HRD Climate

If we need to find a way to develop employees in order to become effective contributors to the goals of an organization, we need to have a clear view of what an effective contribution would look like. The use of personal capacities can be very helpful in describing the way in which an effective employee should operate and behave, but there can be no general prescription of an effective employee. Effectiveness will differ with organizational context, and on whose perspective we are adopting. The matter of what, finally, makes an effective employee is a combination of personality, natural capabilities, developed skills, experience and learning. The process of enhancing an employees present and future effectiveness is called development. Meaning of HR+D+Climate HR means employees in organization, who work to increase the profit for organization. , it is acquisition of capabilities that are needed to do the present job, or the future expected job. After analyzing Human Resource and Development we can simply stated that, HRD is the process of helping people to acquire competencies. Climate, this is an overall feeling that is conveyed by the physical layout, the way employees interact and the way members of the organization conduct themselves with outsiders. (It is provided by an organization.) Organizational climate is a set of characteristics of an organization which are referred in the descriptions employees make of the policies, practices and conditions which exist in the working environment. Abraham An organization became dynamic and growth oriented if their people are dynamic and proactive. Through proper selection of people and by nurturing their dynamism and other competencies an organization can make their people dynamic and pro-active. To survive it is very essential for an organization to adopt the change in the environment and also continuously prepare their employees to meet the challenges; this will have a positive impact on the organization.

What is needed to Develop Organizational Climate in Organization

Top to Bottom effort : - Organization is considered to be complete organization after including top authority to bottom line of workers. And whenever we talk about development organizational level effort is needed from top level to bottom level. Top authority should not have thinking in their mind that their task is to only take decisions but they should also emphasized on proper implementation of decision by adopting various controlling technique. Bottom level workers

should have loyal mind-set towards their organization. Bottom level workers have to work with dedication. They should have realisation that organization is their organization. Motivator role of Manager and Supervisor : - To prepare Human Resource Development Climate, Manager and Supervisors responsibilities are more or we can say that they are the key players. Manager and Supervisors have to help the employees to develop the competencies in the employees. To help the employees at lower level they need to updated properly and they need to share their expertise and experience with employees. Faith upon employees : - In the process of developing HRD Climate employer should have faith on its employees capabilities. Means whatever amount is invested that should be based on development of employees. Top management should trust the employees that after making huge effort to develop employees, employees will work for the well being of organization and for human being also. Free expression of Feelings : - Whatever Top management feels about employees they have to express to employees and whatever employees think about top management it must be express in other words we can say that there should not be anything hidden while communication process. Clear communication process will help to establish the HRD Climate. Feedback : - Feedback should be taken regularly to know the drawbacks in system. This will help to gain confidence in employees mind. Employee will trust on management and he can express his opinion freely which is very good for HRD Climate. Feedback will help to remove the weakness. Helpful nature of employees : - Whenever we talk about 100% effort then we have to talk about employees effort too. Nature of employees should be helping for management and for its colleagues. They should be always read to help to customers too. Supportive personnel management: - Personnel policies of organization should motivate employees to contribute more from their part. Top managements philosophy should be clear towards Human Resource and its well being to encourage the employees. Encouraging and risk taking experimentation : - Employees should be motivated by giving them authority to take decision. This concept is risky but gradually it will bring expertise in employees to handle similar situation in future. It will help to develop confidence in employees mind. Organisation can utilize and develop employees more by assigning risky task. Discouraging stereotypes and favouritism : - Management need to avoid those practices which lead to favouritism. Management and Managers need to give equal importance. Those people

who are performing good they need to appreciated and those who are not performing good they need to be guided. Any kind of partial behaviour should be avoided. Team Spirit : - There must be feeling of belongingness among the employees, and also willingness to work as a team.

