T&D- 01

Excel Books1– 1 Training and Development G Pandu Naik

Introduction to Training and Development

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Copyright © 2007, G Pandu Naik

Chapter1




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Definition of HRDHuman resource development means enhancing the capabilities of human beings by allowing them to undergo learning experiences. Thus, human resource development programmes are the learning situations that result in enhanced capabilities for people who undergo them.

Abraham (1988) has defined HRD as activities and processes undertaken to promote the intellectual, moral, psychological, cultural, social and economic development of the individual so as to help him achieve his highest human potential as a resource for the community.

Human Resource Development is a process for enabling people to develop their knowledge, skills and attitude; for effective performance of their (paid or unpaid) work roles; for their personal growth and for interpersonal effectiveness to; lead a fulfilled life as individuals, develop harmonious relations in groups and thereby create a progressive society free from conflict, poverty, ignorance and ill health. Training is a part of HRD.



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Origin of HRD

The origin of HRD discipline has two important sources namely, American and

Indian. The developments leading to the evolution of this discipline are almost

simultaneous in both the countries.

The origin of the term ‘HRD’ dates back to the 1960s, to Leonard Nadler at

George Washington University, home of the first master’s degree programme in

HRD. Nadler coined the term HRD and developed a modality that treats HRD as

having three components, training, education and development.

Pat McLagen’s human resources wheel (Marquardt & Engel, 1993) based on

research conducted under the auspices of the American Society Training and

Development lists three components parts of HRD. They are training and

development, organizational development and career development.



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Objectives of HRDHRD basically aims at; enhancing the abilities and motivation of people to positively contribute towards superior performance at the individual level; nurturing teamwork at the group level and a conducive climate for innovation, value addition and performance orientation at the organizational level.

The goal of HRD systems is to develop; the capabilities of each employee as an individual; the capabilities of each individual in relation to his or her present role; the capabilities of each employee in relation to his or her expected future roles.

Nadler (1991) has identified three principal activities of HRD as training, education and development. In Nadler’s framework, training is focused on the present job, education on a future job and development is concerned with providing learning experiences to employees.

HRD is a process not merely a set of mechanisms and techniques. The mechanisms and techniques such as performance appraisal, counselling, training and organization development.



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Principles of HRD 1. All living creatures like birds, animals and human beings can learn.

2. All people irrespective of their age, gender, race, religion, nationality, language, economic prosperity or socio-educational background are endowed with a natural capacity for learning.

3. Facilitation and reinforcement promote learning.

4. Learners’ viewpoints should be given due consideration while designing programmes.

5. Different learners have different learning styles and structuring the courses to suit the learning styles of the learners enhances learning.

6. Repeated practice of a learned competency immediately after it is learnt, increases retention of learning.

7. Learning will be most effective and enduring when it is linked with career progression.

8. Learning will be effective if the learning context and practice context are the same or identical.



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Classification of HRD programmes

Training and development needs are not the same across geographies,

industries, functions and populations. Therefore, they have got to be customized

as per the contextual needs. The HRD profession over a period of time has

developed several programmes to meet the diverse needs of learning

community. Traditionally, HRD programmes were classified based on where they

were conducted into two categories, namely (1) on the job programmes (like job

instruction training) and (2) off the job programmes (like class room training).

Now there are hybrid approaches or what can be called as (3) blended

programmes (like e-learning) involving a mixture of the first two, which can be

included as the third category.



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Differences between Training and Development

Terms like training, development and HRD have often caused confusion. HRD

includes both training and development. While training is about acquiring new

skills through classroom learning or on the job learning; development includes

learning, experiencing and practicing the knowledge skills and attitudes, which

improves the overall personality of the individual. Training has a short-term and

narrow focus of skills acquisition but development has a long-term and broader

perspective of integrated development of individuals. The developmental

interventions may include, counselling, mentoring, feedback, spiritual activities,

community service, or learning through actual performance of the work etc.

Training is just one method of learning since it can occur through several other

methods like self study, feedback, insight and experiment.



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Cont….

The dynamic factors around HRD

Training and development are not a static activity of one time, one type solution.

It is a dynamic function requiring different learning approaches, continuous

improvement and feedback. It is not dictated solely by organizational need and

employees’ choice; rather, there are lots of external factors like government

regulation and globalization which necessitate appropriate learning interventions.

The organization may control the internal factors to save training costs but

external factors will create compelling conditions to invest in training.



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INTERNAL FACTORS

Merger, acquisition, diversification,

expansion, business philosophy, cost

reduction, productivity, quality

improvement, customer delight,

profitability

Recruitment, promotion, process

improvement, automation.

Customer preferences

Globalization

Advanced technology

Reduced product life cycle

Consumer rights

Workforce diversity

Business competition

Law/ Government

policy

The dynamic factors associated with HRD function



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Cont….

Aligning HRD functions to business goals

Have you ever come across an organization with its core objective as promoting

HRD? No, unless the organization is a HRD consulting firm or HRD

professionals’ association. Organizations exist for their own causes of business

and not for engaging in HRD. But the HRD department should not exist for its

own cause; rather, it should work for the cause of business. HRD professionals

should not end up conducting the targeted number of programmes without

enhancing business results. It is true they should keep themselves abreast of the

cutting edge learning solutions, but it is equally important for them to understand

the dynamics of business.

Therefore it is necessary that training departments and its managers become

business literate, speak the CEO language, and calculate return on every rupee

spent for training. Figure shows the alignment of HRD programmes with

business goals.



