Chapter 1: HRD

Human Resource Development

Introduction:
The effective performance of an organization depends not just on the available resources, but its quality and competence as required by the organization from time to time. The difference between two nations largely depends on the level of quality of human resources. Similarly, the difference in the level of performance of two organizations also depends on utilization value of human resources. Moreover, the efficiency of production process and various areas of management depend to a greater extent on the level of human resources development. The term human resource refers to the knowledge, skills, creative abilities, talents, aptitude, values and beliefs of an organizations work force. The more important aspects of human resources are aptitude, values, attitudes and beliefs. The vitality of HR to a nation and to an industry depends upon the level of its development. For the organization to be dynamic, growth-oriented and fast-changing it should develop their HR. Though the positive personnel policies and programs motivate the employees, buy their commitment and loyalty but these efforts cannot keep the organization dynamic. Organization to be dynamic should possess dynamic human resources. Human resources to be dynamic acquire capabilities continuously adopt the values and beliefs and aptitude in accordance with changing requirements of the organization. Similarly, when employees use their initiative, take risks, experiment, innovate and make things, happen, the organization may be said to have an enabling culture. The competent human resources can be dynamic in an enabling culture. Thus, the organization can develop, change and excel, only if it possess developed human resources. Thus, HRD plays significant role in making the human resources vital, useful and purposeful.

Meaning and Definition of Human Resource Development:

Human Resource:
Human resource is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations. Human resources is also the name of the function within an organization charged with the overall responsibility for implementing strategies and policies relating to the management of individuals (i.e. the human resources). This function title is often abbreviated to the initials "HR". Human resource is a relatively modern management term, coined as late as the 1960s. The origins of the function arose in organizations that introduced 'welfare management' practices and also in those that adopted the principles of 'scientific management'. From these terms emerged a largely administrative management activity, coordinating a range of worker related processes and becoming known, in time, as the 'personnel function'. Human resources progressively became the more usual name for this function, in the first instance in the United States as well as multinational or international corporations, reflecting the adoption of a more quantitative as well as strategic approach to workforce management, demanded by corporate management to gain a competitive advantage, utilizing limited skilled and highly skilled workers.

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Human Resource Development:

A definition of HRD is "organized learning activities arranged within an organization in order to improve performance and/or personal growth for the purpose of improving the job, the individual, and/or the organization". (1). HRD includes the areas of training and development, career development, and organization development. This is related to Human Resource Management -- a field which includes HR research and information systems, union/labor relations, employee assistance, compensation/benefits, selection and staffing, performance management systems, HR planning, and organization/job design. (2). "THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANG'IN." Are they ever! And our organizations and jobs will never be the same. Changes are based on the global economy, on changing technology, on our changing work force, on cultural and demographic changes, and on the changing nature of work itself. The changes are different this time. They are permanent, and will permanently affect the way our work and our lives are structured. We need to learn new skills and develop new abilities, to respond to these changes in our lives, our careers, and our organizations. We can deal with these constructively, using change for our competitive advantage and as opportunities for personal and organizational growth, or we can be overwhelmed by them. Who is affected by change -- you are! With all the downsizing, outsourcing and team building, responsibility and accountability are being downloaded to individuals. So everyone is now a manager. Everyone will need to acquire and/or increase their skills, knowledge and abilities to perform their jobs (and now, to perform other people's jobs too!) The goal of HRD is to improve the performance of our organizations by maximizing the efficiency and performance of our people. We are going to develop our knowledge and skills, our actions and standards, our motivation, incentives, attitudes and work environment. Is training the answer? Yes, partly, sometimes, but certainly not always. In the paper industry, training has been big with capital projects but often is not continued into operational improvement. We have often thought training was what was needed (or not needed). But there are other answers too -- the solution may lie with organization development, career development, or a combination of these or other strategies. Human Resource Development (HRD) is the framework for helping employees to develop their personal and organizational skills, knowledge, and abilities. Human Resource Development includes such opportunities as employee training, employee career development, performance management and development, coaching, mentoring, succession planning, key employee identification, tuition assistance, and organization development.