Components of HRD Climate

The organizational climate consists of:Organisational StructureAn organizations structure is actually a snapshot of a work process, frozen in time so that it can be viewed. The structure enables the peoples energy to be focused towards process achievement and goal achievement. Employee must have a clear definition of not only the work structure but also the role used to organize the work. If the structure and the role is not clear, people will not know what the work process is, who is responsible for what, whom to go for help and decision, and who can Assist in solving problems that may arise. Organisational CultureOrganisational culture is the pattern of beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, and customs that exists within an organisation. Organizational culture may result in part from senior management beliefs or from the beliefs of employees. Organizational culture can be supportive or unsupportive, positive or negative. It can affect the ability or willingness of employees to adapt or perform well within the organisation. The most effective work culture is one that supports the organizations HR strategies by aligning behaviors, processes and methods with the desired results. It is not just achieving results but the methods through which they are achieved that are critical to long-term success. Before any HR strategy is designed there must be a clear understanding of the organisation, its current values, its structure, its people as well as its goals and vision for the future. HR ProcessesThe HR system of an organisation should be comprehensive enough to take care of employees from the time they join till the time they leave HR. Their demands must not be ignored, but a feeling of belongingness be created. Process should be very clear and impartial, so that employees faith in organisation. From recruitment to retirement whole process should be according to employees expectation and ability of employer.

Importance of looking at the organisation climate are: Looking at the organizational climate, which means taking a closer look at what is happening in and around in the HR scenario of the various organization. It is essential to work on because directly or indirectly this environment affects the organization and the employee. Importances are: Environmental factors of HR are prime influencing elements of change in HR strategy. It gives HR professionals time to anticipate opportunities in HR area and time to plan optional responses to these opportunities. It helps HR professionals to develop an early warning system to prevent threats emerging out from HR scenario, or to develop strategies, which can turn a threat. It forms a basis of aligning the organisation strengths to the changes in the environment. It enables the entry of the latest national/international HR developments. Measuring HRD Climate Economic condition An organisations economic condition influences its culture in several ways. The more prosperous an organisation is the more it can afford to spend on research and the more it can afford to risk and be adventurous. Leadership Style : An organisation leadership style plays a profound role in determining several aspects of its culture. An authoritarian style may make the organisations culture characterized by high position structure, low individual autonomy, low reward orientation, low warmth and support and so on, or it may be opposite, like goal directed leadership.

Managerial assumption about human nature : Every act on the part of the management that involves human beings is predicated upon assumptions, generalizations and hypotheses relating to human behaviour. There are two theories of behaviour (Theory X and Theory Y). Managerial values and ethos : The feeling of managers about norms and values what is good and what is poor as management practice. There are few dimensions on which it can be checked. They are self-awareness, risk-

taking, participation, bureaucracy, equity, employees security and growth. Organisation size : An small organizations there are few levels of management, these are generally more amenable to democratic and participative functioning than big organisations. More open communication system in small organisations. Hence these organisations have a different type of climate than what are in big organizations

HRD SOME CONCEPTS

HRD is mainly concerned with developing the skill, knowledge and competencies of people and it is people-oriented concept. When we call it as a people-oriented concept the question of people being developed in the larger or national context or in the smaller organizational context? Is it different at the macro and micro level? HRD can be applied both for the national level and organizational level. But many personnel managers and organizations view HRD as synonymous to training and development. Many organizations in the country renamed their training departments as HRD departments. Surprisingly some organizations renamed their personnel department as HRD departments. Some educational, institutions started awarding degrees and diplomas in HRD even though the concept is not yet crystal clear. HRD from organizational point of view is a process in which the employees of an organization are helped/motivated to acquire and develop technical, managerial and behavioral knowledge, skills and abilities, and mould the values, beliefs, attitude necessary to perform present and future roles by realizing highest human potential with a view to contribute positively to the organizational, group, individual and social goals. A comparative analysis of these definitions shows that the third definition seems to be comprehensive and elaborate as it deals with the developmental aspects of all the components of human resources. Further, it deals with all types of skills, the present and future organizational needs and aspect of contribution to not only organizational also other goals. The analysis of the third definition further shows that there are three aspects, viz., 1. Employees of an organization are helped/motivated; 2. Acquire, develop and mould various aspects of human resources; and 3. Contribute to the organizational, group, individual and social goals. The first aspect deals with helping and motivating factors for HRD. These factors may be called Enabling factors which include: Organization structure, organizational climate, HRD climate, HRD knowledge and skills to managers, human resource planning, recruitment and selection. The second aspect deals with the techniques or methods which are the means to acquire develop and mould the various human resources.

