IMPORTANCE OF HRD IN ORGANIZATION

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" . 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

To introduce methods to address the development of individuals and organizations. Here's what we will discuss in future issues:

ASSESSMENT OF NEEDS -- the first step. This sounds simple, but we are often in too much of a hurry. We implement a solution, sometimes the correct intervention but not always. But we plan, very carefully and cautiously, before making most other investments in process changes and in capital and operating expenditures. We need to do the same for HRD -- implement the appropriate planning. This needs assessment and planning will lead to several possible ways to improve performance. (Of course, one of these is to do nothing! -- we may decide to focus on other activities with greater impact and greater value.) PROGRAM DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT & EVALUATION. We need to consider the benefits of any HRD intervention before we just go and do it: What learning will be accomplished? What changes in behavior and performance are expected? Will we get them? And of prime importance -- what is the expected economic cost/benefit of any projected solutions? TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT -- acquiring knowledge, developing competencies and skills, and adopting behaviors that improve performance in current jobs, including: adult learning theory and applications, instructional systems design, train-the-trainer programs, and instructional strategies and methods. ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT -- the diagnosis and design of systems to assist an organization with planning change. OD activities include: change management, team building, learning organizations, management development, quality of work life, management by objectives, strategic planning, participative management. organizational restructuring, job redesign, job enrichment, centralization vs. decentralization, changes in the organization's reward structure, process consultation, executive development, action research, third party interventions, and more. We will discuss these in future articles. CAREER DEVELOPMENT -- activities and processes for mutual career planning and management between employees and organizations. Changes in our organizations (including downsizing, restructuring, and outsourcing) are resulting in more empowerment for employees. The responsibility for our own career development is downloaded to us. (Translation: career ladders are gone; career development is now the responsibility of the individual.) Later in this series we will explore strategies and tactics to survive and prosper in this new workplace environment.

ORGANIZATION RESEARCH & PROGRAM EVALUATION -- an exploration of methods to evaluate, justify, and improve on HRD offerings. THE HRD PROFESSION(S) AND PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS -- we plan to list and briefly describe the principal HRD organizations, their missions and goals, and their addresses and contacts. \

Why HRD is important in organization

The new focus on employee learning changes the role of the Human Resource Development (HRD) function. The role of HRD within 'learning organisations' is becoming clearer, but many uncertainties remain for HRD professionals, especially with regard to the question of how to bring their new roles into practice. There are only a few instruments to help HRD officers in this regard. Yet, many interesting initiatives are being undertaken by HRD practitioners throughout Europe to support strategic learning processes of the organisation as a whole. This project has examined these HRD initiatives with the objective of firstly clarifying the specific European outlook on the role that HRD, (in learning oriented organisations) can fulfil in lifelong learning, thus contributing to the discussion on a European model of lifelong learning. Secondly the project aimed to contribute to the further professionalisation of HRD in Europe, by providing both conceptual perspectives and practical examples. Case study descriptions were made from HRD functions within 30 large learning oriented organisations throughout Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Additionally, a survey was held under a larger group of 165 companies. Based on a literature review comparisons were made with Japanese and US organisations. 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.

Importance Of Human Resource Development.

IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT 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. 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 peoples.

The Importance of Human Resources.

Whether an organization consists of five or 25,000 employees, human resources management is vital to the success of the organization. HR is important to all managers because it provides managers with the resources the employees necessary to produce the work for the managers and the organization. Beyond this role, HR is capable of becoming a strong strategic partner when it comes to establishing the overall direction and objectives of key areas of human resource management in order to ensure that they not only are consistent with but also support the achievement of business goals. (Massey, 1994, p. 27)

Managers rely on HR to provide effective staff capable of accomplishing the goals of the organization. HR is valuable in ensuring employees are high performers, dealing with performance issues, and certifying that existing methods are compliant to the rules, contracts and laws under which the organization operates. When HR succeeds in developing processes to attract, hire and develop motivated employees, managers are able to focus on the objectives of their department and the organization. At my organization, the City, managers look to HR to provide effective staff. Managers at the City are often employees who have worked their way up the career ladder and achieved promotions through proven skill, education and ability. They are not schooled in the field of human resources. The managers rely on HR to help satisfy staffing needs for departments and to help determine how best to use existing human assets. HR can determine if existing staff can be used, create a business case for a new position or job description and develop processes for identifying suitable employees.

