Changing Phases of HRD in India
Introduction:
Human Resource Development is the framework for helping employees develops 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, succession planning, key employee identification, tuition assistance, and organization development.
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.
HRM Vs HRD
HRM means just what it says--human resource management--the management of people or resources in an organization. It encompasses the traditional areas Viz., compensation and benefits, recruiting and staffing, employee and labor relations and occupational health and safety. On the other hand, HRD--human resource development--is the development of the resources in a company: organization development, performance management, training and learning, and coaching. HRD includes evaluating the performance of employees, helping employees learn and develop new skills, and assisting them with weaknesses or areas of development. HRD also includes helping an organization develop--diagnosing problems with how people work together in certain areas of an organization.
Content
Ø The history and status of HRD in India.
Ø Comparison of aged HRD models with current HRD models.
Ø The managerial skills of current HRD managers
Ø The intensifying roles and functions of HRD managers.
Ø Emerging techniques of HRD.
Ø The future of HRD
Ø HRD challenges in the context of globalised scenario
Ø Conclusion.
1. Status of HRD in India
It was 25 years ago that our country witnessed the emergence of a new HRD culture in our country which was started as a "Review Exercise of the Performance Appraisal System" for L&T. Later on in 1974 the organization prepared a new integrated system called Human Resource Development ( HRD) System. This was probably the first of its kind in India. The new system clearly established the linkages between the various personnel related aspects such as performance appraisal, employee counseling, potential appraisal training, etc., which was followed by SBI and its associates in 1976 and Bharat Earth movers limited in Bangalore in 1978. The first HRD workshop to discuss HRD concepts and issues was held at IIMA in 1979 and Several chapters of HRD was published by Oxford & IBH as "Designing and Managing Human Resource Systems".This workshop was the beginning of spreading the HRD message.
Recently the Prison Department is developing a Human Resources Development (HRD) model to make optimum utilisation of the manpower (inmates). On an average 15,000 prisoners are lodged in nine central prisons, three special prisons for women and other jails across Tamil Nadu. The innovative model is to create an environment where every prisoner will have an option to learn, work and contribute to the family. According to Director General of Prisons R. Natraj, the HRD model was part of a welfare initiative that would protect the interests of inmates till their release. “The idea is to identify and promote the individual talent of prisoners. The scope of prison industry will be widened to create more job avenues. After a fresher course that will include counselling and personality development, inmates will be trained in their choice of industry”1.
HRD means Human Resources Development and not Human Resources Department. The Human Resources Departments have done the biggest damage in the last two decades to Human Resources Development by renaming the Personnel and Training Departments as HR Departments and weakening Human Resources Development.
Some HRD Managers have minimized their roles and reduced themselves to Administration Managers or Training Managers or Glorified Labor Welfare Officers, or at best to Recruitment and Retention Managers. IT Industry has perpetuated this. They failed to recognize them as a Strategic thinker, Business Partners, Leaders, Change Managers and CEOs. A number of corporations are using them as Personnel Administration Managers though designated them as HRD managers (to mean Managers of Human Resource Departments rather than Human Resources Development Managers). The HRD Profession is meant to stimulate thinking for future. The future is going to be competency era and it is people who will give strategic advantage to firms.
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1.The Hindu – Friday, Dec 12, 2008
2. Comparison of Aged HRD models with current HRD models.
When we compare current HRD model with old HRD model, we could see a well development between these two decades. In 60’s the old model started with training and differentiated training from education and development. So training was seen as preparation immediately for the job, education was seen as preparation for a job some time in the future, and development had more of an individual focus whereby the individual is developing himself or herself, which may or may not have implications for the organisation. This is a model that has migrated around the world.
In 1974, the HRD system established the linkages between the various personnel related aspects such as performance appraisal, employee counseling, potential appraisal training etc. Current model viz., HRD Systems Maturity Model assesses the extent to which various HRD subsystems and tools are well designated and being implemented. The model is as follows…..
• First the systems should be appropriate and relevant to business goals or organizational goals.
• Second they should focus on as well as balance between current and future needs of the corporation.
