‘Strategies & Systems HRD Climate in Indian Org. ISSON - 4 HRD CLIMATE IN INDIAN ORGANISATIONS RNING OBJECTIVE: After going through this lesson, you should be able to : Know the General Climate in Organisations. Understand the Concept of HRD Climate. Review the Elements of HRD Climate. Measurment of HRD Climate in Indian Organisaitons. SSON STRUCTURE: 44 Introduction 42. Definition of General Climate 43 HRD Climate and Organisational Climate 4.4 Elements of HRD Climate | 45. Measurements of HRD Climate | 46 Survey of HRD Climate in Indian Organisations 4,7 What Contributes to HRD Climate 48 Summary 49 Key words 4.10 Self Assessment Questions 4.11 Further Readings 4.12 Appendices -1 INTRODUCTION The HRD climate of an organisation plays a very important role in ensuring the competency, (tivation and development of its employees. The HRD climate can be created using appropriate IRD systems and leadership styles of top management. The HRD climate is both a means to an nd 2s well as an end in itself. In the recent past simple instruments have been developed to asure the HRD climate in organisations. These instruments are being widely used to assess riodically the climate, maintain profiles and design interventions to further improve it. This lesson resents a detailed conceptual background of the HRD climate, various research studies available(Centre for Distance Education on HRD. climate discusses jy t is being used by gj ; Instruments to measure HRD climate that is being d by itera organisations, By the 6nd Of this lesson the reader should be able to use the HRD Climate surge, ‘uestionnaire to, Measure the HRD climate of his own organisation Reader also will get an VEN iey of the HRD climate existing in different organisations. 4.2 DEFINITION OF Perception about achieve these goals co Both the formal and ir Acharya Nagarjuna Univers GENERAL CLIMATE 8n organisation's goals and about decisions that a manager should tate une Net only from formal control systems but also through informal Informal structure combine to create what is called organisational climate, The term 'climate'is used to desig N the quality of cooperation, the de br commitment to organisational put translated into re: nate the quality of the internal environment which velopment the individual, the extent of member's dedication pose, and the efficiency with which that purpose becomes Suits. Climate isthe atmosphere in which individuals help, judge, reward, con: Wak co ttabout each other, tt influences morale andithe attitudes of the individual towards his work and environment Of attention in the past 25 years, Guion (1973) has stated that The Concept implied by the term organi satlonal climate may be one of the most important to enter the thinking of industrial psychologists in many years" Hellnegel and Slocum (1974) define organisational climate a8 a "set of attributes which can be perceived about a particular organisation and/or its si ub-systems, and that may be induced in the way that organisation and/or its sub-systems deal with thar members and environment”. This Gefinition implies that in the measurement of orgaisational climate a) b) The tevel of inclusiveness of the items, ©) The units of analysis tend to be attributes of the organisation or Specific sub-systems rather than the individual; 3) The perceptions have potential behavioral consequences Schneider (1975) has prepared a working definition of climate. “Climate perceptions are psychologically meaningful molar descriptions that people can ag characterize a system's practices and procedures. By its practices and Procedures a system m Greate many climates. People perceive climate because the Molar perceptions function as 5 of reference for the attainment of some congruity between behaving: and the system's pra and procedures. However, ifthe climate is one which rewards ana Supports individual differs People in the same system will not behave similarly. Further because satisfaction is perso evaluation of a systems practices and procedures, people in r the system tend to agree less onth satisfaction than on their description of the system's climate." By its very nature, climate cannot be descnibed concretely, ‘Some alternative charaStrategies & Systems follows. Focus on results versus focus on following work Individual accomplishment versus member of the team : Initiative and risk-taking versus not racking the boat Individual gains versus enhancement of organisation objectives ‘Tough mindedness versus dealing with people versus avoidance of unpleasant actions. ‘The relative importance of participating management versus authoritarian management. Schneider and Reichers (1983) outline a four-fold progress made in climate research. The ‘approach to understanding how work context affect behaviour and attitudes is grounded in 't provides a much needed alternative to motivation theories as explanations for