans.

The HRD system so much concerned with to all areas of the day to day working of the organisation cannot succeed without the total commitment of the top management. The role of top management is very important in the implementation of HRD plans for developing committed human resources and the work-environment commited to human resource.

‘OCTAPAC’ CULTURE OF AN ORGANISATION

The term OCTAPAC has been coined to denote the characteristics of HRD climate which include: openness, confrontation, trust, autonomy, proaction, authenticity and collaboration.

OCTAPAC Culture is associated to the following from first word to the last word:

§ Openness’: The term ‘openness’ refers to “freedom to express ideas, opinions views”, “frankness”, “outspoken”, straightforwardness”. If a term is to be effective, then its members need to be able to express their views, their differences of opinion, interests, and problems without fear.

§  Confrontation: The term confrontation refers to “conflict”, “encounter”, “dispute”, “estrangement” to evolve effective and efficient suggestions and solutions to a given problem. There is a dire need to confront problems and issues rather than avoid them.

§  Trust: Trust means “belief”, “confidence”, “faith”. Organisation employees people who come from different background, values and expectations and the perception of each one of them are different from others and the work-life involves them in many complex relationship with others. With trust people can talk freely about their fears and problems and receive from others the help which they need to be more effective.

§   Autonomy: The autonomy refers to “freedom”, “independence”. Freedom to do a thing in the way one wants, trends to act as a morale booster. Every individual has his own way of doing things, it is the job of his superior to ensure that creativity in the individual/group is not discouraged while working for achieving objectives.

§    Proaction: The term “Pro-action” generally refers to “planning in advance”, “lead from the front”,” the state of alertness/preparedness”. As it is often said “prevention is better than cure”, the word pro-action means that the leadership/topmanagement should be capable of forecasting, predicting projecting, anticipating things well in advance and plan accordingly to meet any eventuality at any given time.

§ Authenticity: The term “authenticity” refers to “factual”, “legitimate”, “actual”. Every institution has a goal and various departments are used in the process to achieve the objectives through their varied and specialised skills. The method of achieving objectives through their varied and specialised skills. The method of achieving objectives is more important than that of extent of achievement.

•   Collaboration: The term Collaboration refers to “Cooperation” “participation”, “teamwork”, “association”. Cooperation means working together. It implies that individual are committed and willing to be involves in the work they do and that they are ready to share their skills and information  with the rest of the employees, knowing that the others will reciprocate.

HRD Sub-System(Mechanisms or Instruments)

With reference to the dimensions/components/sub-system of HRD, many thinkers and professionals have given divergent views and designed the mechanisms of HRD in different ways.

A well designed HRD programme should have the following sub-systems:

v  Performance Appraisal: Performance appraisal is the process of determining how well a worker is performing his job. It provides a mechanism for identification of qualities and deficiencies observed in an employee in relation to his job performance. The object of appraisal is to determine the present state of efficiency of a worker in order to establish the actual need for training. The process of performance appraisal consists of:

·         Setting standards for performance

·         Communicating the standard to the employees

·         Measuring the performance

·         Comparing the actual performance with the standards set

v  Potential Appraisal: Potential appraisal provides necessary data which helps in preparing career plans for individuals. It aims at development of latent abilities of individuals. The HRD function has a long way to go in introducing a streamlined potential appraisal system which ensures a good match between the employees and the job.

v  Feedback Counselling: Feedback of performance data can be used to monitor individual development and for indentifying training needs. Career counselling and verbal rewards are integral parts of review discussions between the superior and the subordinate. Counselling serves several purposes in any organisation. It helps in strengthening the superior and subordinate relationship, helps the executives to understand the limitation of his seniors and problems of his juniors, improves communication, thereby facilitating quality decision, helps employees in recognising their strengths and weakness and also help evaluate the impact of their decisions and so on.

v  Training: Training is a process that involves the acquisition of skills, concepts and attitudes in order to increase the effectiveness of employees in doing particular jobs. Training is expected to provides the needful stimulus to initiate impulses of changes in management and to improve efficiency, productivity and administrative effectiveness.