Key Conclusions.
The following key conclusions were reached: 1. The learning organisation is an important metaphor for HRD professionals to assist them in: a) Developing collective intelligence within organisations and organisational forms supporting such a need thus eliminating the holding of knowledge in separate compartments at different levels. b) Understanding the importance of knowledge and in particular tacit knowledge, which has to be recognised and valorised insofar as it is embedded in human resources. c) Moving from training-based development policies towards new policies fostering learning in different ways (support for competencies development, learning networks, learning self-assessment in the communities of practice). 2. Learning oriented organisations do employ a rich bouquet of change initiatives, in which, no one type of change is particularly dominant. 3. The main motivator for wanting to become a learning organisation is the desire to become more client centred by continuous improvement and innovation. However, more people-oriented reasons such as improving the quality of working life seem to play a role as well. 4. The envisioned role of HRD professionals within learning organisations is to: a) Support the business.

b) Support (informal) learning. c) Support knowledge sharing (as a special form of supporting informal learning). d) Develop and coordinate training. e) Change HRD practices. 5. Although HRD professionals, consider that this is still their main responsibility, managers and employees are important active partners in supporting learning, and are expected to become more so in the future. Their role is predominantly one of identifying learning needs, stimulating and supporting informal learning, ensuring the continuous learning of themselves and others. HRD professionals will continue to provide support like organising training and supporting informal learning efforts. 6. However, it was found that HRD training-related strategies still fulfil a significant role, with instruments and initiatives to increase employee responsibility for learning, being of least importance. 7. Thus HRD practices to some extent appear to fall behind HRD visions and do not paint a picture of very innovative HRD practices, dominated by new methods such as knowledge management networks and a stimulating learning climate in the workplace. This may be partially because HRD objectives are not that wideranging. 8. No specific influencing factors were found to stop HRD professionals from changing their practices more significantly. Although some barriers to change were found: a) Insufficient time for learning on the part of the employees. b) Insufficient time for performing HRD tasks on the part of the managers. c) Lack of clarity on the role of HRD. 9. The type of organisation does not influence the way in which the organisation envisage the role of HRD; the strategies they employ to implement HRD activities and the factors that facilitate the attainment of the envisioned role of HRD. 10. There is no one single European model for HRD, although there are subtle but meaningful differences as to the philosophies, strategies, and practices on HRD across the countries in the study.

11. Nor, is there any overriding 'Japanese' or 'US' HRD vision as the differences between the companies are huge. 12. Line-managers are increasingly taken a role in the development of human resources due to: a) The convergence of management of organisational competences (aimed at internal effectiveness and competitive advantages on the market), and the management of individual/communities competencies (based on explicit and tacit knowledge) b) New ways of organising firms.

Key Recommendations
The following recommendations were made: 1. Managers fulfil a key role in changing HRD practices but it was found that it is sometimes difficult to get them to fulfil this active role, either because of their workload, lack of affinity with HRD tasks or a lack of skills in this field. 2. Therefore in the short term, it is necessary to find strategies to involve managers in HRD, by changing their views on learning and increasing their motivation to support learning. In the long run, consideration should be given to incorporating HRD skills in all management training programmes. 3. HRD functions should be more precisely defined and recognised by top management as a major part of the global development strategy of the company and seen as an investment rather than a cost. 4. Professional associations from different European countries should organise events where HRD professionals can reach a common terminology, exchange ideas and collectively try to solve difficult challenges. 5. There is a need to change the view that learning is just a classroom, teacherbased activity. 6. Companies should seek cooperation with (higher) institutions for vocational education and with universities in order to assist in the creation of an infrastructure for lifelong learning. 7. Administrations and governmental agencies should set the example in adopting a clear learning organisation approach and more sophisticated human resources development policies.

8. Since competence development is seen as a key element of implementing the concept of the learning organisation, further research is needed to develop valid and useful competence profiles; better understanding of the facilitating and inhibiting factors in competence assessment and development; and in coping strategies of organisations that try to overcome problems in implementing competence systems.