just everything that happens to people at work. A second advance in climate research has its focus on multiple level of analysis. While fivationists tend to concentrate on the explanations of phenomena from an individual's pective, climate research tends to focus on aggregated or group level data to discover tionships between clusters of perceptions and organisationally relevant outcomes, A third advance has been the clarification of the distinction between psychological climates organisational climates. This distinction, first proposed by James and Jones (1974), and further ed by Jones and James (1979), has gained general acceptance. Briefly, psychological climates the summated, averaged meanings that people attach to a particular feature of the setting, The fourth advance follows from the idea that people attach meaning to, or make sense of sters of psychologically related events. People in organisations encounter thousands of events, Bctices and procedures and they perceive these events in related sets. 3 HRD CLIMATE AND ORGANISATIONAL CLIMATE HRD climate is an integral part of organisational climate. It can be defined as perceptions the ployee can have on the developmental environment of an organisation. This developmental imate will have the following characteristics (Rao and Abraham, 1986): A tendency at all levels, starting from top management to the lowest level to treat the people as the most important resource Aperception that developing the competencies in the employees, is the job of every manager / supervisor. Faith in the capability of employees to change and acquire new competencies at any stage of lite. tendency to be open in communications and discussions rather than being secretive (fairly free expression of feelings) Encouraging risk-taking and experimentation Making efforts to help employees recognize their strengths and weaknesses through feedback. Ageneral climate of trust= (Centre for Distance Education a Acharya Negru O h) Atendency on the part of. employees to be generally helpful to each other and collaborate wih | each other. i) Team spirit. i) Tendency to discourage stereotypes and favoritism. ‘) Supportive personnel policies. ') Supportive HRD practices including performance appraisal, training, reward manag Potential development, job-rotation, career planning, etc. Organisations differ in the extent to which they have these tendencies. Some organisa may have some of these tendencies, some others may have only a few of these and may Most of these. It is possible to work out the profile of an organisation on the basis of these tenden HRD climate contributes to the organisations’ overall health and self-renewing capabilt which in turn, increase the enabling capabilities of individual, dyads, team and the entire organisatic 4.4 ELEMENTS OF HRD CLIMATE The elements of HRD climate can be grouped into three broad categories-general OCTAPACE culture and HRD mechanisms. The general climate deals with the importance given to human resources develo general by the top management and line managers. The OCTAPACE deals with the e) which ‘openness’, ‘confrontation’, ‘rust’, ‘autonomy’, ‘proactivity, ‘authenticity’, ‘collabor and ‘experimenation‘are valued and promoted in the organisation. The items dealing mechanisms measure the extent to which HRD mechanisms are implemented serio three groups were taken with the following assumptions. a) A general supportive climate is important for HRD if it has to be implemented effe ‘Such supportive climate consists of not only top management, line management's com but good personnel policies and positive attitudes towards development. b) Successful implementation of HRD involves an integrated look at HRD and e' potential appraisal, career planning, performance rewards, feedback and counselling t employee welfare for quality work life, job-rotation, ete c) OCTAPACE culture is essential for facilitating HRD. Such a culture has been termed as OCTAPACE culture in the past. acronym for Openness, Collaboration, Trust, Authenticity, Proaction, Autonomy, Experimentation. Openness is where pedple (individuals, dyads, teams and everyone in the feel free to express their ideas, views, opinions and feelings) to each other, j level, designation etc. There are no barriers to such expression. People are encou and are heard when expressed. Their views are taken seriously. Such an exp opportunity for individuals to explore their own talents. The organization handles tf for discovering new ways of doing things, for discovering new potential and for tal are based on the best talent of the organization. There are only some views that Accepted and tested or put 1 action. That does not cisappoint those whose vlto action. They continue to contribute, as such, contribution Is a way of life. Collaboration is the culture where people (individuals, dyads, teams and the organization »whole) are