Strategic Role of Human Resource Development

Question: Senior HRD management must understand the variety of individual learning demands of their staff before they can design effective training, learning and development interventions. Critically justify this statement using your conceptual knowledge of learning theories and case? Answer: Introduction: Human Resource Development can be conceptualized as a framework that is enabled to help employees so that they can develop personal and organizational skills, knowledge and abilities. Human Resource Development also includes giving opportunities to an organization that includes career development, performance management, appraisal and development, providing training to the employees, succession planning and further organization development. The main focus of HRD is to develop a superior workforce in the organization so that all individuals can accomplish their work goals effectively. It is a series of organized activities that is designed to produce behavioral changes. Human Resource Development develops an organizational climate which provides effective superior-subordinate relationships and also ensures teamwork in an organization. Therefore it can be inferred that HRD is a process and networks as a part of any system. The organizational resources need to be allocated and exemplified accordingly. Senior HRD management must understand the variety of individual learning demands of their staff before they can design effective training, learning and development interventions. The most important implication for an organization is to ensure effective learning and development so that all the employees effectively carry out their current role. Apart from imparting training it is important to have skilled employees which can provide the organization with knowledgeable added values. The organizations which seek to improve their stability, efficiency and productivity should move beyond basic training process and look forward with different orientations of learning and development activities that help the company to differentiate from its competitors. To ensure effective learning and development activities it is necessary to identify and analyze all the learning and development objectives that can define an individuals perspective as well so that he is determined to be organization fit as per standards. The learning and development activities should ensure that the employees are attaining maximum productivity so that they can reap the benefits with competitors an d provide knowledge to the stakeholders as well (Clardy, 2008). It is also important to know about all the strategies being introduced in the organization and it should be clearly linked with the overall strategy and learning interventions being initiated. It is important to mould attitudes and then generate enthusiasm to attain corporate objectives. Evaluation of Learning and development: The process of evaluation is a systematic process that ensures collection and analyzing information that is needed to introduce a training program. This includes a wide range of activities that are required to be involved and its benefits are also taken along with. The evaluation of the training is very useful to collect data and information and this allows managers to follow a set of guidelines that has been already prepared for them. The process of evaluation also helps in implementing policies to achieve organizational objectives and this promotes organizational learning. If the learning objectives are not clearly evaluated then this may lead to a mismatch in the data being provided. Importance of evaluating learning and development activities: Training and development involves very high cost so there arises a question whether training is to be imparted or not to the employees. Once an employee is given trained he is opened to learn all the related strategies that are required in the organization and it is expected that to ensure effective production so that the organization can reach out its potential to the maximum. The importance of this entire process caters to three main perspectives of stakeholders. Organizations should involve training evaluation after the needs are been assessed and this can lead to developmental activities and enhance growth. This is required by the organizations so that they can help in making decisions about interventions in the future to be made. This also helps to demonstrate the values of the interventions which could make positive changes in the organization. This is also important to judge that who should attend the training programs and also seeks to involve new training programs that are needed to be evaluated (Delavier, 2010). There should be a need to generate more outcome on the basis of the training being provided to the employees. Training evaluation also helps the individuals to give feedback to the trainers whenever needed. This can act as strong evidence whether the training process is throwing any impact to the organization or not. This feedback must be taken in a positive way and should be acted upon immediately. Individual learners also get some time in this way to be actively involved in the evaluation process of training and development. This process also helps the trainers and the facilitators giving importance to all the independent trainers as well as to all the departments involved in the process. Trainers can update themselves along with the requirements given and feedback being suggested to them (Middleton and Mather, 2008). Purpose of Training Needs Assessment and Analysis: A training analysis is been conducted to identify and understand which areas of behavior and knowledge are required to be accomplished along with individual learners. This is required to be conducted to analyze what an organization expects out from a candidate and what knowledge or skills an individual should possess in order to be effective in the organization. If there is any gap between organization standards of work and what the candidate possess that is known as to be the performance gap. This gap should be identified immediately as soon as the training needs have been identified in the organization and evaluated thereof. Usually certain criterias are been developed so that the final evaluation of the training can be conducted. Employees require training for various purposes. For example it can be stated that training can effectively check all the performance gaps in the organization and can fill them if they are identified. Training can also necessitate a growth gap in the orga nization by highlighting a benchmark already set in the organization that needs to be achieved. Training process also ensures issues and opportunities related to organizational strengths and weaknesses and must identify suitable solutions to solve the issues and give importance to the rising growth opportunities (Ritzmann, Hagemann and Kluge, 2013). Integrating Learning and Development with HR: It is very much essential to link and integrate all plans of management and strategies along with human resource development. An integrated and coherent approach is necessary to be developed so that the learning strategies can be mapped along with people management strategies to achieve organization goals and objectives. The integrated approach will simplify the delivery process and avoid duplication of efforts. This will also enhance efficient allocation of resources in the organization. Improvements in the organization can be seen as a result to achieve all related business processes and systems (Mumford, 2010). This is rather called as a people management process where all the managers and staff are aware about their daily operational activities as well. This lead in development of roles and responsibilities of the individual to identify self needs also and link how HR processes can adjust with the developed adjustment needs as well. An integrated system also promotes agencys core business processes and this give rise to effective provision of learning. These objectives must be coherent along the business objectives and likewise can be developed. Another approach also emerges that is of Human Resource Management Information Systems (HRMIS). This process ensures effective learning and development in the workplace so that all the information could be accurately reported, forecasted and monitored by the management as well. The learning and development acts as a major input to the development needs of the organization. It also seeks to deliver accurate baseline data that is to be monitored to support effective and enhanced integration of decisions been taken and implemented thereof (Pelagidis, 2008). A versatile example can support the essay more effectively. Brainstorming is a group technique approach that is used to analyze the training situations in a business. This process allows individuals to be more creative while solving problems and taking decisions. The basic process starts with the problem being mentioned by the facilitator. Small groups are formed and are asked to summarize their ideas about the issue. Usually a time limit is given and they have to complete it according to the time given. Brainstorming leads to generation of many creative ideas, some of them are encourages and some are discouraged. Conclusion: It can be concluded and inferred from the analysis of the statement that evaluation comes before the training interventions are required to be implemented in the organization. This also brings about a cultural issue that whether managers and employees needs to accept the changes been made at various stages of the organization or not. The answer lies in the way how an organization make use of the training process the way it is decided to be planned and implemented and hoe the employees should be a part of this process and follows the training interventions made. References Carden, L. and Egan, T. (2008). Human Resource Development and Project Management: Key Connections.Human Resource Development Review, 7(3), pp.309-338. Clardy, A. (2008). 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