• Third the HRD strategies and systems should flow from the corporate strategies.
• Fourth the systems should be well designed and should have a structural maturity.
• Fifth they should be implemented well. The employees should be taking them seriously and follow meticulously what has been envisaged in each system. The overheads of implementation should be low. That is the monitoring requirements should be less arising out of the employees taking them seriously.
• Sixth the subsystems should be well integrated and should have internal synergy.
• Seventh they should be adequate and should take care of the HRD requirements of the organization.
The following subsystems are assessed on the above criteria and depending upon the extent to which they meet the requirements a scores are assigned.
• Manpower planning and recruitment
• Performance Management Systems
• Feedback and Coaching Mechanisms
• Training
• Career development and Succession planning
• Job-rotation
• OD Interventions
• HR Information Systems
• Worker Development methods and systems
• HR Information System
• Potential Appraisal and Development
• Other subsystems if any
Each of them is assessed on a ten point rating scale where a score of 10 represents an extremely high level of maturity, 5 represents a moderate level of maturity and 1 represents an extremely low level of maturity.
So we look forward to new models coming out; we look forward to models that are more focused and we have moved much further forward in the development of our theoretical – understanding of what HRD is and its concepts.
3. Managerial skills of current HRD managers.
Managers look at the skills or competencies so that they can successfully achieve the organizational goals. They are technical, human, and conceptual skills.
Technical Skills
Technical skills encompass the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.
Human Skills
The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups, describes human skills. Many people are technically proficient but interpersonally incompetent. Since managers get things done through other people, they must have good human skills to communicate, motivate, and delegate.
Conceptual Skills
Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations. These tasks require conceptual skills. Decision making, for instance, requires managers to spot problems, identify alternatives that can correct them, evaluate those alternatives ,and select the best one .Managers can be technically and interpersonally competent yet still fail because of an inability to rationally process and interpret information
Effective vs Successful Managerial activities
A study conducted by Luthans and his associates on how H.R.D managers are engaged in four managerial activities:
1. Traditional Management. Decision making ,planning, and controlling.
2. Communication Management. Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork.
3. Human resources management. Motivating ,disciplining ,managing conflict, staffing, and training.
4. Networking Management. Socializing , politicking, and interacting with outsiders.
The average manager in the study spent 32% of his or her time in traditional management activities,29% communicating,20% in human resource management activities ,and 19% networking. However, the amount of time and effort spent by different managers on those four activities varied a great deal. Specifically managers who were successful (defined in terms of the speed of promotion within their organization)had a very different emphasis than managers who were effective (defined in terms of the quantity and quality of their performance and the satisfaction and commitment of their employees).Among successful managers ,networking made the largest relative contribution to success, and human resource management activities made the least relative contribution. Among effective managers, communication made the largest relative contribution and networking the least.
4. Expanding roles and skills of HRD managers.
An essential part of the overall management strategy should be to consider how HRD can help the organization fulfill its mission. Looking at HRD from this strategic perspective will help us focus on the relationship between human resources and the organization's mission, strategies, and objectives.
HRD should:
Be a strategic partner in developing and attaining organizational goals and strategies;
Act as an administrative expert in establishing and managing administrative policies, procedures, and structures;
Represent and support employees capacity building;
Be a change agent for the organization.
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4.11 HRD as a strategic partner.
Human resources practices that could support strategic objectives might include:
Creating new jobs;
Revising job descriptions;
Recruiting new personnel with different skills;
Establishing clear transfer policies;
Conducting orientation sessions and training for staff at all levels;
Implementing leadership seminars for top managers;
Training supervisors.
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4.12 HRD as an administrative expert. Administrative infrastructure tasks may include designing and establishing procedures for recruiting, hiring, work planning, and performance review. They could also include developing clear policies for job classification, compensation, disciplinary actions, and labor law compliance; and maintaining the human resources database.