eager to help each other There is a spirit of sacrifice for each other's and sake for goals. Personal power is played down and people are governed by larger goals like the goals organization, country and humanity at large. People are willing to go to any extent to help other make sure that larger organizational goals do not suffer. Organizational goals particularly yn decision-making and people do not have narrow developmental or team loyalties. Fewer jeads are needed to resolve inter-departmental conflicts. The We Felling is of the highest ; Team spirit is high. intra-departmental loyalties don't come in the way of inter-departmental poration. Cohesiveness of small groups has an enabling and empowering effect on building eness and the larger organizational identity. Trust and Trustworthiness deals with a culture of people believing each other and action on basis of verbal messages and instructions, without having to wait for written instructions or lanations. When people say that they will do something or promise to do something. itis simply pd upon. There is no need for extra monitoring and control. There are no overheads to check Bther people are mean what they say. The word given by individuals, dyads or team is relied In such a culture both trust and trustworthiness are of the highest order. In order to create 2 e of trusting one another, a culture of trustworthiness is essential. If every individual becomes orthy, trust automatically follows, Trust puts the onus on the person who is the recipient of the ise or the word given. Trustworthiness puts the onus on the person who makes the promise jves his word. Both the equally important and they are two sides of the same cain. One is ed to build the other. ‘Authenticity is speaking the trust fearlessly and keeping promises once they are made. It dicated by the extent to which people say what they mean and do what they say. In a way, itis igher order than trust and trustworthiness. individuals, dyads and teams can be counted upon to make false promises. They never say, promise or commit things to please others. Whenever jple speak they speak from their heart and are sincere in what they say. They also make full ris to implement what they say and keep their promises. They do not need any follow-up and if fail to do so, it is understood that it is because of extraordinary circumstances beyond their ro. Proactive culture is one that promotes initiative and explorations on the part of all individuals, ds, teams and all employees. A pro-active culture encourages everyone to take initiative and things happen. New activities and new ways of doing things are encouraged. Such pro- may be in any area, including role-making (giving new interpretations to one's role in order to jeve organizational or team goals), role-taking (taking new initiatives, initiating new activities, ging old methods of work), work methodology, cost reduction, quality improvements, culture Bing, human resource management, etc, A proactive culture encourages people to undertake activities ‘Autonomy is present if every role holder in the organization, iespective of the level has € scope in his or her job to use some discretion. The discretion may be in terms of work ‘ods, decision-making, communication or any such area. Every employee should feel that he/ has the scope for some discretion in his job, There should be scope to choose one's activities the role to some extent. It may be 10 per cent of the time or it may be 20 per cent. The higher feedom to choose what one wants to do, or the way he/she wants to do things the higher the nomy This has been the highest in quite a few educational and research organizationsConfrontation s the culture of facing issues squarely, Issues are talked about the There is very little or no fear of hurting one another. Even if one has to hurt each other, the issueig faced up to and net brushed under the carpet. People can be relied upon to treat iSSUeS as issue and not take them as a personal assault or get hurt. This culture enhances the Problem-solvieg ability. Experimentation is the orientation on the part of employees to try out new ways of doing things and experiment with new decisions. It characterizes a risk-taking culture in the organization, Without risks, there is no growth. Without experimentation, there is very little scope for r rejuvenation and simplification of life. Openness and confrontation go together. Autonomy and collaboration go together. Trust and authenticity go together. Pro-action and experimentation go together. These four pairs are the four comer stones of a HRD culture. When these values are practiced in an organization, they become a part of life and are likely to get the best out of people. Human potential is likely to be developed to the maximum extent and ‘the people's competencies are also likely to be utilized to the maximum extent. | 4.4.1 