Human Resource Development (HRD): Meaning, Concept and Objectives

06/06/2020 0 By indiafreenotes

With increasing global competition, organizations are under tremendous pressure to improve their performance through reduction of cost and in quality up gradation. Indian business organizations too have now realised that they are now in a more open, highly competitive, and market-oriented environment.

The three challenges for Indian business organizations are:

  • How to maximize return on investments?
  • How to be more innovative and customer driven?
  • How to renew and revitalise an organization?

In this context, the most important steps are- effective management; holistic development; and optimum utilization of human resources.

In the past decade something quite different was happening in many Indian organizations, calling for a second look at traditional personnel functions and their integration with organizational objectives. Several steps were taken, such as, conceptualization of employees as resources; strategic role of personnel functions; greater partnership to line managers in managing human resources; dovetailing of training with other personnel functions; synthesis of different personnel functions, etc.

It is difficult to categorise these activities under a single label. Rather, they can be brought under the umbrella of Human Resource Development (HRD).

The human resource development in India is of recent origin, and the terms gained currency only in the early seventies. The term “HRD” was first applied in 1968 in George Washington University. It was used in Miami at the conference of American Society for Training and Development in 1969.

The term was gaining more acceptances during the mid-1970, but many used it as a more alternative term than “Training and Development”. In the opinion of some management professionals, Japan is the first country to begin with HRD practices. “Better People”, not merely better technology, is the surest way to a “Better Society”, is the most popular belief in Japan.

It is often said that an organization is only as good as its people. Organizations of all types and sizes, including schools, retail stores, government agencies, restaurants, and manufacturers, have at least one thing in common they must employ competent and motivated workers.

This need has become even stronger as organizations grapple with the challenges presented by a fast-paced, highly dynamic, and increasingly global economy. To compete and thrive, many organizations are including employee education, training, and development as an important and effective part of their organizational strategy.

HRD activities should begin when an employee joins an organization and continue throughout his or her career, regardless of whether that employee is an executive or a worker on an assembly line. HRD programmes must respond to job changes and integrate the long-term plans and strategies of the organization to ensure the efficient and effective use of resources.

Concept of Human Resource Development

A number of definitions of Training and HRD have been given by the pioneers of Management Training and Human Resource Development.

Milton Hall defines ‘Employee Training’ as the process of aiding employees to gain effectiveness in their present and future work through development of appropriate habits of thought and action, skill, knowledge and attitudes. Training aims at increasing the effectiveness with which the functions of an organization are carried, out by increasing the effectiveness of its personnel.

The definition given by Milton Hall stresses development of knowledge, skill and attitude. As far as knowledge and skills are concerned, it is possible with planned effort on part of HRD executive.

In respect of attitudes, improvements are possible only with long range efforts and planned efforts by HRD executive and success in this area cannot be much predicted or ensured as it would largely depend on the willingness and readiness of the person, or persons whose attitude is to be improved.

With regard to development of attitudes the following factors are to be given due importance and consideration, before HRD effort is planned:

  1. The desired change in attitude should be positive in nature.
  2. Before an effort to improve the attitude of a person is tried or envisaged, the person concerned should agree and have conviction that he requires a change in his attitude and this is going to prove to his benefit, with respect of his career development and success in his working life.
  3. The working conditions and the culture of the organization should offer to induce the employees to adopt positive attitude and aptitude which works to motivate a person to do things to meet the desired standard of behaviour and output to achieve the desired targets of production and services assigned to his area of working.

Human Resource Development at Macro and Micro Level

HRD is applicable to both at macro level (national level) as well as micro level (organizational level). At the macro level, HRD is concerned with the development of people of country as a whole. For example, HRD ministry of Government of India is concerned with developing people in whole of country.

At micro level, each organization is concerned with developing its human resources. While HRD at macro level has uniformity, it differs at micro level because each organization may have distinct approach for developing human resources.

There is close relationship between HRD at macro level and micro level. Macro level HRD provides human resources to organizations. Therefore, efforts at micro level HRD is influenced by macro level HRD. For example, overall quality of human resources of a country determines the type of efforts that individual organizations make in developing its human resources. If this quality is high, lower organizational efforts are required. In the alternative case, higher organizational efforts are required.

