Human Resource Management International Digest

Emerald Article: Playing the HR field: An interview with R. Wayne Pace, founding president of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and author of Human Resource Development: The Field Gareth Bell

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To cite this document: Gareth Bell, (2012),"Playing the HR field: An interview with R. Wayne Pace, founding president of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and author of Human Resource Development: The Field", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 20 Iss: 7 pp. 39 - 41 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09670731211270310 Downloaded on: 28-12-2012 To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 116 times since 2012. *

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Gareth Bell, (2012),"Playing the HR field: An interview with R. Wayne Pace, founding president of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and author of Human Resource Development: The Field", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 20 Iss: 7 pp. 39 - 41 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09670731211270310 Gareth Bell, (2012),"Playing the HR field: An interview with R. Wayne Pace, founding president of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and author of Human Resource Development: The Field", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 20 Iss: 7 pp. 39 - 41 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09670731211270310 Gareth Bell, (2012),"Playing the HR field: An interview with R. Wayne Pace, founding president of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and author of Human Resource Development: The Field", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 20 Iss: 7 pp. 39 - 41 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09670731211270310

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Playing the HR eld

An interview with R. Wayne Pace, founding president of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and author of Human Resource Development: The Field
Gareth Bell

ew people have been as prolic in the eld of human resource development as Dr R. Wayne Pace. He is author of over 30 books and 100 articles, specializing in human resource development, organizational change, and organizational communication. He has also served as corporate advisor to training and development consultancies QuickKnowledge, Anchor Point Institute, and STS International.

R. Wayne Pace

Dr Pace has held numerous academic positions at universities throughout the US and Australia, retiring in 1996 as professor emeritus of organizational leadership at the Marriott School of Management, Bringham Young University, Utah. In 1993, Dr Pace founded the Academy for Human Resource Development, a global scholarly community which aims to aid HRD studies, community development, and the practical application of research.

What is the greatest challenge HR practitioners are faced with today?

The eld of human resources is, of course, considerably broader than HR development. In 1991, along with a couple of other colleagues, we published a book called Human Resource Development: the Field. In it we identied three key dimensions of the HR eld: creating the system, maintaining the system, and improving the system. HRD was associated with improving the system and included individual development, organization development, and career development. Most HR management activities have to do with maintaining the system and include selection and stafng, information systems, compensation and benets, employee assistance, and labor relations. Creating the system involves activities such as organization design, job design, planning, and sometimes stafng. Many of these activities are taught in Schools of Management, but especially in organizational behavior academic programs. Im less aware of the problems that professionals who work in the trenches have nowadays, but the world itself is becoming more complex and limitations imposed by austerity measures make the acquisition of resources more difcult. Organizations may appear to be more restricted in giving employees time to be developed and providing the staff and materials. The issues seem to be quite similar to those that were experienced twenty years or more ago. Many writers predicted that HRD staff would be faced with several problems in the future, and this is probably the future to which they were referring. HRD staff would be occupied with creating an empowered work force. With the economic downturn, that may not be an issue that is as prominent as it could be. Aligning worker goals with the larger organizational

DOI 10.1108/09670731211270310

VOL. 20 NO. 7 2012, pp. 39-41, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0967-0734

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priorities was also predicted to be a concern. Making sure that the organization has the talent needed was listed as a future concern. Having a productive interpersonal environment, meaning minimal conict, openness in communication, and positive productivity, was also a top concern. Another concern was creating an atmosphere of change so that the organization could adapt quickly to new developments. Having a strong customer focus was also listed, and, nally, maintaining a high quality of work life. For the most part, these critical people issues are probably as important today as they were 25 years ago.

How can organizations create and maintain an engaged and energized workforce?
I appreciate that question since one of my major research programs focused on that issue. My answer to such a question has been published in one of my books, Organizational Dynamism. If it took me a book manuscript to answer the question, I can hardly do more than briey summarize what we discovered. Quite a bit has been written on engagement and energizing employees. Our research focused on what we called organizational and worker vitality or dynamism. We discovered that an employees enthusiasm and energy output is related to perceptions of four types which we called POFE. P represents the perceptions employees have of their ability to work at high levels of competence. We called these performance perceptions and they encompass the concepts of self-efcacy and self-condence. O represents the perceptions employees have of the extent of their inuence and impact in and on the organization. We called these opportunity perceptions. F represents the perceptions employees have of the extent of their autonomy and self-determination in the organization, or how free they are to work as they please. We called these fulllment perceptions. E represents the perceptions employees have of the extent to which their aspirations and expectations are being met in the organization. We called these expectations, but it includes how meaningful an employee feels his or her work is. If these four perceptions are very positive, we can almost guarantee that the employee or employees will be enthusiastic and expend a great deal of energy in what they do in the organization, resulting in high output and positive consequences. If employees have negative perceptions on the POFE perceptions, you can be assured that what we called anhedonia will emerge and reduce or even destroy employee energy. Associated with the POFE perceptions is what we call a set of natural work goals or NWGs. We identied sixteen NWGs that, if achieved, work to create positive work perceptions. We concluded from our research that great companies focus the disciplined energy of employees and achieve a sustained output that make a vital different in organizations. Every organization needs to assess how well employees are accomplishing the 16 NWGs and how positive their employees work perceptions or POFE are.

What kinds of work does the Academy of HRD carry out?

The Academy of Human Resource Development is a scholarly organization dedicated to, as one of our mottos says, leading the eld of HRD through research. It has an international membership and is governed by Ofcers, who serve two-year terms and a board of directors, each of whom serve three-year terms. To encourage research, the Academy sponsors research conferences in at least three different areas each year the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The 2012 Americas conference was held in Washington DC, the European conference in Portugal, and the Asian conference in Malaysia while the 2013 conference will be held in Arlington, Virginia, USA. Scholars from around the world will attend one or more of these conferences and report on the research that they have been doing during the year. Members of the academy are organized around special interest groups, such as the scholar-practitioner SIG and the HRD theory SIG. Research interests are exible, so SIGs

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emerge and discontinue in such diverse areas as instructional design, action learning, diversity, organization development, e-learning, knowledge management, strategy, leadership development, and organizational learning.

What role does HRD play in encouraging socio-economic growth?

I wrote at one time that the goal of HRD is to achieve the highest quality of work life for employees and to produce the highest quality products and services possible in the environment and context of the organization in which development is occurring. This refers primarily to the professionals working in the human resource development unit of an organization. The goal of practitioners in the eld of HRD is to encourage growth in both the social and the technical systems of an organization.

What has been the highlight of your career and what are your plans for the future?
Ive served as chair of four different university departments and assisted in the founding of HRD programs in several other universities. I help found the Academy of HRD, served as President of the International Communication Association and the Western States Communication Association, and taught thousands of students. Ive traveled internationally and served as a university research fellow in Australia. Together, they represent some major highlights of my career. I have to admit, however, that publishing thirty books is a major accomplishment as well. Keywords: Human resource development (HRD), Organizational development, Employee engagement, Human resourcing For the future, I plan to continue working on a half-dozen new books and hope to have some of them published before too long. I have a love of the game of lawn bowling and I plan to continue playing bowls several times a week. Since retiring my wife, Gae, and I have served as leaders of a delegation of HRD professionals to China, accepted a Senior Fulbright appointment in the Netherlands, visited some cousins in Germany, and constructed a lovely home on a cliff in Southern Utah. We might even look into another trip abroad. Who knows?

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