Concept of 

Human Resource Development (HRD)

Human resources development refers to an organization’s focus on

improving the knowledge, ability, skills, and other talents of their
employees. It is the integrated use of training, organization, and
career development efforts to improve individual, group, and
organizational effectiveness.

Human Resource Development is the part of human resource

management that specifically deals with training and development of
the employees in the organization.

Human Resources Development (HRD) as a theory is a framework for

the expansion of human capital within an organization through the
development of both the organization and the individual to achieve
performance improvement” or “HRD is a new systematic approach to
proactively deal with issues, related to individual employees and
teams, and organizations and a movement to develop organizational
capability to manage change and challenge”

The active resource of an organization is the human resource. Other

resources remain inactive unless there are competent people to utilize
the available resources for the production of goods and services. A
human brain has a limitless energy to think and act in a productive
way. Hence, competent and qualified human resource is a key factor
of organizational success. In this regard, the emergence of human
resource development (HRD) plays a vital role in enhancing the
entrepreneurial skill of people.

Human Resource Development (HRD) is a process of developing

skills, competencies, knowledge, and attitudes of people in an
organization. The people become human resource only when they are
competent to perform organizational activities. Therefore, HRD
ensures that the organization has such competent human resource to
achieve its desired goals and objectives. HRD imparts the required
knowledge and skill in them through an effective arrangement of
training and development programs. HRD is an integral part of Human
Resource Management (HRM) which is more concerned with training
and development, career planning and development and the
organization development. The organization has to understand the
dynamics of HR and attempt to cope with changing the situation in
order to deploy its HR effectively and efficiently. And HRD helps to
reach this target.

OBJECTIVES OF HRD
i. To prepare the employee to meet the present and changing
future job requirements.
ii. To prevent employee obsolescence.
iii. To develop creative abilities and talents.
iv. To prepare employees for higher level jobs.
v. To impart new entrants with basic HRD skills and knowledge.
vi. To develop the potentialities of people for the next level job.
vii. To aid total quality management.
viii. To promote individual and collective morale, a sense of
responsibility, co-operative attitudes and good relationships
ix. To broaden the minds of senior managers by providing them with
opportunities for an interchange of experiences within and
outside
x. To ensure smooth and efficient working of the organisation.
xi. To provide comprehensive framework for HRD.
xii. To enhance organisational capabilities.
xiii. To create a climate that enables every employee to discover,
develop and use his/her capabilities to a fuller extent in order to
further both individual and organisational goals

Difference between HRD and HRM Both are very

important concepts of management specifically
related with human resources of organisation.
Human resource management and human resource
development can be differentiated on the following
grounds:

• The human resource management is mainly maintenance

oriented whereas human resource development is development
oriented.
•organisation structure in case of human resources management
is independent whereas human resource development creates a
structure, which is inter-dependent and interrelated.
• Human resource management mainly aims to improve the
efficiency of the employees whereas aims at the development of
the employees as well as organisation as a whole.
• Responsibility of human resource development is given to the
personnel/human resource management department and
specifically to personnel manager whereas responsibility of HRD is
given to all managers at various levels of the organisation.
 • HRM motivates the employees by giving them monetary
incentives or rewards whereas human resource development
stresses on motivating people by satisfying higher-order needs..

Features of Human Resource development

i. The essential features of human resource development
can be listed as follows:

a. Human resource development is a process in which

employees of the organisations are recognized as its
human resource. It believes that human resource is
most valuable asset of the organisation.
b. It stresses on development of human resources of the
organisation. It helps the employees of the
organisation to develop their general capabilities in
relation to their present jobs and expected future
role.
c. It emphasise on the development and best utilization
of the capabilities of individuals in the interest of the
employees and organisation.
d. It helps is establishing/developing better inter-
personal relations. It stresses on developing
relationship based on help, trust and confidence.
e. It promotes team spirit among employees.
 f. It tries to develop competencies at the organisation
level. It stresses on providing healthy climate for
development in the organisation.
g. HRD is a system. It has several sub-systems. All these
sub-systems are inter-related and interwoven. It
stresses on collaboration among all the sub-systems.
h. It aims to develop an organisational culture in which
there is good senior-subordinate relations,
motivation, quality and sense of belonging.
i. It tries to develop competence at individual, inter-
personal, group and organisational level to meet
organisational goal.
j. It is an inter-disciplinary concept. It is based on the
concepts, ideas and principles of sociology,
psychology, economics etc.
k. It form on employee welfare and quality of work life. It tries to
examine/identify employee needs and meeting them to the best
possible extent.
l. It is a continuous and systematic learning process.
Development is a life long process, which never ends.

Benefits of Human Resource Development

Human resource development now a days is considered as the
key to higher productivity, better relations and greater profitability
for any organisation. Appropriate HRD provides unlimited benefits
to the concerned organisation. Some of the important benefits are
being given here:

 HRD (Human Resource Development) makes people
more competent. HRD develops new skill, knowledge and
attitude of the people in the concern organisations.
 With appropriate HRD programme, people become
more committed to their jobs. People are assessed on the
basis of their performance by having a acceptable
performance appraisal system.
 An environment of trust and respect can be created
with the help of human resource development.
 Acceptability toward change can be created with the
help of HRD. Employees found themselves better equipped
with problem-solving capabilities.
 It improves the all round growth of the employees. HRD
also improves team spirit in the organisation. They become
more open in their behaviour. Thus, new values can be
generated.
 It also helps to create the efficiency culture In the
organisation. It leads to greater organisational effectiveness.
Resources are properly utilised and goals are achieved in a
better way.
 It improves the participation of worker in the
organisation. This improve the role of worker and workers feel
a sense of pride and achievement while performing their jobs.
 It also helps to collect useful and objective data on
employees programmes and policies which further facilitate
better human resource planning.
 Hence, it can be concluded that HRD provides a lot of
benefits in every organisation. So, the importance of concept
of HRD should be recognised and given a place of eminence,
to face the present and future challenges in the organisation.
https://www.businessmanagementideas.com/human-resource-
development/human-resource-development-meaning-concept-
objectives-functions-role-and-process/19448

Human Resources Department

Human resources departments are often considered an essential
part of many organizations. They are present in numerous
industries, and take on many different functions in their day-to-
day responsibilities.

HR departments act as a liaison between employers and

employees to help ensure both are well equipped to do their jobs
safely and effectively. While some organizations have their own
in-house HR department, others may use an outside firm. In
either capacity, HR managers help maintain the structural and
organizational integrity of the workplace. While HR may
sometimes be regarded as the disciplinary arm of a company, in
reality, HR holds many supportive responsibilities like the ones
we’ll discuss on this page. From making sure employees are paid
and receive benefits to overseeing employee development, HR
departments and managers aim to create workplaces where both
employers and employees can thriveExternal link:open_in_new.
On this page, you’ll find the main functions of an HR department,
and what each entails:

 Recruitment and Hiring

 Training and Development
 Employer-Employee Relations
  Maintain Company Culture
 Manage Employee Benefits
 Create a Safe Work Environment
 Handle Disciplinary Actions

Recruitment and Hiring

For many organizations, attracting and retaining the best
talent in the industry is a priority. HR managers play an
important role in this, helping to build the future of the
company by overseeing the recruitment and hiring process.
To begin, HR may work with a department manager or
supervisor to learn about an open position, including its
requirements and ideal candidate qualities. The HR
department may then set forth a recruiting strategy. This
might include creating internal and external job postings,
screening incoming applicants’ resumes and other
application materials, and conducting initial interviews. HR
may also be responsible for professional reference checks
and background checks to verify that candidates are eligible
to work for the company.