v  Role Analysis: Role analysis is a participatory process which aims at defining the work content of a role in relation to all those with whom the role occupant has significant interaction in the performance of his job

v  Career Planning: It is the planning of one’s career and implementation of career plans by means of education, training, job search and acquisition of work experiences. It is aimed at generating among employees an awareness of their strengths and weaknesses and at helping them to match their skills and abilities to the needs of the organisation. Without development of people in the organisation , the organisation cannot prosper. Individual career development is considered to be a three step process:

§  Identifying and organising skills, interests, work-related needs and values

§  Converting these inventories into general careers, fields and specified job-goals and

§  Testing the possibilities against the realities of the organisation or the job market

v  Job Rotation: The work-task should be rotated among the employees so as to broaden their field of specialisation as well as their knowledge about the organisation’s operation as a whole, one should be rotated once a year among the various employees depending upon their qualifications and suitability to perform new works.

v  Quality Circle: A quality circle is a small group of employees doing similar or related work who meet regularly to identify, analyse and solve product-quality problems and to improve general operation. The quality circles are relatively autonomous units (ideally about 10 workers), usually, led by a supervisor or a senior worker and organised as work units. The workers, who have a shared area of responsibility, meet periodically to discuss,  analyse, and propose solutions to ongoing problems.

v  Reward system: Rewarding employees performance over and above their normal wages and salaries is considered to be an important task of the HRD. To check frustration is rewarding the efficient workers for their work which may be known as incentive. It will lead to better utilisation of human resources at all levels which is easy, cheapest, quickest and surest means of increasing productivity.

v  Organisation Development: Organisation development is an organisation-wide, planned efforts managed from the top, placing emphasis on making appropriate intervention in the ongoing activities of the organisation. OD provides a normative framework within which changes in the climate and culture of the organisation towards harnessing the human potential for realisation of organisational objectives.

v  Quality of Working Life: The condition under which the workers work and live, assume the form of another important factor contributing to workers satisfaction or otherwise and consequently the job satisfaction. In order of priorities, it comes next to the earning of a worker in the Indian context. For an employee to be able to work at his best, it is necessary to understand that inadequate working and living condition produce adverse mental and physical effect on the employee, ultimately causing decline in the efficiency.

v  Human Resource Planning: It is the process aimed at ensuring that the organisation will have adequate number of qualified persons, available at proper time, performing jobs which would meet the needs of the organisation and also provide satisfaction for the individuals involved.

v  Recruitment, Selection and Placement: Recruitment is generation of applications for specific positions of ascertaining the qualification, experience, skills, knowledge, etc of applicants with a view to appraising their stability for a job. Placement is the process of assigning the selected candidate with the most suitable job. It underlines the need for placing right men at the right job so that the best results could be obtained. These are explained in separate chapters in the book.

HRD MATRIX

             HRD Matrix identifies the interrelationships between HRD instruments, processes, outcomes and organisational effectiveness. HRD instruments include performance appraisal, counselling, role analysis, potential development, training, reward system, job enrichment, etc. These mechanisms may vary depending upon the size of the organisation, the commitment of the top management, the environment, the culture and climate, the perception of the people, technology used, methods employed by the competitors, etc. It is in the interest of the organisation that the top management should give due weightage to these factors to keep the workforce motivated all the time providing challenging jobs and designing career planning and suitable compensation packages so that trained employees may not leave the organisation.

            These instruments lead to generation of HRD processes like role clarity, development planning, development climate, risk-taking and dynamism in employees. Such HRD processes should result in more competent, satisfied and dynamic people is likely to do better than which does not believe in HRD concept and committed people who, by their contributions, would make the organisation grow. Such HRD outcomes influence organisational effectiveness in the long-run. It may be noted that organisational effectiveness also depends on a number of other variable like environment, technology, competitors, etc. However, other things being the same, an organisation that has competence.

HUMAN RESOURCE CLIMATE

HRD is an integral part of any organisation’s climate which is the global expression of what the organisation is. Organisation climate is the manifestation of the attitude of organisational members towards the organisation itself. An organisation tends to attract and keep people who fit its climate so that its patterns are perpetuated at least to some extent. It is a relatively enduring quality of the internal environment that is experienced by its members, influences their behaviour, and can be described in terms of the values of a particular set of characteristics of the organisation.

