Introduction to HRD

DEFINITION OF HRD
• HRD is a process for developing and unleashing human expertise through organization
development and personnel training and development for the purpose of improving
performance.
• Human Resource Development is any process or activity that, either initially or over the
long term, has the potential to develop adults’ work-based knowledge, expertise,
productivity, and satisfaction, whether for personal or group/team gain, or for the benefit of
an organization, community, nation, or, ultimately, the whole of humanity” (McLean &
McLean, 2000).
• In the words of Prof. T.V. Rao, "HRD is a process by which the employees of an
organization are helped in a continuous and planned way to (i) acquire or sharpen
capabilities required to perform various functions associated with their present or expected
future roles; (ii) develop their journal capabilities as individual and discover and exploit
their own inner potential for their own and /or organizational development purposes; (iii)
develop an organizational culture in which superior-subordinate relationship, team work
and collaboration among sub-units are strong and contribute to the professional well being,
motivation and pride of employees." .
 OBJECTIVES OF HRD
• To prepare the employee to meet the present and changing future job requirements.
• To prevent employee obsolescence.
• To develop creative abilities and talents.
• To prepare employees for higher level jobs.
• To impart new entrants with basic skills and knowledge.
• To develop the potentialities of people for the next level job.
• To aid total quality management.
• To promote individual and collective morale, a sense of responsibility, co-operative attitudes and good
relationships.
• To broaden the minds of senior managers by providing them with opportunities for an interchange of
experiences within and outside.
• To ensure smooth and efficient working of the organization.
• To provide comprehensive framework for HRD.
• To enhance organizational capabilities.
• 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 organizational goals.
 HRM and HRD

• HRM is the large system in an organization. HRD is a sub system of the large system and
HRD activities cannot be performed in isolation.
• HRM function is largely maintenance oriented and a function of management. HRD is an
ongoing process, and it is development oriented, aiming to enhance both personal and
professional growth
• HRM believes that an increase in the business results would lead to increase in the
performance or productivity. But HRD believes that the improvement in the performance
would be the result of the continuous increase in its activities.
• HRM is more result oriented, whereas HRD is more process oriented.
• HRM focuses more on the improvement in performance and on improvement in the
capabilities of employee’s productivity
• HRM aims at creating a successful business result for the organization and HRD aims at
creating learning organization for improving organizational capabilities and thereby
successful business results.
Approaches to HRD
• Strategic HR Framework approach
• Integrative framework
• Human capital appraisal approach
• People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) Approach
• Integrated system approach
• HRD score card approach
 Strategic HR Framework approach
• This framework formulated by Ulrich and Lake (1990) aims to leverage and/or align HR
practices to build critical organizational capabilities that enable an organization to achieve its
goals.
• Business strategy, organizational capabilities, and HR practices are the three important elements
in this framework.
• Ulrich (1997) presented a framework for HR professionals in terms of four key roles:
• Management of strategic human resource.
• Management of firm infrastructure.
• Management of employee contribution.
• Management of transformation and change.
• The activities for managing strategic human resources include the following:
• Aligning HR and business strategy: "organizational diagnosis."
• Reengineering organization processes: "shared services."
• Listening and responding to employees: "providing resources to employees."
• Managing transformation and change: "ensuring capacity for change."
 Strategic HR Framework approach
• The activities for management of firm infrastructure include the following:
• Constant examination for improving the HR processes.
• HR professionals to become administrative experts to ferret out unnecessary costs, improve
efficiency, and constantly find new ways to do things better; be effective as administrative
experts and undertake activities leading to continual reengineering of the work processes they
administer.
• HR professionals to design and deliver efficient HR processes for staffing, training,
appraising, rewarding, promoting, and managing the flow of employees through the
organization.
• The activities for managing employee contribution include listening, responding, and finding
ways to provide employees with resources that meet their changing demands.
• The activities for managing transformation and change include identifying and framing problems,
building relationships of trust, solving problems, creating, and fulfilling action plans.
The integrative framework
• The integrative framework offered by Yeung and Berman (1997) identifies three
paths through which HR practices can contribute to business performance:
(1) by building organizational capabilities;
(2) by improving employee satisfaction; and
(3) by shaping customer and shareholder satisfaction.
• Yeung and Berman (1997) argued for dynamic changes in HR measures to refocus
the priorities and resources of the HR function.
• They argued that
• HR measures should be business-driven rather than HR-driven;
• impact-driven rather than activity-driven;
• forward looking and innovative rather than backward looking;
• instead of focusing on individual HR practices should focus on the entire HR
system, considering synergies existing among all HR practices.
 Human capital appraisal approach
• This approach outlined by Friedman, James, and David (1998) of Arthur Andersen consulting
company is based on the belief that there are five stages in the management of human capital:
1. Clarification stage,
2. Assessment stage,
3. Design stage,
4. Implementation Stage,
5. Monitoring stage.
• There are five areas of human capital management:
1. Recruitment, retention, and retirement;
2. Rewards and performance management;
3. Career development, succession planning, and training;
4. Organizational structure; and
5. Human capital enablers
• A 5 X 5 matrix using these five stages and five areas could be used to evaluate and manage the
human capital well. For example, in the clarification stage, the managers examine their human
capital programmes to fit into their strategy and overall culture. They may also examine each of the
areas to fit into the strategy.
 People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) Approach
• Curtis and his team (1995) developed this approach for software organizations. The
People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) aims at providing guidance on how to
improve the ability of software organizations to attract, develop, motivate, organize,
and retain the talent needed to steadily improve their software development capability.
The strategic objectives of P-CMM are:
• Improving the capability of software organizations by increasing the capability of the workforce.
• Ensuring that the software development capability is an attribute of an organization rather than that
of a few individuals.
• Aligning the motivation of individuals with that of the organization.
• Retaining human assets (i.e., people with critical knowledge and skills within the organization).
• In the PCMM framework, five methods help in continuous improvement of the
knowledge set, skill set, development of effective methods, and improve the people
mindset for the organization's benefit.
• These five methods are 5 maturity level which has its own importance which is used
for defining the capability and develop the capability within the organization.
Integrated system approach
• It envisaged separate HRD department for effective designing and
implementation of human resource development systems
• It views strategy as the starting point and focused on all system to
achieve business goals and employee satisfaction
• It aimed at synergy, phased evaluation of HRD function and
includes most of the elements of the human capital approach.
 HRD Score Card Approach
• A recent approach formulated by Rao (1999) envisages that, in order
to make the right business impact, HR interventions should be mature
in terms of the HRD systems, competencies, culture (including styles),
and business linkages. Through a well formulated HRD audit, the
following are assessed:
• The maturity level and the appropriateness of each of the (a) subsystems of
HR, (b) the appropriateness of the HR structures, and (c) the level of
competencies of HR staff, line managers, top management, etc.
• The HRD culture (defined in terms of openness, collaboration, trust,
autonomy, pro-action, authenticity, confrontation, and experimentation) and
the congruence of the top management and HR staff styles with HRD culture,
and the extent to which all the systems and practices result in employee
satisfaction and customer satisfaction, etc.