These techniques include: Performance, appraisal, Potential appraisal, Career planning and Development, Training, Management development, Organizational development, Social and Cultural programs, and Workers participation in management and quality circles. The third category includes the outcomes contribution of the HRD process to the goals of the organization, group, individuals and the society.

Hrd climate and communication

The communications that arise not out of formal relations between people but out of informal or social relationship is called the grapevine or informal communication. The management has no absolute control over this type of communication as they neither created nor destroyed it. Communication need not flow through authority-responsibility relationship or channels of organization in informal communications. In informal communication there is no formal superior subordinate relationship.

The informal communication does both good and bad to the organization. The advantages of informal communication are:
1. It acts as a driving force to untie the workforce in cases of common matters; 2. It saves time and energy as the information flows at high speed; 3. It has immediate response from the receiver; 4. It provides the scope for creation of new ideas; 5. It satisfies the communication needs of various employees, 6. It provides scope for immediate feedback.

Informal communication suffers from various drawbacks. They are:

a) Informal communication sometimes spreads wrong information and rumours; b) It distorts information; c) Grapevine provides only inadequate information; d) Information provided through grapevine has no formal authority; and e) It overlooks superiors. The most effective communication results when managers utilize the informal organization to supplement the communication channels of the formal organization. It should be remembered that it is a part of the managers job to have a little control over this informal communication so that he can take the appropriate action to minimize the adverse effect of this channel. Organizational climate is very important in the context of communication. Organizational climate is the summary perception which people have about an organization. It is thus a global expression of what the organization is:

Organizational climate refers to a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations.

The characteristics of organizational climate are:

1. Individual Initiative: The degree of responsibility, freedom and independence that individuals have. 2. Risk Tolerance: The degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative and risk-seeking. 3. Direction: The degree to which the organization creates clear objectives and performance expectations. 4. Integration: The degree to which units within the organization are encouraged to operate in a coordinated manner. 5. Management Support: The degree to which managers provide clear communication, assistance and support to their subordinates. 6. Control: The number of rules and regulations and the amount of direct supervision that is used to oversee and control employee behavior. 7. Identity: The degree to which members identify with the organization as a whole rather than with their particular workgroup or field of professional expertise. 8. Reward System: The degree to which reward allocations are based on employee performance. 9. Conflict Tolerance: The degree to which employees are encouraged to air conflicts and criticisms. 10. Communication Patterns: The degree to which organizational communications are restricted to the formal hierarchy of authority.

Communicating with the Employees

Both formal as well as informal communication channels are used to communicate with the employees. In addition to following written communication, oral and nonverbal communication should be relied upon. In addition to downward communication to communicate rules, procedures and programs of the organization to employees, employees should also be encouraged to communicate to their superiors. In order to make use of team work, all channels of communication or star communication pattern should be encouraged. Interpersonal communication should be encouraged with a view to develop interpersonal relations. Employees should also be encouraged to develop effective and active listening skills.

Employee engagement
Employee Engagement is a barometer measuring the association of the person in the organization. The degree of Employee Engagement affects an individuals physical and mental health. Since Employee Engagement is a type of mental feeling, its favorableness or unfavourableness affects the individual psychologically which ultimately affects his physical health. Employee Engagement has a variety of effect including an individuals physical and mental health, productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. It can be seen as a combination of commitment to the organization and its values plus a willingness to help out colleagues (organizational citizenship).Employers today are using many methods to analyze the engagement of employees(survey, feedback, performance appraisal etc.). Engagement is not about driving employees to work harder, but about providing the conditions under which they will work more effectively or in other words, it is about releasing employees discretionary behavior. This is more likely to result from a healthy work life balance than from working long hours. Engagement can be said to have three dimensions: Emotional engagement - being very involved emotionally with ones work Cognitive engagement - focusing very hard whilst at work Physical engagement - being willing to go the extra mile for your employer

Different groups of employees are influenced by different combinations of factors, and managers need to consider carefully what is most important to their own staff. Adopting an effective engagement strategy can provide an opportunity for HR practitioners to acquire new skills and work alongside professionals in other parts of the business, including those responsible for marketing and corporate social responsibility. In order to engage their employees employers should consider following things:

Allowing people the opportunity to feed their views and opinions upwards is the single most important driver of engagement

keeping employees informed about what is going on in the organisation is critical employees need to see that managers are committed to the organisation in order to feel engaged

Having fair and just management processes for dealing with problems is important in driving up levels of performance.