Training and Development

Hiring qualified employees is just one aspect of an HR
department’s job. In order to retain talent and remain
competitive, HR managers may also be responsible for
launching employee development initiatives. This could
entail additional on-the-job training, professional
development programs, or educational opportunities that
allow employees to grow and develop in their current roles
—or prepare them for career advancement within the
organization. HR departments know that investing in
training and development benefits both employers and
employeesExternal link:open_in_new. For employers, it may
mean higher employee productivity, and lower turnover
rates. For employees, seeing the company invest in their
development may help them feel more valued, increase job
satisfaction, and incentivize them to stay with the company.

Employer-Employee Relations
Another aspect of the workplace that HR departments
manage is employer-employee relationships. With this
function, HR departments strive to help employers and
employees see each other as mutual contributors to the
company, fostering a positive dynamic between the two. HR
managers may also help craft and determine company
policies that ensure fairness and equity in the workplace.

When an employee has a workplace grievance—whether

regarding compensation, benefits, workloads, work hours,
or anything else—HR may step in to act as a liaison between
the employee and employer, helping to settle any
disagreements. Overall, when HR departments succeed in
creating positive employee relations, employers may trust
their employees and value their input more, and on the flip
side, employees may respect and appreciate their employers
more.

Maintain Company Culture

Elements of company culture may include sound hiring
practices, ongoing development, and strong employee
relations. However, it’s not necessarily something you can
achieve and move on from. HR departments engage in
ongoing work to ensure that their company culture remains
solid overtime.

In the employee onboarding process, HR managers may

share the company’s values, norms, and vision with
employees—familiarizing them with the overall ethos of the
organization. Team outings, community building, and any
reward systems or recognition programs are additional
ways HR departments might keep employee motivation and
morale high. Maintaining company culture also means being
equipped to identify any shortcomings within the
organization and having the ability to address them
effectively.

Manage Employee Benefits

On the administrative side, HR departments oversee both
mandated and voluntary company benefits. While
employers are required to provide some benefits like Social
Security, unemployment, and worker’s compensation, other
benefits like paid time off, disability income, and gym
reimbursements, are provided on a voluntary basis—and
serve as additional incentive for potential and current
employees to work at the company.

Of course, employee benefit programs vary by organization.

Some may offer employer matching programs (in which
employers match an employee’s contribution to their
retirement fund), while others may offer enticing
comprehensive health insurance plans. Regardless of the
specific benefits an employer may offer, managing all of
these components is a complex job. It requires HR managers
to be well-versed in their understanding of company benefit
programsExternal link:open_in_new and have the ability to
clearly explain and answer any questions employees may
have regarding their policies.

Create a Safe Work Environment

In addition to managing benefits, HR is responsible for
protecting employees’ safety at work—both physical and
emotional. In the physical sense, HR must ensure the
workplace is free of dangerExternal link:open_in_new,
typically through worksite analysis and hazard prevention
and control. HR may also establish safety programs through
risk management training and provide information on
procedures and protocol for any potential emergency
scenarios.

Workplace safety also entails ensuring that the organization

acts in accordance with federal and state employment rules
and regulations. HR departments have a responsibility to
maintain work environments that promote respect and
dignity for all employees. They must also ensure that
employees are protected from behaviors like harassment,
discrimination, intimidation, and exploitation. They may
provide training sessions for employees, managers, and
supervisors to learn to identify harmful practices and know
how to report them when needed.

Handle Disciplinary Actions

Disciplinary procedures and terminations are delicate and
sometimes complicated matters. HR managers must know
how to handle them fairly and consistently to keep
situations running smoothlyExternal link:open_in_new—
and prevent any additional conflict or escalation. This may
involve having a clear disciplinary process, whether that
includes starting with a written warning and increasing in
severity with suspensions or demotions—or following
 another proven system. Regardless of the specifics, HR
managers must have a set system in place to hold employees
accountable.

Additionally, HR may consult with legal counsel to ensure

the company acts in accordance with the law, avoiding any
mishandled situations and subsequent lawsuits. At the end
of the day, HR departments have a responsibility to enforce
an organization’s policies and the requirements of the law,
while still maintaining the dignity and humanity of its
employees.