4.13 HRD representing and supporting employees. Human resource development can also be an employee champion in the organization by providing a mechanism for employees to express their needs and concerns, acting as an employee advocate, and developing and maximizing staff skills and knowledge and commitment to the organization. Ways in which HRD can fulfill its champion role include:
Holding face-to-face meetings between human resource staff and individuals and groups of employees;
Supporting the work planning and performance review process;
Surveying employees;
Talking informally to employees in the workplace;
Bringing employees' concerns to senior management in a timely fashion;
Taking corrective action with supervisors and employees as needed;
Coaching or mentoring managers to help them to be more effective and sensitive leaders.
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4.14 HRD as a change agent. Human resource development can play a key role in identifying and implementing processes for change and in preparing employees for change. Stress associated with change may be obvious at all levels in an organization by lack of cooperation and a decline in performance. Steps that human resource professionals can take to minimize the negative impact of change on employees and, ultimately, on their organizations, include:
Keeping all employees informed about the changes taking place and the anticipated benefits;
Creating opportunities for staff to contribute ideas, help plan, ask questions, and discuss the impact of the changes;
Being realistic about the expected benefits of the changes;
Soliciting ideas from employees about how to prepare for changes;
Encouraging team work and team spirit;
Following through on agreed-upon actions.
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4.2 Changing HRD managers by knowledge and learning managers.
HRD (Human resources development) Managers and HRD Departments were created in this country essentially to promote a learning culture. Following are the roles and functions of the HRD managers.
• Developing enabling capabilities in individuals and the system
• Integrating the development of the people with Organizational development
• Maximizing the learning opportunities of Individuals in organizations through various mechanisms, autonomy and responsibility
• Decentralization, delegation and shared responsibility
• Balancing change and adaptation
• Building feedback and reinforcement mechanisms etc.
Knowledge Management[/b] is defined as the new discipline of enabling individuals, teams and the entire organization to collectively and systematically create, share, and apply knowledge to better achieve the business objectives. Organizational learning[/b] is a parallel process: a continuous and strategically used process. A learning organization is an organization that learns continuously and thus transforms itself.
Chief Knowledge Officers (CKOs) are the focal points to leverage the organizations' knowledge into tangible business results and to gain competitive market advantage.
Chief Learning Officers (CLOs) are the focal points to leverage an organization's learning into tangible business results to gain competitive market advantage.
These positions are new, the responsibilities are evolving gradually and duties vary among different companies.
Sample of responsibilities for CKOs and CLOs include:
• Strategic planning at the highest levels of the company
• Ability to integrate diverse groups and work across all functions; develop the culture; build awareness of knowledge management or organizational learning.
• Design and implement a knowledge and or learning infrastructure to tie together corporate databases, employees' tacit knowledge and paper files.
• Consulting activities, organizational effectiveness
• Work closely with CEOs.
5. Emerging techniques of HRD.
5.1 HRD audit:
HRD audit makes a possible evaluation by examining the adequacy and appropriateness of the existing HRD systems, structures, styles, culture and competencies. HRD audit is cost-effective and can give many insights into a company's affairs. The auditors come for one to two weeks, camp at the organization and give a report in a month's time. They normally make a preliminary presentation at the end of their visit. HRD audit can lead to several benefits:
1. Getting the top management to think in terms of strategic and long-term business plans
2. Clarifying the role of the HRD department and line managers in HRD
3. Streamlining of other management practices
4. Better recruitment policies and more professional staff
5. Changes in the styles of top management
6. Improvements in HRD systems
7. More planning and more cost-effective training
8. Increased focus on human resources and human competencies
9. Strengthening accountabilities through appraisal systems and other mechanisms
10. TQM interventions
5.2 HRD Score Card
The HRD Score card assigns a four letter rating for each organization on the extent of maturity level of HRD in it. The letters represent the four critical dimensions of HRD that contribute to business performance or organizational performance (for non-profit organizations). These four dimensions include:
• HRD Systems Maturity
• HRD Competencies in the Company
• HRD Styles, Culture and Values
• Business linkages with HRD
5.3[/b] The People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM) Model
P-CMM aims at providing guidance to organizations that want to improve the way they address the people related issues. It provides 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 PCMM 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)
6. The future of HRD:
The HRD analysts should always critically watch what various agencies are saying and doing, including government, unions, research bodies, international organisations. This aspect of critical mind is quite important.
