Course Introduction

Dear distance learners, the concept of human resource development is

not new. It has gained prominence and focus in the last few decades. Its
rediscovery as an essential element in development is necessitated by the
deterioration of social conditions, increased competition, rapid
technological advancements and free economic liberalization.

Human Resource Development (HRD) is a concept based on the respect

for the dignity of all human beings and their potential, where individuals
experience a sense of involvement and belonging and find fulfillment
through work in the organization. The greatest motivation to work is the
feeling of being involved in the nation building, whether in government or
in a corporate organization. It is a systematic approach to deal actively
with issues related to employees and teams in any organization by
acquiring and sharing capabilities to perform better and meet future
challenges. On the other hand, human resource development deals with
creating conditions that enable people to get the best out of themselves
and their lives. Development is a never-ending process. As people develop
themselves in new directions, new problems and issues arise requiring
them to develop new competencies to meet the changing requirements,
aspirations and problems. There are, however, some universal goals to-
wards which all human resource development efforts should aim to
achieve. At the individual level these goals may include developing
capabilities for ensuring a happy and healthy living. The dimensions of
such happiness may vary from individual to individual. These may
include: a good education or skill base that may be the key to income-
generation and fulfillment of many other social needs, a good income
base itself, self respect security, status and recognition in the society,

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good family and a sense of belongingness to a group, society or
organization.

At the organizational level the goal of human resource development is

normally to have competent and motivated people (employees) to ensure
higher levels of productivity, profitability and growth of the organization.
Organizations normally direct their human resource development efforts
towards the development of competencies, culture and commitment
among employees individually or in groups. Organizations use many
mechanisms to achieve human resource development goals, as without
competent and committed employees, organizations can achieve very
little even if they have excellent technological and other resource bases.

At national level, human resource development aims at ensuring that

people in the country live longer; live happily, free of disease and hunger,
have sufficient skill base to earn their own livelihood and well-being,
have a sense of belongingness and pride through participation
determining their own destinies. The promotion of the well-being of
individuals, families and societies provides a human resource agenda for
all the countries of the world over.
The most important and common objective of human development at all
levels is competence (capacity) building for a healthy and happy living.
Competences help people to bring happiness to their lives. They are the
best possible means to achieve a variety of goals. They are also a
powerful means for income-generation and promotion of quality of life in
the family, organization or country. The only exception where such
competency building is not needed is perhaps for those who are born rich
and have an access to all comforts and happiness through their
economic situation. However, individuals, organizations and countries
with good economic base seem to have become even richer through

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investments on human resources and continue to spend a considerable
part of other resources on developing new competencies.
Planning for the Human Resource Development has received increasing
attention in recent years from policy planners, practitioners,
academicians and international agencies. There has also been initiatives
in exampling the possibilities and framework of an integrated approach
to human resource development planning i.e. linking development
planning has been posited in the from of a paradigm where protagonists
contend that countries could possibly change their comparative
advantage from primary commodity and also skill intensive products to
more skill intensive goods through deliberate expansion of human
resources.

This course is classified in to four logically related units. Each unit again
is divided in to sections. In the first unit, the origin of human resources
development, definition of human resources development, and concepts
of human resources development are discussed in detail. The second
unit is devoted to introducing students with human resource governance
issues. The third unit is dedicated to deal with the role of HRD in socio-
economic development. Human resource development issues, challenges
and remedies and policy instruments to address the challenges are
discussed in chapter four.
As you read through this module, you will encounter a number of self-
assessment questions and activities that have been designed to make
you think about your understanding of the course. The student is
expected to answer these questions by himself. Incase where he is in
difficulty to answer, need to refer back the main body of the material.

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Course Objectives
After you have completed studying this course, you would be able to:
o Understand the origin of Human Resource Development;
o Define Human Resource Development both at macro and micro
(Organizational) levels;
o Define and explain the concept of Human Resource governance;
o Describe the differences between training, development,
education and human Resource Development;
o Understand the linkages of HRD with other aspects of planning;
o Under-stand the features, mechanisms/techniques, philosophy,
significance; principles, functions of HRD Department, Qualities
of an HRD manager and outcomes of HRD;
o Be aware of macro-level Human resource Development issues
and challenges;
o Describe various remedies of HRD challenges;
o Understand the new paradigm of Development;
o Understand the linkage between HRD , Economic and social
development;

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 Unit One
ORIGIN AND DEFINITION OF CONCEPT of
HRD

Unit Introduction
Dear students, in an effort to clarify some of the new terminology
surrounding ‘human resources’, different definitions are adopted to
widen your understanding on the subject matter. You may have, or find,
different ones; indeed, many management books start off by giving a
whole range of definitions, reflecting the controversies and complexity
that currently existed in this area. In this unit, many of these definitions
have been discussed so that students can easily understand the basic
similarities and differences among the concepts.