HRD in Indian Context

Some specific features of HRD in India are as follows:

  1. At the macro level, there are plenty of educational institutions in India producing large number of educated people every year. However, quality of majority of such people is very low. Therefore, they are not employable.

According to National Employability Report, 2014, only 18.33 per cent engineering graduates are employable. Similar is the case with management graduates. So far as other educational disciplines are concerned, the situation is even worse except some professional disciplines.

  1. At the micro level, HRD efforts of individual organizations differ widely. There are many organizations which pay very high attention to HRD. They spend lot of money in developing their human resources. Such organizations believe in developing competitive advantage through their human resources. As against this pattern, there are plenty of organizations which give very low importance to HRD. Such organizations treat HRD expenses as waste.

Objectives of Human Resource Development (HRD)

  • To maximize the utilization of human resources for the achievement of individual and organizational goals.
  • To provide an opportunity and comprehensive framework for the development of human resources in an organization for full expression of their talent and manifest potentials.
  • To develop the constructive mind and an overall personality of the employee;
  • To develop the sense of team spirit, team work and inter-team collaborations.
  • To develop the organizational health, culture and effectiveness.
  • To generate systematic information about human resources.

Sub Systems of HRD are:

  1. Training and Development
  2. Career planning and Succession planning
  3. Performance Appraisal and Potential Appraisal.

Process of Human Resources Development

HRD Process and HRD Climate Variables

  • Role Clarity.
  • Planning of Development by Every Employee.
  • Awareness of Competencies Required for Job Performance.
  • Proactive Orientation.
  • More Trust.
  • Collaboration and Team Work.
  • Risk-taking.
  • Value Generation.
  • Clarification of Norms and Standards.
  • Increased Communication.
  • More Objective Rewards.
  • Generation of Objective, Data on Employees etc.

HRD Outcomes Variables

  • More Competent People.
  • Higher Work Commitment and Job Involvement.
  • More Problem Solving.
  • Better Utilization of Human.
  • Higher Job Satisfaction and Work Motivation.
  • Better Generation of Internal Resources.
  • Better Organizational Health.
  • More Team Work, Synergy and Respect for Each Other.

Organizational Effectiveness Dimensions

  • Higher Productivity.
  • Growth and Diversification.
  • Cost Reduction.
  • More Profits.
  • Better Image

Organizational effectiveness is a step closer to HRD outcomes variables than the process variables. For example, better communication, role clarity, performance planning, trust, collaboration, openness can be considered as more remotely related to organization effectiveness than variables like having competent, dynamic, satisfied and committed employees.

It is the adequacy of the HRD processes in the organization which is questioned if the HRD outcomes are not present in an organization at a satisfactory level.

The linkages between organizational effectiveness and HRD outcomes are not easily demonstrable due to the influence of several other variables in determining productivity. The Chief Executives, unit heads, line managers and HRD managers interested in HRD have to make efforts to promote HRD processes and culture in their organizations as a matter of ‘faith’ or ‘philosophy’ and not look for demonstrable outcomes in terms of organizational effectiveness.

There exists another kind of relationships which needs attention. This is the relationship between HRD mechanisms and HRD processes. Only introduction of HRD mechanisms and HRD departments do not automatically result in the development of HRD processes, It is possible to have a HRD culture without having a HRD department or without using any HRD systems. That requires good leadership at the top, vision and building of HRD values froth the very beginning of an organization.

The concept of human resources in HRD is not value-free. Broadly speaking, there are three meanings attached to the concept of HRD. In the first place, persons working in organisations are regarded as a valuable resource, implying that there is a need to invest time and effort in their development. Second, they are human resources, which means that they have their own special characteristics and, therefore, cannot be treated like material resources. The approach focuses on the need to humanise organisational life and introduce human values in the organisation. Third, human resource development does not merely focus on employees as individuals, but also on other social units and processes in the organisation. These include the role or the job a person has in the organisation, the dyadic unit (consisting of the person and his supervisor), the various teams in which people work, inter-team processes, and the total organisation. Therefore, six distinguishable human units are included in human resources, namely, persons, jobs or roles, dyads, teams, inter-teams and the organisation.