An Introduction to HRD

Human Resources Development (HRD) refers to the function (or discipline) that focuses on the people who work for a company. HRD specialists (both internal employees and external consultants) use a variety of performance assessment and management tools to help the company's workers improve their job skills, increase their job satisfaction and plan for a full and rewarding future.
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1. History The term "Human Resource Development" was coined by Leonard Nadler, professor emeritus at George Washington University and author of "The Handbook of Human Resource Development." Nadler first publicized the term at the 1969 American Society for Training and Development conference in Miami. With his wife, Zeace, Nadler has since written many books about training and development, including "Every Manager's Guide to Human Resource Development."

Function
To improve the working life of the company's employees, HRD specialists use a variety of tools and techniques: Assessments and surveys (to determine what gaps exist between the employee's ability to do the work and what the job requires). Training programs to improve job performance. This training can be offered face-to-face in a traditional classroom setting, or as an online course. It can also be group-based or self-paced. Analyses of the current business situation and projections for

how much "human capital" will be necessary to meet future needs. Strategic plans for hiring the best workers and dealing with under-productive employees. Consultations with upper management and coaching of supervisors.

Geography
The concept of Human Resource Development is no longer unique to the United States. Since 1974, HRD has been studied and implemented in India, where the National HRD network continues to promote research that examines the dynamic among personnel matters such as recruitment, retention, appraisal and training. In both Russia and China, the transition from a state-run economic system to a market-run economy has created a need for ongoing HRD research and application. In 2002, a symposium, "The Impact of Globalization and Human Capacity Building," was held in Taiwan and attended by delegates from Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Chinese Taipei and the U.S.

Misconceptions
HRD specialists cannot "cure" all organizational ills. Too often managers forget this point and send under-performing workers to the HRD staff to be "fixed." Or they approve largescale training initiatives that give employees a couple of days or a week off work to attend, say, a team-building workshop, and then are disappointed when work groups are just as dysfunctional as they were before the training. Instead, managers should explore (with the HRD staff's help) a variety of performance improvement interventions (such as coaching

or counseling) that will add measurable impact to the company's bottom line.

Benefits
Employees who feel valued will add more value to their organization. A well-thought-out and well-run HRD plan will achieve measurable positive outcomes for the company. An effective safety training course, for example, will lead to fewer safety violations. A manufacturing skills course of study will result in decreased down time and increased output. A customer service training program will produce (and retain) more customers. Human resources development involves the training and retention of employees. An effective human resources development (HRD) program may be the difference between the retention and exit of the most talented employees in the organization. The HRD function ensures that an organization selects, prepares and promotes the best employees.

Identification
HR professionals sometimes use the terms "human resources development" and "human resources management" (HRM) interchangeably. Generally, HRM is the activity of managing HR functions, while HRD is the process of selecting and developing employees.

Employee Selection
When an organization is ready to select employees for jobs, HRD personnel analyze the available jobs and attempt to match them with potential employees' skills.

Employee Development
Development includes the activities an organization undertakes to train employees, retain them and prepare them for the next step in their careers. The employee development function also includes leadership and management development, which prepares employees to lead groups and to manage business functions.

Talent Management
Talent management refers to the process of not only developing employees for the next career steps, but also to the process of developing the most talented and high-potential leaders to prepare them for leadership and management roles.

EVOLUTION OF HR The evolution from HR to HRD has put the professionals in these roles, once thought of as simply administrative overhead, into a position in which they can make a significant contribution to organizational performance through the development of individuals, creating career planning systems that combine the interests of employees with the needs of the