HRD climate refers to the employee development environment of an organisation. HRD climate contributes to the organisation’s overall health and self-renewing capabilities which increase the enabling capabilities of individuals, teams and the entire organisation.

The main characteristics of HRD climate are as:

• Duty of top management to treat people as the most important assets to the organisation.
• It is developing the competencies of the employees.
• Develop faith and confidence in the capability of people to change and acquire new competencies at any stage of life
• HRD believes in formal communication
• A tendency to encourage risk-taking capabilities
• HRD is useful to employees to know their strengths and weakness
• Climate of trust at all levels of the organisation
• Team spirit development
• A tendency to discourage favouritism and biasness at all levels in the organisation
• Follow up of human resource policies
• Development-oriented appraisals, training, reward system, job-rotation, career planning and potential appraisal for the benefit of employees

Task of Future Human Resource Managers

The HRD manager in future will face new challenges as these are to develop multi-fact talents, which will make managers function confusing and ambiguous. The HRD managers have to engage in high and low status activities at the same time. Although personnel work is a separate speciality. It is also at the heart of every manager’s job. Thus, they have to keep a delicate balance between those aspects of personnel which should be looked after by the line managers and those which should be handled by the staff specialists. The rapidly changing technology and the tremendous pace of development in the economy would demand significant and substantial contribution from the HRD managers. This would necessitate administering of several changes in technology and also in the organisational set-up. In administering these change, HRD managers will have to play a vital and pivotal role by preparing the human resources for such changes in a smooth way, and at the same time, ensuring the attainment of organisational goals as well as growth and development of individuals.

Leadership and Motivation: The human resource manager of tomorrow will not only look after personnel function, but also be involved in the actuating process (leadership and motivation) of the entire organisation. Similarly, human resource management is not merely going to be an exclusive job of the HR manager, but every executive in the organisation would be made responsible for the effective management of people in his unit. Thus management of human resource will receive greater attention of all managers from top to bottom. The human resource manager would play the key role in formulation of policies, programmes, plans and strategies of the organisation. While other function executive will be involved in personnel programmes, every HRM programme will have to be properly planned and directed by the human resource manager in consultation with the other functional managers.

Change Agent:  The HR managers will be required to act as change agents through greater involvement in environment scanning and development planning. The HR function will become more creative and less mechanistic. The personnel function will be responsible for furthering the organisation not just maintaining it. HR managers will have to devote more time to promote changes than to maintain the status quo.

Greater Professionalism: In future, the HR manager will have to be an expert in behavioural sciences. He will play a creative and development role. HR management has emerged as a discipline in its own right and the HR manager is a professional. Professional dynamics will enhance its prestige and quality of service. However, its survival and success in future will depend upon the judicious application of knowledge and skills available. Personnel management will emerge as a well-established, well-respected and well-rewarded profession, comparable to other established professions provided the challenges and opportunities are successfully exploited for its advancement.

New Work Culture:  HRD managers will have to mobilise a new work ethic so as to assist the managers in setting up and enforcing good quality standards. Greater efforts will be needed to achieve group cohesiveness because worker will have transient commitment to groups. As changing work ethic requires increasing emphasis on individual, jobs will have to be redesigned to cope the challenges. Thus, the changes will have to be initiated and managed to improve organisational effectiveness. A work culture conducive to absorption of changes in the technological, economic, political, socio-cultural and international environment will have to be nourished by the HR managers if they want to acquire higher status in industry and society.

Emerging issues in HRM

The process of continuous changing socio-economic, technological and political condition, the human resource or personnel manager of the future shall have to face more problems in the management of labour. The personnel managers of today may find themselves obsolete in the future due to change in business culture if these managers do not up-to-date their knowledge and judicious application of mind. Some of the recent threats, challenges which might be faced by managers in the routine management of business employees are listed below as:

• Increase in size of workforce
• Change in educational level
• Technological changes
• Change in political environment
• Awareness of employees
• Changing psychological systems
• Application of computerised information system
• Mobility of business professionals
• Change in legal framework
• Management of human relations