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The focus of all aspects of Human Resource Development is on developing the most superior workforce so that the organization and individual employees can accomplish their work goals in service to customers. Organizations have many opportunities for human resources or employee development, both within and outside the workplace. Human Resource Development can be formal such as in classroom training, a college course, or an organizational planned change effort. Or, Human Resource Development can be informal as in employee coaching by a manager. Healthy organizations believe in Human Resource Development and cover all of these bases. Performance Management:

Performance appraisals, performance reviews, appraisal forms, whatever you want to call them, let's call them gone. As a stand-alone, annual assault, a performance appraisal is universally disliked and avoided. After all, how many people in your organization want to hear that they were less than perfect last year? How many managers want to face the arguments and diminished morale that can result from the performance appraisal process? How many supervisors feel their time is well-spent professionally to document and provide proof to support their feedback - all year long? Plus, the most important outputs for the performance appraisal, from each person's job, may not be defined or measurable in your current work system. Make the appraisal system one step harder to manage and tie the employee's salary increase to their numeric rating. Coaching:

The first step in any effort to improve employee performance is counseling or coaching. Counseling or coaching is part of the day-to-day interaction between a supervisor and an employee who reports to her, or an HR professional and line managers. Coaching often provides positive feedback about employee contributions. At the same time, regular coaching brings performance issues to an employee's attention when they are minor, and assists the employee to correct them. The goal of performance coaching is not to make the employee feel badly, or to show how much the HR professional or supervisor knows. The goal of coaching is to work with the employee to solve performance problems and improve the work of the employee, the team, and the department. Mentoring:

Mentoring is a formal or informal relationship established between an experienced, knowledgeable employee and an inexperienced or new employee. The purpose of the

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mentoring relationship is to help the new employee quickly absorb the organizations cultural and social norms. Mentoring also assists an employee, new to a specific job or area of responsibility, to quickly learn what they need to know to succeed in their job and role. Mentoring can involve a formal exchange of knowledge and information and can be evaluative in nature to assess the assimilation of the new employee in his or her new role. Mentoring is provided in addition to your new employee on-boarding process and should have different content and goals. The best mentoring relationships involve the exchange of a particular body of knowledge that helps the new employee quickly come up to speed as a contributor within your organization. Mentoring helps the employee navigate the learning curve inherent in any new role and relationship. Many organizations assign a mentor as part of their formal employee on-boarding process. Other mentoring relationships develop spontaneously and over time. All mentoring relationships are encouraged as research indicates that employees who experience mentoring are retained, learn more quickly, and assimilate into the company culture more effectively. A mentoring relationship frequently occurs between an employee and their immediate supervisor; in fact, this was the normal mentoring relationship in the past. These mentoring relationships are still encouraged, but it is recommended that employees and organizations pursue additional mentoring relationships. A mentoring relationship with a supervisor never loses the evaluation aspects necessary for the employee to succeed within your organization. Mentoring is a skill and an art that can be developed over time. Succession Planning:

Succession planning is a process whereby an organization ensures that employees are recruited and developed to fill each key role within the company. Through your succession planning process, you recruit superior employees, develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities, and prepare them for advancement or promotion into ever more challenging roles. Actively pursuing succession planning ensures that employees are constantly developed to fill each needed role. As your organization expands, loses key employees, provides promotional opportunities, and increases sales, your succession planning guarantees that you have employees on hand ready and waiting to fill new roles. Effective, proactive succession planning leaves your organization well prepared for expansion, the loss of a key employee, filling a new, needed job, employee promotions, and organizational redesign for opportunities. Successful succession planning builds bench strength. Tuition Assistance:

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Tuition assistance is an employer-provided employee benefit that is a win-win for your workplace. In a tuition assistance program, an employer pays all or part of an employee's cost to attend college or university classes. Tuition assistance helps employers build employee loyalty and longevity. Tuition assistance is an employee retention tool. Tuition assistance enables employees to continue to expand their knowledge and skills while working. Employee continuing development is definitely a plus for the employer, too. Consequently, many employers, who offer a tuition assistance program, pay the full cost of the employee's tuition, lab fees, and books. In most cases, employers cap the amount of tuition assistance available for employees. Employers either set a limit in terms of dollars available per employee per year or they establish the number of classes they will pay for per year per employee through tuition assistance. When tuition assistance is available, the most common method for administering the program is to require employees to pay for their own tuition and books when they register for classes. The employee is then reimbursed when he or she submits the receipts and evidence of earning a "C" or above grade upon completion of the class. Employees most frequently turn in copies of their transcript to receive their tuition assistance payment. Tuition assistance programs almost always require that the employee submit a passing grade of "C" or better to ensure that the employee is spending the employer's money wisely. Tuition Assistance Pay Back

In some cases, where extensive funds are spent on tuition assistance, the employer requires that the employee sign an agreement to pay back the tuition assistance if he or she leaves the organization within a certain period of time. In these cases, the employer forgives a percentage of the tuition assistance for every year the employee stays with your organization following the utilization of the tuition assistance. For example, companies have promised tuition assistance to cover the cost of a long term, valued employee's MBA. Tuition assistance is often negotiated in an employment contract; in an effort to attract hard-to-find talent, this tuition assistance may be above and beyond what other employees receive in tuition assistance in the same organization. Tuition assistance makes sense for employers because you enable your employees to continue to grow and develop their knowledge. Your employees stay in the practice of learning and university attendance fosters an environment at work that supports employee learning. If your goal is a superior, high performance workforce that is focused on continuous improvement, you need to manage people within a performance management and development framework. When you implement each of these components, you'll ensure the development of the high performance workforce you seek.