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BUSINESS GOALSProfitability

GrowthCustomer delight

Cost reductionQuality control Modernization

InnovationsMergers

Diversification

Outward bound

training

Class room training

Part time study

E-Learning

Mentoring/ coaching

Job instruction

Quality circle

Conference/workshop

Alignment of HRD programmes with business goals



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HRD Careers

There are not many people in India who have chosen their career as HRD

professional right from day one. Rather, there are people who start their careers

in different functions and after a few years, realise their potential and attraction

for HRD. In a way, the entry of people from diverse backgrounds bring a lot of

domain expertise to the profession. As there are no professional/statutory

requirements for entering the profession, many people who don’t have formal

education in HRD are becoming training professionals. Most of them will master

the classroom skills and work as trainers without knowing the other aspects of

HRD like needs analysis, design, or evaluation.

Large number of career HRDians come from generic HR functions and remain

with HRD for rest of their career. The opportunities are plenty from as low as an

HRD executive to vice-president (HRD).



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HRD Education Presently there are no universities or institutions in India offering either a bachelor’s or master’s degree in HRD. However, a couple of diploma programmes are available through correspondence/self study basis. They are:

1. The Indian Society for Training and Development (ISTD), New Delhi, offers its 18 months ‘Diploma in Training and Development’.

2. The Academy of HRD, Ahmedabad, offers an ‘Associate Programme’ and a ‘Fellow Programme’ in HRD through correspondence which are at M.Phil and PhD levels respectively.

3. The Academy of HRD, Ahmedabad, in association with the All India Management Association (AIMA), New Delhi offers a one year post-graduate diploma in HRD, through correspondence.

4. Recently, the new generation business schools like ICFAI Hyderabad, and Symbiosis Institute, Pune, have initiated measures to introduce programmes in HRD at post-graduate level.



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Professional AssociationsHRD functionaries in India have formed professional associations, for the purpose of networking among professionals, as well as for carrying out research, education and consulting activities. These are associations voluntarily created by the HR functionaries and registered as charitable societies. They do not have statutory powers to regulate the entry of people into the profession or to initiate action against those who indulge in professional misconduct. The most important professional associations are listed below:

1. The Indian Society for Training and Development, New Delhi, with branches across the country.

2. The National HRD Network, Hyderabad, with branches across the country.

3. The National Institute of Personnel Management, Kolkata with branches across the country.

4. The Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Sciences, New Delhi.



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Cont….

Challenges to HRDHuman resource development is influenced by trends in other disciplines, demographics, politics, technology and a number of other domains. 1. Competition for the expertise elite: What is HRD’s role in recruiting or

developing increasingly competent and expert workers?2. Globalization: How will HRD balance the boundaries of time, space,

geography and culture while maintaining its focus on developing work place expertise?

3. Locus of Control: How will HRD strike a balance between ever demanding organizations and individuals?

4. Marketability of Knowledge: What is the role and responsibility of HRD in developing, sharing, transferring and protecting organizational knowledge?

5. Next Age: How can HRD assure that it is flexible enough as a discipline to respond effectively to the demands of a variety of ages and the priorities they will bring?

6. Technological Explosion: How will the roles of HRD shift in the context of a highly automated technologically demanding work place?



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John, Marijke Kehrhahn and Darren (2003) have identified the following challenges to the field of HRD. They are:1. Responding to multiple stakeholders-employees, shareholders, customers,

and society; 2. Measuring HRD’s impact and utility: Evolve ways to measure the impact of

utility of HRD;3. Orienting towards the future: Instead of being obsessed with past and the

present, visualize the future too. The capacity of HRD profession to be consistently ahead of the game will elevate the status of HRD as a key investment in the knowledge economy;

4. Focusing on problems and outcomes: HRD should be capable of understanding real problems and delivering solutions; and5. Status as a profession: HRD is yet to attain this status by evolving ethical

guidelines. In the year 2001, under the joint sponsorship of American Society for Training and Development and Academy of Human Resource Development, U.S.A.



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Are HRD and OD one and the same?While some researchers say that OD is part of HRD, others differ. In this

connection the observation of Gupta (1990) throws light on the issues. He says:

“presently there appears to be a terminological confusion between the terms

HRD and OD.” Rensis Likert sees the term HRD replacing the term OD. Pareek

advocates that the concept of HRD should not be seen as being limited to

training alone. He suggested addition of performance feedback and counselling

and OD. Later, Pareek and Rao also included system development and research

and worker efforts like work redesign, worker participation and quality of work

life. Nadler draws a distinction between the two, for according to him, the two

have different knowledge bases while HRD derives from human learning

theories, especially adult learning, as its base in the field of organizational

behaviour. Though coming from different fields or even from related fields, both

HRD and OD have a concern for interpersonal behaviour and change.



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Making sense out of HRD

Organizations hire the best talent from world class institutions by using stringent

selection procedures to ensure that only the best people get the opportunity to

work for them. When such being the hiring policies, why should there be any

need to have training for the employees? It is because universities and colleges

teach in a generic context and the aim of the students at this level is more to do

with passing examinations and getting jobs. Successful performance of any job

requires domain-specific knowledge and skills pertaining to the concerned

industry or organization. For example, all mechanical engineering students study

and pass common subjects in the college, but once they are employed, the

nature of work performed by mechanical engineers in the automobile industry is

different from the mechanical engineers employed in the telecommunication

industry.



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Training requires professionalism

Training involves substantial cost to the organization directly and indirectly. The

direct costs are, premises rent; trainers’ fees; boarding, lodging and travelling

cost of the trainees and trainers; the cost of stationery and study material; the

cost of laboratory equipments and demonstration aids etc. The indirect costs

could be loss of trainee man-hours at work and if the trainers are employees

from the same organization, then there would be loss of trainer man-hours too. If

training fails to attain the desired results then there would be defects in

producing goods or rendering service, which may force customers not to buy our

product or services leading to losses in the business. Therefore training

programmes should be well-organized with a professional touch to get the best

out of them.

T&D- 01

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