Engaged employees are more likely to act as organizational advocates than disengaged employees and can play a powerful role in promoting their organization as an employer of choice. Research confirms however that there is a significant gap between levels of engagement found among employees and those that would produce optimum performance. HR professionals need to recognize that engagement is a strategic issue that cannot simply be left to manage itself. Organizations should review their communications and particularly their arrangements for listening to employee opinions. Line managers need support in designing challenging jobs and managing effective teams. Numerous definitions of engagement can be derived from the practice- and research driven literatures. Additional definitions can be attributed to folk theory: the common intuitive sense that people, and particularly leaders within organizations, have about work motivation. Common to these definitions is the notion that employee engagement is a desirable condition, has an organizational purpose, and connotes involvement, commitment, passion, enthusiasm, focused effort, and energy, so it has both attitudinal and behavioral components. The antecedents of such attitudes and behaviors are located in conditions under which people work, and the consequences are thought to be of value to organizational effectiveness. As a folk theory, engagement is used in a manner that implies the opposite of disengagement. For example, a number of popular views of engagement suggest that engaged employees not only contribute more but also are more loyal and therefore less likely to voluntarily leave the organization. However, for present purposes, we choose to focus on only those aspects of engagement that have positive valence (obviously from low to high). We believe that this is crucial to developing conceptual precision in that it maintains a clear intentional focus on benefits that inure to the organization. For example, certain behaviors that might be considered adaptive on the part of the individual (e.g., taking a mental health day as a form of adaptive withdrawal) would not be considered within the present framework. At least temporarily, we are not taking a position on

whether engagement and disengagement are opposites (i.e., perhaps the opposite of engagement is non engagement rather than disengagement or perhaps even burnout; Gonzalez-Roma, Schaufeli, Bakker, & Lloret, 2006). Rather, we simply choose to arbitrarily exclude from consideration models of behavior that focus on withdrawal, maladaptive behavior, or other disengagement phenomena.

Sources of Confusion: State, Trait, or Behaviour?

As a term engagement has been used to refer to a psychological state (e.g., involvement, commitment, attachment, mood), performance construct (e.g., either effort or observable behaviour, including organizational citizenship behaviour, disposition (e.g., positive affect), or some combination of the above. For example, Wellins and Concelman suggested that engagement is an amalgamation of commitment, loyalty, productivity and ownership. As we shall see, the use of engagement as a psychological construct in the research literature is no more precise; it is commonly used to refer to both role performance and an affective state, even within the same research context. The reader may recognize that many other important psychological constructs have suffered from a similar lack of precision at early stages in their development. A particularly noteworthy example of such imprecision is job involvement. Thus, the lack of precision in the engagement concept does not imply that the concept lacks conceptual or practical utility. However, the concept would be more useful were it to be framed as a model that simultaneously embraces the psychological state and the behaviour it implies. In the absence of such a model, including potential antecedents and moderators, it does not seem possible to either develop relevant research hypotheses or apply the concept in any meaningful way including the design of surveys and the development of organizational interventions based on survey results. On a related point, confusion exists because engagement is used by some to refer to a specific construct (e.g., involvement, initiative, sportsmanship, altruism) with unique attributes and by others as a performance construct defined as exceeding some typical level of performance. For example, Wellins and Concelman suggested that engagement is the illusive force that motivates employees to higher (or lower) levels of performance.

Operationally, the measures of engagement have for the most part been composed of a collection of items representing one or more of the four different categories: Job satisfaction. Organizational commitment. Psychological empowerment. Job involvement.

Engagement as satisfaction:
To some, engagement and satisfaction are linked directly if not regarded as completely isomorphic. Thus, Harter et al. explicitly referred to their measure as satisfaction-engagement and defined engagement as the individuals involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work.

