HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT & Its IMPACT

ON EMPLOYEES SATISFACTION

By

Inas Assaf

A thesis proposal submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of Master of Business Administration

Supervisor: Dr. Sawsan Hajjar

Arts, Sciences and Technology University

In Lebanon
April 2010-04-

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Abstract

To succeed, achieve sustainability, and improve its performance among other competitive firms,
an organization must always be at a high level of preparation to deal with emerging scenario.
Knowing that a competitive organization is the one that employ entrepreneur people, an
organization should take into consideration the importance of developing its Human Resources
and mainly its staff not only to compete but also to adjust to changes within either the
environmental changes surrounding it or the changes within its objectives, plans and actions. To
enhance its low to top employees' skills and knowledge level, a company must work within the
frame work of Human Resources Department and specifically the Human Resources
Development that seeks to achieve the organizational, social and employee objectives. The
Human Resources Training and Development in sustaining and developing firms is a critical
aspect of the development of knowledge-workforce and their satisfaction within an
organization.

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 Table of Content

Abstract 1
1. Background 3
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1. Problem Statement 3
2
1. Objectives 4
3
2. Literature Review 4
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3. Hypothesis 4
1
4. Methodology 4
1
4. Procedures 5
2
5. References 6
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1.1 Background

Human Resources Development (HRD) is a relatively young academic discipline but an old and
well-established field of practice. It has originated in the massive development effort that took
place in the United States during World War II under the name of the project "Training within
Industry"(Dooley, 1945) where it gave birth to the systematic performance-based training,
improvement of the work processes and human relations in the workplace-or contemporary to
HRD, as it began being called in the 1970s. HRD is defined as a set of systematic and planned
activities designed by an organization to provide its members with the necessary skills to meet
current and future job demands, to produce behavioral changes in the learner in such a way that
it acquires desired level of competence for present or future role. It is a process of developing
and unleashing expertise for the purpose of improving individual, team, work process, and
organizational system performance. HRD has many wide but recognized components that can be
recapped as performance improvement, learning organization, organizational performance and
development, and employee training and development, that are set to improve the expertise of
individuals, teams, work processes, and the overall organization.
The practice of Human Resources Development has many benefits. Improving the individual and
organizational performance to adjust with the internal and the external environment changes to
obtain the organizational short and long term objectives, learning organization which became
recently one of the core strategies in an organization that enables its employees to respond
swiftly to the product and market developments and to best utilize their mental powers
enhancing their capacity to create and to have a strong competition with other organizations,
and attaining organizational sustainability through its development and specifically through it
employees training and development.

1.2 Problem Statement

In our modern times, business environments are fast changing. The vast technological
development that merges within a firm's vision, mission, and its implementation processes and
the radical economic reforms have led to the emergence of new opportunities and threats for
business organization and its employees. Many HR expertise focused their attentions on
developing both organization and employees' performance to attain sustainability or/and to

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compete. Many faced problems with the employees' satisfactions and relatively their
commitments toward their organization. Having defined HRD and its importance, the study of
HR T&D is going to examine the effective impact of Training and Development on the workforce
performance and satisfaction in an organization and relatively its impact on the organization as a
whole and the challenges an organization might face in the shortage of intellectual HRD
professionals, the elimination of skills gaps, the competition in global economy, and the need for
lifelong changes. The study is going to be conducted at one of the international non-
governmental organizations operating in Lebanon that works for the benefits of marginalized,
under risk and privileged communities where different socio-economic projects are involved that
recommends workforce from low to top levels.

1.3 Objectives

The main objective of this proposal is to examine the strategic nature of HR T&D and its impact
on the organizational development and on the employee's satisfaction and commitment toward
the organization after attaining different training courses.

The sub-objectives along the proposed thesis are:

 To compare the level of effectiveness and efficiency of the organization and
its employees before and after practicing HR T&D courses.
 To outline and explain the HRD models, including the needs assessment for
training, it methods and the process of monitoring it.
 To interpret the best methods of applying T&D.
 To analyze the impact of HR T&D methods on the individual satisfaction.

2.1 Literature Review

The climate of globalization and the new technological revolution begins with the importance of
HRD practice to the organization workforce performance, education, technical training and
learning. The development of HRD definition within time has been interpreted by many different
HR professionals-as like Sawnson, Nadler, Chalofsky, Watkins and Mclean who based their
definitions under systematic, economic, and psychological theories and who based HRD efforts
in an organization in a place under the additional banners of training and development,
organization development, performance improvement, organizational learning, etc…

3.1 Hypothesis

Employees are well aware of the new formation in their organization and are capable of
performing their job requirements due to the trainings and development courses they are
getting from it to adjust with to the changes of its internal and external factors which lead to the
commitment and high satisfaction level among employees.

4.1 Methodology

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  Design a needs assessment form to be distributed among permanent and
temporal employees.
 Design an after evaluation form to analyze the level of employees' satisfaction.
 Interview different HR managers with experience and in-depth knowledge of HR
T&D function.
 Conduct training sessions.
 Use SPSS in analyzing the designed forms.

4.2 Procedures

1- A brief introduction about HRD

2- A brief introduction of the organization vision, mission, and objectives
3- Present organizational chart.
4- Search for questions interviewed previously with professional HR T&D related to the
topic presented.
5- Prepare interview questions.
6- Prepare a list of HRM or HR T&D experts from different organizations.
7- Interview HR T&D experts from different organizations to gather all the important
tools they use in this HR section and get the best ways of utilizing it, ending up
interviews with the HR manager of the studied organization.
8- Present the methods of HR T&D and its models.
9- Prepare a needs assessment form to be distributed among the employees working in
the organization.
10- Evaluate the needs assessment.
11- Prepare a training course that can benefit the organization and its individuals in
accordance to the needs interpreted from the evaluation form.
12- Monitor the reaction and interaction of employees with the training course. (psycho-
physical, social, and mental reactions)
13- After the ending of the training course, distribute again the assessment form among
employees.
14- Analyze and the level of difference of these assessment forms by using an SPSS.
15- State the results obtained with detailed description of each model's importance.
16- State the recommendations.

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5.1 References

1. Foundation of Human Resources Development. Second edition 2009.

2. Human Resources Management-A Contemporary Approach. Fourth Edition. By
IAN BEARDWELL, LEN HOLDEN, TIM CLAYDON
3. MAJOR CHALLENGES TO THE EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCE TRAINING
AND DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES by Haslinda ABDULLAH.
4. HRD by Tejashree Talpade