The Human Resource Development Process
Created | Updated May 23, 2003
In the past, the terms training and development were used almost interchangeably. Development was seen as being associated with management and the long-term. Training was associated with non-management employees and improving their skills in the short-term.
Nowadays, such a distinction has less relevance, as the development of all employees is considered crucial.
Price (1997) defines Human Resource Development as "a strategic approach to investing in human capital," which "provides a framework for self-development, training programmes and career progression to meet an organisations future skill requirements."
Human Resource Development sees employees as people not just numbers. It maximises the human capital of a business by improving the pool of knowledge available to it, thereby enhancing the firm's overall performance.
Training and/or development can be defined as the systematic development of knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to perform a task to an acceptable standard.
Elements of Human Resource Development
Assessment and Analysis
A performance appraisal process should identify each individual's personal training requirements. Different employees will benefit from different kinds of training even if they are doing the same job. Line managers should be involved in assessment and appraisal on a continuous basis. This assessment should encourage a learning environment within the organisation.
If the organisation is clear as to the levels of skill, knowledge and attitude required, development can be used to correct shortfall in those standards. An analysis of the appraisal can identify gaps between current work performance and established performance criteria. The training needs of the organisation at three levels: organisational, job and individual can be identified.
Personal and corporate objectives must be reconciled. Employees may want to develop transferable skills that could help them to get a promotion and are seen as valuable by other employers. Employers want training that makes employees more productive.
Training Methods
When the criteria for successful training are established, a pilot training programme can be set up.
Training managers have an ever-growing range of learning methods to choose from. These have been divided into two broad categories:
· On-the-job training such as demonstration of procedures and PC-based training packages;
· Off-the-job training such as projects and formal courses.
Revans (1972) devised a systematic, experiential or Action Learning programme based on job exchanges. His approach is consistent with Human Resource Development concepts. The emphasis is on learning and meeting the changing needs of a competitive organisation. His programme had the following requirements:
· The tasks must be relevant to real work.
· Projects must be owned and defined by senior management.
· Projects should require real action and change.
· There should be a real return on the cost of the investment.
· Content and process of change should be studied.
· There must be public commitment from participants.
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Evaluation
At the end of the development process, feedback should be provided to trainers for possible improvement and to justify the spending on training.
Recent research (Sloman, 1993) noted that organisations were becoming more and more concerned with the effectiveness and value for money being obtained from their training programmes. More than half the companies he surveyed evaluated every training event.
In the UK, out of 200 organisations which were 'committed to training', only 10 per cent had an evaluation system in place. The most common form of evaluation is handing-out questionnaires to those who have completed the course. This process has many flaws:
· At the end of the course, trainees are glad to have made it through and this joy translates itself to the questionnaire.
· Trainees are reluctant to criticise the trainers as they have developed a personal relationship with them.
· The questionnaire often focuses on the wrong issues. It is likely to concentrate on the enjoyability of the course and the quality of the environment.
Hamblin's (1974) is the best known model for the evaluation of training. He divided training into five levels, which could be evaluated separately:
1. The reactions of the trainees during training.
2. Learning achieved during training.
3. The behaviour of trainees at work after the training course.
4. Overall effects on the business.
5. Ultimate factors, such as business survival, profit and the welfare of interested parties.
The Traditional UK View
In the past, UK firms took a predominantly Fordist view of business. They tried to minimise short-term costs. And as it was viewed thus, the amount of expenditure on training was kept to a minimum.
The Fordist approach to production led to a de-skilling of work to reduce training costs. Employees were usually trained to do only one simple task on a production line. There was a reinforcing cycle of low quality products that required a low level of skill to produce. This meant that employees had little need for training or education due to the abundance of low-skilled jobs.
Employee development was restricted to managers. There was an assumption that non-management employees cannot develop, or their ability to develop is limited.
Employers were reluctant to train young recruits for a variety of reasons. These were poaching; cost; lack of individual interest and the weak links between training and performance.
Poaching : Some employers train and others do not. Firms that do not train may "poach" trained workers from those who do train. Development requires the acquisition of general skills as well as specific skills for the training company. For fear of poaching, UK firms have been reluctant to provide their employees with training in general skills. As Stevens and Walsh (1991) put it: "investment in training, once completed, is embodied in the individual, and as such is not under the control of the firm undertaking the investment."
In other major economies, this is not seen as an issue. German firms see themselves as having a responsibility to contribute to the common good: in this case maintaining a high level of training. In Japan and the United States, the training of young people is largely carried out within the formal education system and the poaching problem is less evident.
Cost: Trainees can expect higher rates of pay than those in semi-skilled jobs. The reduction in the number of young people entering the labour force has increased competition and wages for higher-calibre trainees. When a person is in training, they are paid even though they are producing nothing. They also occupy the time of trainers, who are not put to use to increase productivity.
Individual lack of interest: Human capital theory predicts that there should be a direct link between more training and higher wages. The perception of young UK workers is that there is no link. They see that qualifications are no use in obtaining promotion and are used only as a filter in the selection process. The value of qualifications is seen as being less than that of previous job performance and managers perception of their potential. This is why many UK workers have little interest in vocational training.
Weak links between training and performance: Training does not have strategic importance for many UK firms due to the difficulty in proving the connection between training and improved efficiency. Hendry (1995) contends that the connection is entirely unproven: "One of the things which gets in the way is the fallacy…that the benefits of training can somehow be demonstrated on the bottom line. As a rhetorical device, it may encourage employers to train by saying 'training pays' but no-one has ever satisfactorily explained this."
Traditional Method of Training in the UK
Before the establishment of the Industrial Training Boards (ITBs) in 1964, the most common way of training workers was by having them observe experienced workers. It had the advantages of being cheap, and the learning was directly related to the job. Its disadvantages were that the experienced member of staff may pass on bad habits as well as good and, as they would not be a training expert, they may have difficulty in explaining things to the trainee.
The 1964 Industrial Training Act established the ITBs and introduced the Systematic Training Model. The Systematic Training model emphasised off-the-job training as opposed to the previously popular method of "sitting next to Nellie" describe above.
The Systematic Training model usually consisted of identifying the training needs and specifying the objectives of the organisation; developing a training programme; the implementation of a planned training programme and the validation, evaluation and review of that training.
The Systematic Training model assumes an organisation environment based on slow change, hierarchical lines of authority and clear requirements. It was centred on the use of a training needs analysis. This would usually consist of an exercise to identify the current needs while considering the organisations objectives. It was a framework that ensured a thorough job was done. It requires a methodical and time-consuming series of activities, which are not suitable for a modern organisation.
Modern organisations are constantly changing and are flexible, without the tight control systems of the Sixties around which the model was based. The Systematic Training model is a planned process that has no place for responding to change - it is static rather than dynamic.
The Systematic Training model has no link with development and other Human Resource concepts, and is thus inadequate for modern trainers.
Conclusion
The advantage of Human Resource Development lies in the planning of skill availability in advance of need. For example, Siemens took on one-third more electrical engineering graduates than was necessary in the early 1990s. During the recession, poor levels of business led to cost-cutting measures within the firm. In order to meet expected needs, Siemens offered contracts to 300 graduates. They were able to develop their expertise and now, as the economy has recovered, Siemens are at the forefront of innovation in the expanding communications industry.
HRD provides firms with flexibility not found in previous training models, which allows them to cope with the ever-changing modern world of commerce.