organization, establishing performance management systems that foster an environment of continuous improvement and reward positive behavior, and tie all of it together through the strategic development of the organization that is faced with a constantly changing environment challenged to meet the demands of the competitive market place, along with employee and community needs. Never have the opportunities and challenges for HR professionals been greater. This paper discusses a new evolutionary approach to Human Resource Management (HRM) and presents a developmentoriented typologyof HRM. It argues that Human Resources are continuously evolving in Organizations and that HRM can and must intervene in the emergent evolution process in order to influence the speed and direction of the development. HRM can either enhance or hinder the dynamics ofevolutionary change of the qualifications and motivations of the workforce It may also influence the development path of the Human Resources.The paper stresses that organizations should implement either a flexibility or stability enhancing HRMstrategy, depending on the organizational need foradaptation of the workforce to changing conditions for organizational problem solving. Developing a new typology, the paper combines the organizational need for adaptation and various HRM strategies. The principle of evolution theory developed by Darwin (1859)and Lamarck (1809), one can model the process of permanent change of qualifications and motivations, i.e. the Human Resources. Changing qualifications and motivations of individual actors imply always changes in the structure of the workforce. The portfolio

of available qualifications and motivations for the organizational problem solving process will therefore change over time (Klimecki/Gmr, 2001: 103). 4 Hence, the focus of the evolutionary model of HRM is on the intra organizational level and the model deals with the change process of the qualifications and motivations within Organizations. The qualifications and motivations of individual actors in Organizations change over time and the structure of available qualifications and motivations in the workforce changes accordingly. However, this change of qualifications and motivations can be modeled as an evolutionary process in order to structure the change process itself. The sequences of the change Process of Human Resources can be internally differentiated into the process of variation, selection and retention of Qualifications and motivation (Klimecki/Gmr, 1998; 2001). In this perspective, the Sequences of change in qualifications and motivations are modeled According to the premises of evolution theory. The intervention of HRM in the evolution process of Human Resources have impacts on the structure of motivations and qualifications of the workforce of an organization at a given point of time. It is

particularly important to clarify which kind of impact on the HR-portfolio is of interest to 15 HRM in the context of an evolutionary approach. The term Human Re-source portfolio refers to the structure of the Human Resources and therefore the qualifications and motivations of the workforce of an organization at a certain point in time (Odiorne, 1984). The structure of the portfolio, which is useful for an evolutionary approach to HRM, can be distinguished in terms of its heterogeneity considering the workforce as a whole as well as the variety of qualifications and motivations of individual actors. Heterogeneity refers to the diversity of qualifications and motivations in the workforce. Variety refers to the diversity of qualifications and motivations of individual actors (Wright/Snell, 1999). Both components of

the Human Resources, by and large, determine the adaptability of the Human Resources of an organization. It can be assumed that with increasing heterogeneity and variety, the capability of the workforce to adjust to changing requirements will be higher. In the context of an evolutionary model of Human Resources, it is important to stress that this Human Resources portfolio is of transitory character and will change more or less intensively in the course of time. The available Human Resource portfolio of an organization at a certain point in time is the result of emergent evolutionary processes and active interventions into the evolution by HRM. The Human Resource portfolio of an organization can be distinguished in terms of the heterogeneity

of the qualifications and motivations of the workforce and the variety of qualifications and motivations of individual actors. The terms for human resource management and development has indeed evolved through the centuries. The term human resource management has evolved from personnel management in the early 1900s and through to the current use of the term human capital managementpopularly used by many large firms. Similarly goes to the term human resource development- most practitioners understood the term training as similar to HRD and the term training is being popularly used to label departments and seen as synonymous to HRD. However, in the next decade or in very near future, it would not be surprising for us to see or hear new terms to represent HRM.

Could it be intellectual capital management and development? Or could it be expertise elite management and development, particularly in the era of knowledge based workforce and the oncoming era of knowledge-expertise workforce. Indeed, these new terms would be oncoming and may be necessary to keep up with changes with the advent of globalization and internationalization and rapid technological advances. As such the field of human resource management and development will require new terms to describe its evolution and to take in new concepts, ideas and philosophies surrounding HRM and HRD.

References

The Handbook of Human Resource Development; Leonard Nadler; 1990 (2nd edition) Human Resource Development; John Wilson, editor; 2005 (2nd edition) Every Manager's Guide to Human Resource Development; Leonard and Zeace Nadler; 1992 Free Management Library: Human Resources Management Free Management Library: Talent Management HRGuide.com: Personnel Selection Free Management Library: Leadership Development Free Management Library: Management Development