8 Key Qualities of an HR Manager

 Sympathetic Attitude
 Quick Decisions
 Integrity
 Patience
 Formal Authority
 Leadership
 Social Responsibility
 Good Communication Skills
What is strategic planning?
Strategic planning is a process in which an organization's
leaders define their vision for the future and identify their
organization's goals and objectives. The process includes
establishing the sequence in which those goals should be realized
so that the organization can reach its stated vision.

Strategic planning typically represents mid- to long-term goals

with a life span of three to five years, though it can go longer. This
is different than business planning, which typically focuses on
short-term, tactical goals, such as how a budget is divided up.
The time covered by a business plan can range from several
months to several years.

The product of strategic planning is a strategic plan. It is often

reflected in a plan document or other media. These plans can be
easily shared, understood and followed by various people
including employees, customers, business partners and investors.

Organizations conduct strategic planning periodically to consider

the effect of changing business, industry, legal and regulatory
conditions. A strategic plan may be updated and revised at that
time to reflect any strategic changes.

Why is strategic planning important?

Businesses need direction and organizational goals to work toward.
Strategic planning offers that type of guidance. Essentially, a strategic
plan is a roadmap to get to business goals. Without such guidance, there
is no way to tell whether a business is on track to reach its goals.
The following four aspects of strategy development are worth attention:

1. The mission. Strategic planning starts with a mission that offers a

company a sense of purpose and direction. The
organization's mission statement describes who it is, what it does
and where it wants to go. Missions are typically broad but
actionable. For example, a business in the education industry might
seek to be a leader in online virtual educational tools and services.
2. The goals. Strategic planning involves selecting goals. Most planning
uses SMART goals -- specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and
time-bound -- or other objectively measurable goals. Measurable
goals are important because they enable business leaders to
determine how well the business is performing against goals and
the overall mission. Goal setting for the fictitious educational
business might include releasing the first version of a virtual
classroom platform within two years or increasing sales of an
existing tool by 30% in the next year.
3. Alignment with short-term goals. Strategic planning relates directly
to short-term, tactical business planning and can help business
leaders with everyday decision-making that better aligns with
business strategy. For the fictitious educational business, leaders
might choose to make strategic investments in communication and
collaboration technologies, such as virtual classroom software and
services but decline opportunities to establish physical classroom
facilities.
4. Evaluation and revision. Strategic planning helps business leaders
periodically evaluate progress against the plan and make changes or
adjustments in response to changing conditions. For example, a
business may seek a global presence, but legal and regulatory
restrictions could emerge that affect its ability to operate in certain
 geographic regions. As result, business leaders might have to revise
the strategic plan to redefine objectives or change progress metrics.
What are the steps in the strategic planning process?
There are myriad different ways to approach strategic planning
depending on the type of business and the granularity required. Most
strategic planning cycles can be summarized in these five steps:

Identify. A strategic planning cycle starts with the determination of a

business's current strategic position. This is where stakeholders use the
existing strategic plan -- including the mission statement and long-term
strategic goals -- to perform assessments of the business and its
environment. These assessments can include a needs assessment or a
SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis to
understand the state of the business and the path ahead.

Prioritize. Next, strategic planners set objectives and initiatives

that line up with the company mission and goals and will move the
business toward achieving its goals. There may be many potential
goals, so planning prioritizes the most important, relevant and
urgent ones. Goals may include a consideration of resource
requirements -- such as budgets and equipment -- and they often
involve a timeline and business metrics or KPIs for measuring
progress.

Develop. This is the main thrust of strategic planning in which

stakeholders collaborate to formulate the steps or tactics
necessary to attain a stated strategic objective. This may involve
creating numerous short-term tactical business plans that fit into
the overarching strategy. Stakeholders involved in plan
development use various tools such as a strategy map to help
visualize and tweak the plan. Developing the plan may involve
cost and opportunity tradeoffs that reflect business priorities.
Developers may reject some initiatives if they don't support the
long-term strategy.