CHALLENGES OR TASKS BEFORE HRD MANAGERS OR PERSONNEL MANAGERS

During last few years significant changes have taken place in the social, economical, political and technological environment of Indian business society. Some of the recent changes in the economies of the world more specially by the creation of world trade organisation of (WTO), economic liberalisation and trend towards globalisation have brought many opportunities and threats for the modern organisations. The human resource (HR) professionals cannot ignore such changes, rather they have to design and execute innovative mechanisms of developing skills and competencies of human resource to prepare them to accept the emerging challenges which are likely to be faced by the industrial leaders are as:

• Changing technology: Leading to obsolescence of present skills and techniques;
• Economic and industrial policy: Changes leading to tough competition from multinational corporation;
• Changing international environment: Insisting on free flow of goods and services throughout the world;
• Changing profile of workers: Increased educational level, rising share of women in the workforce, increased emphasis on fulfilment of psychological needs;

Changing needs of customers, the out-of date products and the processing system should be abolished. The task of future HRD professionals who are responsible as charge facilitator agents; will have to make judicious use of HRD mechanisms such as performance appraisal, training, etc to effectively meet the challenges of environment. They will have to build up ‘learning organisation’ having the capacity and capability to learn from experimentation, past experiences and the experiences of others and transfer the learning to all human resource for greater organisational effectiveness. The introduction of total quality management in the organisation is one such experience which can bring for reaching improvement in the organisation and contribute to the development of human resource on a continuous basis which is the need of the hour to the business and same is to the HRD managers.

Qualities of a Personnel or Human Resource Manager

Noted philosopher and expert in management area Henry Fayol points out the following qualities:

·         Physical- energy, firmness, willingness to accept responsibility, initiative, loyalty, tact, dignity.

·         Mental- ability to understand and learn; judgement, mental vigour and adaptability;

·         Moral- energy, firmness, willingness to accept responsibility, initiative, loyalty, tact, dignity;

·         Educational- general acquaintance with matters not belongingexclusively to the function performed;

·         Technical- peculiar to the function; and

·         Experience- arising from the work proper

The personnel manager should possess all the qualities required of a manager for his effective function. However, the personnel manager should possess human relation skills in greater degrees as he is to deal more with the human relations matters.

To be more specific, the qualities required for an effective HRD manager are listed as:

·         Human Approach- The HRD manager should have a judicious human approach to human problems. His attitude towards the general problems of employees should be rational and sympathetic while dealing with their problems

·         Active and Alert- The HRD manager should be alert and active most of the times while dealing with workforce.

·         Honest- The HRD manager should be honest in his approach while dealing with the problems of employees working in his organisation.

·         Quick Decision Making- The HRD manager should be quick in decision making to various problems of employees working in his organisation

·         Humorous Nature- The HRD manager should be jolly and should not lose temper

·         Good Qualities of a Leader- The HRD manager should be a capable leader so as to guide the subordinate towards the organisational goals which are needed to increase profitability

·         Social Responsibility- The HRD manager should be well-versed in the social responsibilities so as to help his subordinates in discharging their social responsibilities

·         Courteous- The HRD manager should be courteous while dealing with employees, trade unions and persons from the media.

ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGER

Some of the important role is highlighted here as:

·         Decision Making Role: The personnel manager plays an effective role in decision, making on issues related to human resources. He formulates and designs objectives, policies and programmes of human resource management. For instance, he decides about the contents and duration of training programmes for various categories of workers and executives.

·         Policy Framing Role: Policy framing is one of the major tasks of HRD manager. It is with a view to overcome problems of recurring nature, or to prevent anticipated problems in the area of human resource management that company policies are framed to communicate to the employees the basic ground rules under which the organisation functions and thus avoid discrimination, inconsistency, ad holism and confusion. The personnel manager helps the top management in the formulation of policies on wage and salary administration, transfer, appraisal, welfare activities, personnel records and statistics, working environment, etc.

·         Advisory Role: The advisory role of HRD manager is equally important as he is to settle day to day problems relating to grievance over distribution of overtime work, annual increase in pay, transfer, promotion, disciplinary action and so on. In all such matters, the personnel manager can offer useful advice because he is familiar with personnel policies and practices, labour agreement, labour laws, etc.