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Use this high performance workforce checklist to make certain you have all of the necessary components in place to develop a superior, high performance workforce. I have provided the specific broad category of practice. Then, the bullets define the key success areas in each component.

Strategies for Human Resource Development:

These include the following: (i) Investment in health facilities and services, broadly conceived to include all expenditure that affect the life expectancy, strength and stamina, and the vigor and vitality of the people; (ii) On-the-job training, including old-type apprenticeships organization by firms; (iii)Formally organized education at the elementary, secondary and higher levels; (iv) Study program for adults that are not organized by firms, including extension programs notably in agriculture; (v) Migration of individuals and families to adjust to changing job opportunities development.

Human Capital Formation and HRD:

Human Capital:
The concept of human capital refers to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, physical and managerial effort required to manipulate capital, technology, and land among other things, to produce goods and services for human consumption (UNECA, 1990).

Human Capital Formation:

Human capital formation, on the other hand, refers to the process of acquiring and increasing the number of persons who have the skills, education and experience that are critical for the sustainable growth and development of a country. The economic benefits of human capital formation arise from making people more productive by improving their nutrition, health, education and other social indices through adequate and proper investments. According to Okojie (1995) human capital formation is associated with investment in man and his development as a creative and productive person. It is a continuum, a continuing process from childhood to old age, and a must for any society or enterprise that desires to survive under the complex challenges of a dynamic world.

Significance of HRD in Economic Development:

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The role of human capital in economic growth cannot be overemphasized. The development of human capital has been recognized by economists to be a key prerequisite for a countrys socio-economic and political transformation. Among the generally agreed causal factors responsible for the impressive performance of the economy of most of the developed and the newly industrializing countries is an impressive commitment to human capital formation (Adedeji and Bamidele, 2003; World Bank, 1995, Barro, 1991). This has been largely achieved through increased knowledge, skills and capabilities acquired through education and training by all the people of these countries. It has been stressed that the differences in the level of socio-economic development across nations is attributed not so much to natural resources and endowments and the stock of physical capital but to the quality and quantity of human resources. According to Oladeji and Adebayo (1996), human resources are a critical variable in the growth process and worthy of development. They are not only means but, more importantly, the ends that must be served to achieve economic progress. This is underscored by Harbinson (1973) who opined that human resources constitute the ultimate basis for the wealth of nations. Capital and natural resources are passive factors of production; human beings are the active agents who accumulate capital, exploit natural resources, build social, economic, and political organizations, and carry forward national development. Clearly a country which is unable to develop the skills and knowledge of its people and to utilize them effectively in the national economy will be unable to develop anything else. Human Resource is the most Important and vital Factor of Economic Development or it can be said that humans are the agents of development. Some of the importance of Human Resource or Human Capital are;

1) Country develops if The Human Resource is developed: To enhance economic development the state constructs roads, buildings bridges, dams, power houses, hospitals, etc. to run these units doctors, engineers, scientist, teachers, are required. So if the state invests in a human resource it pays dividend in response. 2) Increase in Productivity: The batter education, improved skills, and provision of healthy atmosphere will result in proper and most efficient use of resources (non-natural & natural) which will result in increase in economic production. 3) Eradication of Social and Economic Backwardness: Human Resource development has an ample effect on the backwardness economy and society. The provision of education will increase literacy which will produce skilled Human Resource. Similarly provision of health facilities will result in healthy Human Resource which will contribute to the national economic development.

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4) Entrepreneurship Increase: Education, clean environment, good health, investment on the human resource, will all have its positive effects. Job opportunities would be created in the country. And even business environment will flourish in the state which creates many job opportunities. 5) Social Revolution: Because of Human Resource development the socio economic life of the peoples of a country changes drastically. Over all look changes thinking phenomena changes, progressive thoughts are endorsed in to the minds of people. Efforts from different parts of society are needed to understand the changes that take place in human resource development. These efforts can influence the successful implementation of sustainable development. The institutions that fail to recognize links between people and resources fail to understand the structures and processes of development goals. Therefore, the Government, by adopting good governance at every level, should be a key player in building effective strategies to develop a nation. Human are the core of development, but their lives and the environment needs improvement.