IMPORTANCE OF TOP MANAGEMENT STYLES Such OCTAPACE culture can be built only by an enlightened top management. By top management here is meant that all those who are decision-makes and event makers in the Organization. These include the owners, board, directors, unit heads, heads of departments and even sectional heads. It also includes office bearers of unions and associations. All heads of formal 2nd informal organizations that have the capability, influence the course of action of the organization: ‘ts unit, sub-systems or functions, may be considered a top level manager. It is such influential People who set the tone for creating an OCTAPACE culture. They do it through the roles Perform or de not perform and the styles with which they perform the roles that they do. Their of functioning has a larger impact on the creation of culture. The conventional connotation with which the term ‘climate’ has been used in fi ‘Organisational Climate’. The concept of climate with specific references to HRD context ie. HR climate, has been recently introduced by Rao and Abraham (1986). Perhaps it could be due 0 reason that there is hardly any research work available in published literature 4.5 MEASUREMENT OF HRD CLIMATE Since the HRD climate is some what similar to the conve 'tem-wise comparison of this questionnaire with four other orgenisational climate is presented in Appendix 1 in order to est: questionnaire, Thus, 16 out of 38 items of the HRD climate questior to HRD climate; the rest being common with the items inc! questionnaire. These exclusive items are related to OCTAPAC climate. Thus, this questionnaire can be expected to measure Hi ntional organisational clit Questionnaires that measut ‘ablish the content validity off naire, (Appendix 2) are e» luded in organisational 4 Culture which is specific IRD climate To establish the factorial validity of the 36 items instrume; climate, factor analysis was conducted. Emergence of a single / from among the 38 items is an indication of the factorial validity o of the principal components method of factor analysis Nt developed to me: few factors with large 1 the quesstionnaire. are presented in Table 1. (See,IRD Strategies & Systems : HRD Climate in Indian Ong. The first factor accounts for 44.7% of variance of climate and nine factors explain 84.1% of jance of climate. Thus, with a reasonable degree of confidence, it can be concluded that this 38 instrument is measuring climate well enough To understand various independent dimensions of climate these factors of climate are listed Table 3. (See Annexure 1). Thus these three dimensions seem to be related to counselling, autonomy and proactivity, ining and philosophy. Thus, on the whole the climate is hypothesized to consist of major mponents, viz, general climate, OCTAPAC culture and HRD mechanisms (Rao and Abraham, j986). This study points out that the climate has the HRD mechanisms / instruments as the major jimensions. To establish the reliability of this HRD climate questionnaire, the internal consistency (that is, jomogeneity of items) is tested using Cronbach Alpha. An alpha value of at least 0.80 indicates igh consistency or internal agreement between an item and the entire set of all the items in the yuestionnaire (Guy et. al 1987). The Cronbach Alphas related to each item of the questionnaire is sented in Table 4. Since each alpha is large (greater than 0.80), it can be concluded that the ternal consistency of this questionnaire is acceptable and that all the items proposed to be included the questionnaire are necessary and dropping any one of them does not improve the internal insistency of the questionnaire. ‘To measure the HRD climate prevalentin any organisation, this questionnaire was administered several managers in the organisation at various hierarchical levels. Each manager is required to fore each of the 38 items on a 1-5 point scale. The average of the responses of all the managers taken as item score for the organisation. Average of all the scores of all the items is taken as the IRD climate. .6 SURVEY OF HRD CLIMATE IN INDIAN ORIGINATIONS Several Indian organisations were surveyed for their HRD climate and data was collected ‘om 2673 respondents from 52 organisations and the results of which are presented in page no ? Itis interesting to note that the average extent of climate prevalent in all the 52 organisations Is about 84% which is rather low. To see which components are favorable and which are not, an iiem-wise analysis is conducted and results are discussed below. The following are the items with respect to which the HRD climate is net favorable, ie. the erage item-wise scores are below 50% ) The management goes out ofits way to make sure that employees enjoy their work (Item No > are mechanisms in the organisations to reward any good work done or any contribution y the employees (Item No. 15). Joyees are