·         Spokesman of the Top Management: The HRD manager is a spokesman of the top management or representative of the company and communicates management policies and decision that affect people in the organisation. It is because he has better understanding and overall picture of the company’s operation. Sometimes, he also acts as worker’s representatives to put forward their problems to management, particularly in non-unionised organisation.

·         Industrial Peace Role: HRD manager tries to maintain industrial peace. He is responsible for preparing bulletins, reports, guidelines on wage payments.

·         Mediator Role: The personnel manager often acts as mediator in the event of conflict between employees, or groups of employees, superior and subordinate, and even between management and employees and in attempts to maintain industrial peace and harmony in the organisation.

·         Leadership Role: The HRD manager provides leadership and guidance to the employees. He ensures effective communication in the organisation and influences the workers for expending their cooperation in achieving organisational objectives.

·         Welfare Role: The personnel manager acts as a welfare officer in the organisation. As welfare officer, he is concerned with provision of canteen, crèches, transport, hospital and other welfare services for the benefits of workers and their family members.

·         Personnel Record Keeping: The HRD manager keeps the records of the employees working in the organisation on the basis of these records. HRD manager evaluates various activities such as: Drinking habits, absenteeism, labour turnover and smoking and suggest various measures for improvements.

Conclusion: The role of HRD manager can be well understood by the complex and dynamic nature of environment under which the modern large scale industries function. The impact of technology on organisation structure, politicisation of workers union, and the growing consciousness of industrial employees about their rights and privileges, has increased the role of personnel management important in industrial undertakings. The task has also been facilitated by the greater recognition of the value of human resource development (HRD) techniques by the enlightened managers in modern organisation.

Need/ Importance/ Role and significance of HRD

·         Growth of organisation: Growth of organisation is associated with the development of its workforce. In changing situation HRD must be viewed as the total system interrelated and interacting with other systems at work: production, finance, and marketing.

·         Development of work culture: The need of HRD is felt as it improves the efficiency of employees, checks monotony at work, better communication, development of mutual cooperation and creativity of all the members comes into limelight.

·         Developing potentialities: The focus of HRD manager essentially is on enabling people to self-actualise through a systematic approach by which their existing talents are further developed.

·         Growth of employees: HRD is associated with growth of employees. It helps employees to know their strengths and weaknesses and enable them to improve their performance. The management should provide adequate opportunity for the development of human resource management for the development of their talents so that their development will benefits the organisational growth.

Benefits of HRD

·         It helps in the integrated growth and development of workforce.

·         It helps employees to know their talents and weakness and thus enable them to improve their performance.

·         It facilitates the creation of an environment where opportunities are available for fuller utilisation of the talents of the employees.

·         It generates information about employees for personnel functions like training, placement, selection, promotion etc.

·         It leads employee’s efficiency improvement.

·         It leads to organisational effectiveness which will minimise costs and increase profitability.

Objective of HRD

HRD is associated with the following objectives:

·         Work Opportunity: HRD provides an opportunity and a systematic framework for the development resource in the organisation for full expression of their talents.

·         Development of Traits: HRD is associated with the development of total personality so that these can show and use their talent for the benefit of the organisation.

·         Ability development: HRD makes capable employees. Thus they can develop their capability by which they can do their present job easily.

·         Creative Motivation: HRD manager motivates employees and improve their level of performance.

·         Good Relation: HRD manager stresses the need of coordination which is used for the benefits of himself and for the benefits of those who come in his/their touch.

·         Develop team spirit: HRD manager develops the spirit of teamwork; team work for it is used for the effective cooperation and coordination of each employee which ultimately checks industrial unrest.

·         Organisational Growth: HRM manager is responsible for developing health, culture and effective work plan which always result in more profitability.

·         Human Resource Information: HRM manager in general keeps all records to employees working in his organisation; these can be used at any time when these are needed.

Conclusion: The organisational effectiveness can be reflected through better quality, higher productivity, cost reduction, higher profits and more EPS (earning per shares) and more market price of shares. This explains the increased role of HRD managers in modern industrial organisations which are working in the most uncertain social, political, economical, technological and international complex and competitive environment.