Training and HRD

TRAINING & HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT 3(1+2)

Lesson 13:Introduction to Human resource development

Concept of Human resource development (HRD)

The term 'Human resource' is inter-changeably used with manpower, labour force and -human capital.

Human resource is defined as the total knowledge - skills, creative abilities, talents and aptitudes of an organization's work force as well as the values, attitudes and beliefs of the individuals involved.

Human resource development is designed for improving the human performance by increasing human capacity and productivity for ensuring a better quality of life to the individuals in and outside the organization

Human Resource Management (HRM): It is the set of organizational activities directed at attracting, developing and maintaining an effective work. HRM also consists of human resource development. Unless the human resources are adequately trained and developed up to the required levels of proficiency and requirement, they cannot be deemed to be effectively managed. Thus Human Resource Development makes the effective management of human resources.

Normally people distinguish between HRM a major management activity and human resource development a profession. Human resource development includes the broader range of activities to develop personnel inside of organizations, including, e.g. career development, training, organization development, etc. There is a long-standing argument about where HR-related functions should be organized into large organizations, e.g., "should HR be in the Organization Development department or the other way around?" Over the past many years, the HRM function and Human Resource Development profession have undergone tremendous change. Many years ago, large organizations looked to the "Personnel Department," mostly to manage the paperwork around hiring and paying people. More recently, organizations consider the "HR Department" as playing a major role in staffing, training and helping to manage people so that people and the organization are performing at maximum capability in a highly fulfilling manner.

Human resource development (human resource development ) can be defined as a set of systematic and planned activities designed by an organization to provide its members with opportunities to learn necessary skills to meet current and future job demands.

According to Prof. T.V. Rao, human resource development is a process by which the employees of an organization are helped, in a continuous 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 own inner potentials for their own and or organizational development processes;
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.
   

It becomes very obvious that human resource development is way ahead of the old philosophy of "controlling people", which mainly was centered around keeping people on a tight leash and not allowing them to develop any of their actual talents or capabilities.

In fact, human resource development is totally opposed to the old philosophy of controlling people. Its heart and soul is development. It aims at securing the voluntary co-operation of people to achieve organizational goals.

Human Resource Development is centered on an enlightened view of the tremendous potential of human beings to excel and do their best, if and only if, an environment is created for undertaking developmental initiatives.