encouraged to experiment with new methods and try out creative ideas (Item Empl No. 19). saviour feedback is given to employees they take it seriously and use it for development 22) Employees in this organisation take pains to find out their strengths and weaknesses from tem No(Contre for Distance Education ye 4 § (Acharya Nagarjuna Univers er) the supervising officers or colleagues (Item No. 23) 1) Employees returning from training programmes are given opportunities to try out what they have feamt (Item No. 25) 9) Employees are encouraged to take initiative and do things on their own without having to wa, for instructions from supervisors (Item No. 30) h) Career opportunities are pointed out to juniors by senior officers in the organisation (Item No 35) ') This organisation ensures employee welfare to such an extent that the employees can save a lot of their mental energy for work purposes (tem No.37) ‘The following are the items with respect to which the HRD climate is favourable, ie., the average item-wise scores are above 60%. 4) The top management believes that human resources are an extremely important resource and that they have to be treated more humanly (Item No. 2). b) People in this organisation are helpful to each other (Item No. 2) c) Promotion decisions are based on the suitability of the promotee rather than on favoritisms (Item No, 14) ) Performance appraisal reports in our organisation are based on objective assessment and adequate information and not on favoritisms (Item No. 17) ©) When employees are sponsored for training, they take it seriously and try to learn from the Programme they attend (item No. 24). ) Employees are not afraid to express or discuss their feelings with their superiors (Item No 28) Thus it appears that there is a gap between belief and practice, though the top management believe that human resources are their they do not seem to do much in developing their human resources. E: the reward mechanisms are not seen tobe favorably implemented. Thy spend huge amounts of money on training and the employees also t organisation do not seem to be making any effort to make effective training the employees by not assigning them the tasks related trained at the top management level, Most important asset, and yet xcept for promotion decisions, ough most of the organisations ‘ake their training seriously the use of the investments made in to the areas in which they are ILis rather strange to note that HRD climate is open enou their feelings with their superiors, yet the employees are reluctant their superiors and use it for their development. This indicates t a climate for openness in so far as expression of feelings is co, feedback. |tis unfortunate to note that the organisations do not and encouraging any initiative on the part of the employees to gh for the employees to discuss i to accept the feedback given by hat the organisations are creating ncemed, but not for receiving the Seem to be fostering any creativity. Perform their own tasks. It is surprising that, in general, the top management is not see make sure that employees enjoy thelr work (Item No.1 of the questioy for which the average is less than 0% (for example, Item Nos. 19, 25, the items for which the average Is more than 60% (for example, item °n @S going out of its way 12 nnaire). Several of the items 80, 36 and 37) together with Nos. 9, 24 and 28) indicates Ll... aStrategies & Systems HRD Climate in Indian Org the employees, in general seem to be'l am OK, you are not OK’ type. Ahigh score for Item No.2 top management believes that human resources are an extremely important resources and they have to be treated more humanly) indicates that the organisations seem to convey to the yyees Of their ‘good intentions’. However, the fact that 41 out of 52 organisations have their jate scores less than 60% indicates that the top management are yet to convince their employees: eit good intentions' in deed. The only positive trend appears to be that the employees perceive mance appraisal for promotion decision as objectives. Table 3 points out the proactivity and autonomy are among the major significant contributor to climate. However, a perusal of Table 5 (Annexure 3) suggest that the related items (for example Nos. 25, 30, 19, 15, 22) score very low averages (less than 50%) in practice. The items ted to other significant contributors like philosophy and counselling score averages in the range to 60%. Thus, there is a need of changing employees’ perception. Also, there is scope for et improvement of climate in the organisations. In fact, the overall organisational climate is ut 54% only, Item-wise distribution of the organisation is presented in Table 6 (Annexure 4). Itis interesting Inote that none of these distributions, when plotted, are flat. This means that there are no radictions in the climate prevalent in the organisations. \t may be