Engagement as commitment:
Some practitioners define engagement in terms of organizational commitment. For example, Wellins and Concelman suggested that to be engaged is to be actively committed, as to a cause. The Corporate engagement when it is conceptualized as positive attachment to the larger organizational entity and measured as a willingness to exert energy in support of the organization, to feel pride as an organizational member, and to have personal identification with the organization.

Engagement as job involvement:

At a casual level, job involvement as a construct clearly occupies a portion of the conceptual space labelled state engagement. Indeed, as indicated earlier, Harter et al. specifically equated engagement with both satisfaction and involvement. Similarly, building on the work of Lodahl and Kejner, Cooper-Hakim and Viswesvaran defined job involvement as the degree to which an employee psychologically relates to his or her job and the work performed therein and

specifically equated job involvement and job commitment. Similarly, in his review and metaanalysis of job involvement, Brown indicated that a state of involvement implies a positive and relatively complete state of engagement of core aspects of the self in the job.

Engagement as psychological empowerment:

Psychological empowerment has been treated within both two- and four dimensional framework. Within the two-dimensional framework, Mathieu et al. Suggested that empowerment is the experience of authority and responsibility. Conceptually, empowerment defined in this manner might be considered an antecedent or a condition of engagement, and the reader can see the conceptual slipperiness with which we are dealing. Indeed, any distinction between the state of engagement and psychological empowerment becomes considerably less clear when considering the four-dimensional model suggested by Spreitzer. These dimensions include meaning (sense of purpose), competence (self-efficacy), feelings of self determination (feelings of control), and impact (belief that ones efforts can make a difference). These connote a readiness and/or an inclination toward action that fits our perspective of state engagement as energic.

Engagement as Positive Affectivity:

Engagement has been regarded by some as a distinct affective state. Larsen and Diener positioned PA as halfway between (45 degrees to) the positive end of the activation dimension and the pleasant end of the hedonic valence dimension, thus characterizing PA as activated pleasant affect characterized by adjectives that connote both activation and pleasantness. This distinction between PA with its high activation component and pleasantness, which is neutral with respect to activation level, is similar to the one we made earlier when discussing satisfaction and its relationship to engagement.

Although there is considerable ongoing debate regarding the primary dimensionality of affect, our concern here is with regard to the descriptors (markers) used to characterize PA. PA markers for the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) include among

others attentive, alert, enthusiastic, inspired, proud, determined, strong, and active, precisely the kinds of descriptors occasionally explicitly but more often implicitly used in contemporary engagement definitions.

In keeping with Staw, Larsen and Diener, Warr, and others, these markers of PA connote high levels of activation. This is consistent with the practitioner literature. For example, within the popular management press, this is referred to as passion and excitement or simply emotional engagement. PA is variously used to describe mood states, more temporary and intense emotional states, and as a dispositional trait, or the tendency to experience events, circumstances, and situations more positively, further adding to the potential confusion.

Toward Untangling the Jangle: A Framework for Understanding the Conceptual Space of Employee Engagement

To move the discussion of what engagement is to a more concrete level, consider the overall framework for understanding the various components that the engagement construct might subsume.

Figure shows that engagement as a disposition (i.e., trait engagement) can be regarded as an inclination or orientation to experience the world from a particular vantage point (e.g., positive affectivity characterized by feelings of enthusiasm) and that this trait engagement gets reflected in psychological state engagement. We conceptualize psychological state engagement as an antecedent of behavioural engagement, which we define in terms of discretionary effort or a specific form of in-role or extra role effort or behaviour.

Figure also shows that conditions of the workplace have both direct and indirect effects on state and behavioural engagement. The nature of work (e.g., challenge, variety) and the nature of leadership (especially transformational leadership) are the conditions that most interest us. Figure

shows, for example, that work has direct effects on state engagement and indirect effects as a boundary condition (moderator) of the relationship between trait and state engagement.

With regard to leadership, Figure shows it having a direct effect on trust and an indirect effect through the creation of trust on behavioural engagement; more on Figure later.

Framework for understanding the elements of employee engagement.