Implement. Once the strategic plan is developed, it's time to put it

in motion. This requires clear communication across the
organization to set responsibilities, make investments, adjust
policies and processes, and establish measurement and
reporting. Implementation typically includes strategic
management with regular strategic reviews to ensure that plans
stay on track.

Update. A strategic plan is periodically reviewed and revised to

adjust priorities and reevaluate goals as business conditions
change and new opportunities emerge. Quick reviews of metrics
can happen quarterly, and adjustments to the strategic plan can
occur annually. Stakeholders may use balanced scorecards and
other tools to assess performance against goals.

Types of strategic plans

Strategic planning activities typically focus on three areas: business,
corporate or functional. They break out as follows:

 Business. A business-centric strategic plan focuses on the

competitive aspects of the organization -- creating competitive
advantages and opportunities for growth. These plans adopt a
mission evaluating the external business environment, setting goals,
and allocating financial, human and technological resources to meet
those goals. This is the typical strategic plan and the main focus of
this article.
 Corporate. A corporate-centric plan defines how the company
works. It focuses on organizing and aligning the structure of the
business, its policies and processes and its senior leadership to meet
desired goals. For example, the management of a research and
development skunkworks might be structured to function
dynamically and on an ad hoc basis. It would look different from the
management team in finance or HR.
 Functional. Function-centric strategic plans fit within corporate-
level strategies and provide a granular examination of specific
departments or segments such as marketing, HR, finance and
development. Functional plans focus on policy and process -- such
as security and compliance -- while setting budgets and resource
allocations.

In most cases, a strategic plan will involve elements of all three focus
areas. But the plan may lean toward one focus area depending on the
needs and type of business

What is strategic management?

Organizations that are best at aligning their actions with their strategic
plans engage in strategic management. A strategic management process
establishes ongoing practices to ensure that an organization's processes
and resources support the strategic plan's mission and vision statement.

In simple terms, strategic management is the implementation of the

strategy. As such, strategic management is sometimes referred to as
strategy execution. Strategy execution involves identifying benchmarks,
allocating financial and human resources and providing leadership to
realize established goals.

Strategic management may involve a prescriptive or descriptive

approach. A prescriptive approach focuses on how strategies should be
created. It often uses an analytical approach -- such as SWOT or
balanced scorecards -- to account for risks and opportunities. A
descriptive approach focuses on how strategies should be implemented
and typically relies on general guidelines or principles

What is a strategy map?

A strategy map is a planning tool or template used to help
stakeholders visualize the complete strategy of a business as one
interrelated graphic. These visualizations offer a powerful way for
understanding and reviewing the cause-and-effect relationships
among the elements of a business strategy.

While a map can be drawn in a number of ways, all strategy maps

focus on four major business areas or categories: financial,
customer, internal business processes (IBPs), and learning and
growth. Goals sort into those four areas, and relationships or
dependencies among those goals can be established.

For example, a strategy map might include a financial goal of

reducing costs and an IBP goal to improve operational efficiency.
These two goals are related and can help stakeholders
understand that tasks such as improving operational workflows
can reduce company costs and meet two elements of the
strategic plan.

A strategy map can help translate overarching goals into

an action plan and goals that can be aligned and implemented.

Strategy mapping can also help to identify strategic challenges

that might not be obvious. For example, one learning and growth
goal may be to increase employee expertise but that may expose
unexpected challenges in employee retention and compensation,
which affects cost reduction goals.

Given the similarities between strategic planning and strategic

management, the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

Benefits of strategic planning

Effective strategic planning has many benefits. It forces
organizations to be aware of the future state of opportunities and
challenges. It also forces them to anticipate risks and understand
what resources will be needed to seize opportunities and
overcome strategic issues.

Strategic planning also gives individuals a sense of direction and

marshals them around a common mission. It creates standards
and accountability. Strategic planning can enhance operational
plans and efficiency. It also helps organizations limit time spent
on crisis management, where they're reacting to unexpected
changes that they failed to anticipate and prepare for.