An international perspective of HRD - cross-national and cross-country perspective - should constitute future initiatives in HRD research and practice. Besides, the scope of an international perspective should travel across a wide array of countries, covering economies like India and China. Such efforts would be extremely useful in boosting up HRD research across the Globe. Focus across nations and borders have already taken off in India, and researchers in India have initiated a good deal of cross-country comparisons. In short, HRD has to be seen in much broader context – from just individual motivation and skill building to OD, change, learning and cross-cultural/ national perspective for deriving a synergistic view of issues in HRD analysis.
Our tendency to see things in a cross-disciplinary way should not be seen as a weakness but as a strength, because it reflects the complex nature of the problems and the issues that organisations are facing. So rather than trying to mould us into a traditional academic discipline we should take solace in the fact that we represent in our various approaches the nature of reality that perhaps exists.
Strategic human resource management that is HRD policies and practices should be based on a vision on organisations that lies in the spectrum between these two extremes. The strengths and weaknesses of HRD will depend on that vision and determine the core of the issues that the organisation to deal with.
One of the weakness is an overemphasis on organisation as the locus of HRD practice. HRD occurs in many other settings such as communities as well as at societal level. In addition work organisations are continuously changing and they are not the same now as say twenty years ago and they will be different again twenty years from now. So, traditional HRD designed for traditional organisations is not relevant as a major focus of research.
Finally HRD shall move towards a kind of constructive research approach – collaborative research, where practitioners are the drivers for identifying the issues, and the researchers are the facilitators to join with them in looking at the problems of democracy, participation and justice.
7. Emerging challenges of HRD:
Challenge 1: Responding to Multiple Stakeholders
HRD should adjust itself to multiple stakeholders that is HRD professionals should promote corporate accountability beyond shareholders to communities and societies. Perhaps HRD professionals will be able to educate the organization on the meaning of social responsibility and its relationship to corporate performance, while demonstrating effective strategies for addressing multiple needs and negotiating various stakeholder interests. No doubt, there is risk in taking a bold position in favor of stakeholder interests, but the risk is greater in doing nothing.
Challenge 2: Measuring HRD Impact and Utility
To establish themselves as key players in the development of organizational strategy, HRD practitioners must demonstrate how what they do correlates with the productivity and welfare of the company. Ethical engagement in measurement work will maintain integrity around the complexity of learning and performance processes and will protect against laying shortfalls on the backs of learners and those who facilitate their learning.
Challenge 3: Orienting Toward the Future
The challenge to HRD researchers is to anticipate what research is needed and how it can contribute to HRD practice in one, two, or three years, and then to make it available in ways that maximize the likelihood that research findings influence practitioner behavior. The ability of HRD manager’s profession to be consistently ahead of the game will elevate the status of HRD as a key investment in the knowledge economy.
Challenge 4: Focusing on Problems and Outcomes of HRD Practice
Organizations are arenas with real problems that cry out for solutions. By focusing on outcome-level problems and determining the HRD contribution to the solution, HRD is forced to think systemically and deliver a major contribution. The challenge to practitioners is to move beyond a silo mentality in which solutions can be found only within HRD and to embrace a perspective that organizational problems are systemic and require systemic solutions. This requires that HRD practitioners work in problem-focused, solution-driven, multidiscipline teams within organizations.
Challenge 5: Achieving Professional Recognition
"HRD practice does not come close to what we know from sound theory"
The efforts will also require a sound education for HRD professionals with accompanying professional recognition and continuing professional development, and ethical standards that are understood and applied by professionals and overseen by professional bodies. More important, as we promote awareness and recognition of HRD as a profession, we must keep our focus on values, ethics, the quality of practice, and a set of competencies through which both research and practice can be undertaken, and avoid investing energy in the building of bureaucratic processes of credentialing and standardization.
Conclusion:
HRD is a combination of structured and unstructured learning and performance-based activities which develop individual and organisational competency, capability and capacity to cope with and successfully manage change. HRD is a relatively young field, and there are significant challenges to its future. Failing to acknowledge these challenges will increasingly marginalize HRD within organizations.