possible that the HRD practice ese respondent organisation is stil in primitive stages and hence, the climate is in the process _ ing built up and therefore, perhaps overtime these distributions shift to the right. However, an | cit investigation to establish the cause for prevalent position should be carried out and action, / jecessary, be taken to ensure a favourable shift to the climate 7 WHAT CONTRIBUTES TO HRD CLIMATE ? fe following factors may be considered as contributing to HRD climate ‘Top Management Style and Philosophy : Adevelopmental style, a belief in the capability of people, a participative approach, openness and receptivity to suggestions from the subordinates are some of the dimensions that contribute to the creation of a positive HRD climate. Personnel Policies : Personnel policies that show high concem for employees, that emphasis equity and objectivity in appraisals, policies that emphases sufficient resource allocation for welfare and developmental activities, policies that emphasis a collaborative attitude and trust among the people go a long way in creating the HRD climate HRD Instruments and Systems : Anumber of HRD instruments have been found to generate 4 good HRD climate, Particularly open systems of appraisal with emphasis of counselling, career development systems, informal training mechanisms, potential development systems _ etc, contribute to HRD climate 7 Self-renewal Mechanisms : Organisations that have builtin self-renewal mechanisms are < likely to generate a positive HRD climate. we Attitudes of Personnel and HRD Staff: A helpful and supportive attitude onthe partof HRD and personnel people plays a very crucial role in generating the HRD climate. Ifthe | | personal behaviour of any of these agents is not supportive, the HRD climate is likely to be vtiated, & ) Commitment of Line Managers : The commitment of line managers to the development of i i a= Centre for Distance Education ys their subordinates is a very im ‘of HRD climate. If ine manager, portant determiner a 0 spend a part oftheir time for their subordinates, itis likely to have a positive in 4.8 SUMMARY HRD aims at providing opportunities to individuals for full expression of their po focuses on the creation of values and culture conducive to individual growth in the o Context. In other wards, it works further creation of an enabling organisation and seeks to and manage human resources towards greater sharing of personal, social and economic val ‘The success of HRD in an organisation depends to a large extent, on the existence ofa fa HRD climate HRD is more personnel-oriented than technology-oriented and believes that partici communication would bring about greater commitment, efficiency, and growth and ind \ndividuals performance can be improved by offering scope for proving his/her mettle and trust by the boss. Increased group performance shall directly follow from encour teamwork. Objective performance appraisal and fulfillment of needs will enable imple HRD mechanism. Participation in decision-making shall bring forth commitment in im Broad supervision, freedom of operation, uninterrupted communication flaw, and timely i will Increase the individuals interest in the work-place thereby eliciting a higher level of 4.9 KEY WORDS Openness means the extent of willingness to share and receive informaiton, ideas and with the employees. Existence of effective two-way communication system, hous suggestion scheme etc., are its indicators. Confrontation means the willingness to face and solve problems rather than to avoid ther grow into a collective grievance. Willingness of executives to solve problems at the shopflo and to encourage workers to form Quality Circles and problem-solving groups is an int value. Trust means the extent of faith which people have for one another. Loose or no su} organisation's trust in employees’ words of self-certificatioin indicate the presence of tl ‘Autonomy means the degree of freedom enjoyed by the workers. Existence of selfma quality circles, flexible working time ete. are indicators of this value Proactivity means the tendency to think ahead of the problem. Ar N organisation's plans give an indication of this characteristic. Authenticity means that people say what they mean and mean wi preaches cost reduction and economy to its workers but practice: have no effect because they lack authenticity. hat they say. Ifthe Ss extravegence its p) Collaboration means people's tendency to live and work together as cohesive grou of project organisation, tear-bulding, common facies ike canteens and parking go uniforms for officers and workers etc. are indicators of this value Experimentation means the existence of supporting environment to take risk and inno management encourages its employees to bring in improvements by recognising tt or good ideas became victims of the "management by oibjections® systen >