Strategic Human Resource Development Meaning, Advantages and Process

The effective performance of an organisation depends not just on the available resources, but its quality and competence as required by the organisation from time to time. The difference between two nations largely depends on the level of quality of human resources.

Similarly, the difference in the level of performance of two organisations also depends on the utilisation value of human resources. Moreover, the efficiency of production process and various areas of management depend to a greater extent on the level of human resources development.

HRD assumes significance in view of the fast-changing organisational environments and need of the organisation to adopt new techniques in order to respond to the environmental changes.

Human Resource Development (HRD) is that part of Human Resource Management which specifically deals with the training and development of employees. It helps the employees in developing their knowledge, skills and abilities to achieve self-fulfilments and aid in the accomplishment of organizational goals.

HRD can be defined as organized learning activities arranged within an organization in order to improve performance and/or personal growth for the purpose of improving the job, the individual, and/or the organization.

HRD includes the areas of employee training, career development, performance management, coaching, mentoring, key employee identification, talent development and organization development. Developing a highly productive and superior workforce is the aim of HRD activities.

The role of human beings in an organization’s success is deeply recognized. Many formal and informal methods are used for developing the employees. HRD strives for the improvement of not just the individual workers, but for the growth of the group and organization as a whole.

HRD is the process of helping people to acquire competencies. In an organizational context HRD “is a process which helps employees of an organization in a continuous and planned way to-

1. Acquire or sharpen capabilities required to perform various functions associated with their present or expected future roles.
2. Develop their general capabilities as individuals and discover and exploit their inner potential for their own and/or expected future roles.
3. Develop an organizational culture in which supervisor-subordinate relationships, team work, and collaboration among sub-units are strong and contribute to the professional well-being, motivation, and pride of employees.
4. HRD process is facilitated by mechanisms like performance appraisal, training, organizational development (OD), feedback and counseling, career development, potential development, job rotation and rewards.
5. Employees are continuously helped to acquire new competencies through a process of performance planning, feedback, training, periodic review of performance, assessment of the development needs, and creation of development.

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

The three challenges for Indian business organisations are:

1. How to maximise return on investments?
2. How to be more innovative and customer driven?
3. How to renew and revitalise an organisation?

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

In the past decade something quite different was happening in many Indian organisations, calling for a second look at traditional personnel functions and their integration with organisational objectives. Several steps were taken, such as, conceptualisation 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 scope of HRD includes:

(i) Recruiting the employees within the dimensions and possibilities for developing human resources.

(ii) Selecting those employees having potentialities for development to meet the present and future organisational needs.

(iii) Analysing, appraising and developing performance of employees as individuals, members of a group and organisations with a view to develop them by identifying the gaps in skills and knowledge.

(iv) Help the employees to learn from their superiors through performance consultations, performance counselling and performance interviews.

(v) Train all the employees in acquiring new technical skills and knowledge.

(vi) Develop the employees in managerial and behavioural skills and knowledge.

(vii) Planning for employees’ career and introducing developmental programmes.

(viii) Planning for succession and develop the employees.

(ix) Changing the employees’ behaviour through organisation development.

(x) Employee learning through group dynamics, intra and inter team interaction.

(xi) Learning through social and religious interactions and programmes.

(xii) Learning through job rotation, job enrichment and empowerment.

(xiii) Learning through quality circles and the schemes of workers’ participation in the management.

Advantages

• It emphasizes on all around development of the employees by developing skills, attitude and knowledge about the organization. This helps in making the employees more competent.
• HRD emphasizes on performance appraisal system through which the performance of the employees can be judged time to time. This makes the employees more committed towards their work and motivates others to perform well.
• As human resource development acts as a link between the organization and the employees, thus, it creates an environment of trust and respect.
• It emphasizes on problem solving approach, hence, HRD helps in creating an environment of acceptability towards change.
• HRD focuses on team spirit within the organization which helps in creating a positive environment within the organization. This ultimately helps in increasing the productivity of the organization.
• It emphasizes on the participation of employees in the organization. This increases the amount of participation within the organization and they feel more and more associated with the organization if they achieve anything.

Human Resource Development (HRD) Process

Every method or mechanism has two dimensions substantive and procedural. Substantive dimension is what is being done process is how it is accomplished, including how people are relating to each other and what processes and dynamics are occurring. In most of the organisations there is overemphasis on the substantive aspect of method and the procedural aspect is neglected.

Whenever there is a problem in the organisation its solution is sought in the rules and structures rather than in the underlying group dynamics and human behaviour. Thus, rules may be changed, structure may be modified but group dynamics and human behaviour remain unfortunately untouched.

It is thought that there is no need to pay any attention to them. This is wrong. In every organisation human process must receive as much importance (if not more) as the substantive dimension.

One can find six such processes in operation in an organisation at six different levels HRD methods help in improving these processes as described below:

1.   At the personal level there is the existential process. This process tells us how an in­dividual perceives his environment, how he interacts with others, how he achieves his goals in life and so on. If this process is neglected it may adversely affect the integration of the individual with organisation and his quality of work. Career Planning, Performance Appraisal and Review, Feedback, Counseling, Job Enrichment, Objective Rewards, etc., improve this process.

2.  At the interpersonal level we have the empathic process. This process tells us how much empathy one individual has for the other person and how does he reach out to the other person and establishes a relationship with him. Communication, conflict, cooperation and competition are some important areas of study in this process. If this process is neglected it may adversely affect the interpersonal effectiveness of individuals in an organisation. Training, Rotation, Communication, etc., improve this process.

3.  At the role level we have the coping process. Every individual is required to cope with various pressures and stresses in relation to his role in the organisation. However, if the individual’s role is clear and the individual is aware of the competencies required for role performance he can cope with these pressures effectively. Role analysis goes a long way to improve this process.
4.  At the group level we have the building process. This process tells us how various groups form themselves as distinct entities in an organisation; how do they become cohesive while the substantive (or structural) dimension has its grounding in classic organisation theory the procedure dimension reflects the human relations movement and strong and how can they effectively contribute to the goals of the organisation.