Unit objectives
Upon successful completion of this unit, you would be able to:
• Define concepts of Human resource,HRD,and HRM;
• Understand the origin of the concept of HRD,
• Identify the challenges in training;
• Acquaint with the skills to manage the training process;
• Explain the types and phases of training;
• Understand and appreciate the need for HRD;

Pretest Questions
• Can you explain how and why the concept of HRD has emerged?
• Can you define concepts like HRM and HRD?
• Do you know the phases and types of training?

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Section One: An Overview of HRD

Section overview
Dear distance learner, concern for human development and well-being is
as old as the human being himself. Its integration with development
policies, especially in relation to the evaluation of their effectiveness, is of
recent origin. Human development issues have admitted strong regional
and global dimensions but they fall mainly in the domain of national
policies.

Human Resource development for any country is a comprehensive

approach. In addition to the standard GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
growth rates per capital, recognition must be given to other measurable
components likes literacy, longevity and factors not easy to measure like
human freedoms and equity. Development of human resources in
particular country/Regions is of paramount importance for the economic
development of the country /Regions and also for enhancing the quality
of life of the people inhabiting the rural or the urban areas, that is the
changing structure will provide more opportunities for the individuals to
develop.

Human resource development is the most critical ingredient of economic

development. The process of economic development is nothing but
expanding the capabilities of people. The ultimate focus of economic
development is human resource development. Thus, it is a two-way
process. It is necessary for human resources to grow and diversify in
order to permit more opportunities for the individuals to develop and to
employ enhanced flow of skills and talents that are produced.

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In economic terms, HRD means accumulation of human capital and its
effective utilization for the development of economy. Human capital is
produced by an application of productive resources to raw labor. The
result of this particular application is a trained worker whose enhanced
productive capacity results in a stream of services of increased value.
Because the benefits of education and training are derived over a long
period of time, the value of resources used in education and training may
be considered investments and imputed increment in earning power that
result from the training may be treated as its yield.
Section Objectives
After reading this section, you would be able to deal more effectively with
the following topics:
• Define the concepts like Human resources,HRM and HRD;
• Explain the historical evolution of the concept of HRD;
• Discuss the basic similarities and differences between training and
education;
• Recognize the characteristics that make training programs
successful;
• Determine when employees need training and the type of training.

1.1. Origin of the concept of Human Resource Development (HRD)

? Dear students, can you explain how the concept of HRD was

emerged?

Human Resource Development is a newly emerging field of study.

Although development of human beings has been in existence in some
form or other since the beginning of civilization, a planned and
systematic approach to HRD in the corporate sector emerged in the later
half of the 20th century. In the past, training was thought to be the only

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way of development human resources. But now HRD has emerged as an
interdisciplinary and integrated approach to the development of human
resources.
Before we go into the concepts and definition of HRD, brief
understanding of the historical process is necessary to appreciate the
importance of HRD functions in today’s organization.
It is believed that Kurt Lewin’s (1974) studies of behavior of small groups
and setting up of National Training Laboratories laid the foundation for
HRD profession, which till late 1940 was the domain of psychiatrists,
psychologists, counselors, nurses, and furthered the concepts of human
relations training and the experiential approach. Participants in training
groups (T-groups) effectively identified problems, acquired the skills and
also actively collaborated in the problem solving process.
In 1969, the Handbook of structured Experience for Human Relations
Training was published by University Associates giving structured
experiences with guide lines for training and development. Subsequent
publication of handbooks for group Facilitators in 1972 and 1973
furthered the process of developing Training and Organization
Development Vis-à-vis Human Resource Development as a recognized
area of professional endeavor, delineating HRD as a new profession,
encompassing the personnel function.

According to prof. K.K.Khullar, the expression of “Human Resource

Development” was first used in the sixties in United States of America by
Dr. Leonard Nadler. The phrase was used to signify human being as a
“resource” in the process of development.

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1.2. Defining the Concepts of HRM and HRD

? Dear student, what is human resource development?

Human resources include all the individual employees who contribute to

the operations of an organization, whether they are employed full-time,
part-time, on a temporary or permanent basis.
HRM(human resource development)includes the activities of recruitment,
induction, promotion, performance evaluation, discipline and grievances
handling, etc.This approach to managing people embodies the following
principles. These are:
(1) People are the most important resources of an organization, and
managing them effectively is the key to organizational success;
(2) Human resource policies and procedures need to be closely linked
with, and make a major contribution to the achievement of
organizational objectives and strategic plans; and
(3) The culture of the organization needs to be one that values human
resources.
Human resource management therefore depends on integrating the
importance of human resources into the organization’s strategic policy,
and planning and ensuring that all line managers adopt its principles as
part of their everyday work.
The concept human resource management refers to administration of
people. Human resources management has different usage in different
countries. In Britain the term is used to explain a field of people’s
management that deals in the areas of skill, organizational behavior and
personnel management. The term personnel/human resource
management can be used interchangeably and can be defined as a
function of organization for effective utilization of employees to achieve
organizational and individual goals. The term HRM is controversial due
to variability, ambiguity and contradictions of meanings and values

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 attached to it and one could find similarities and differences between
personnel management and HRM.
HRM comprises of a broad range of functions and activities such as job
analysis and design, staff selection and recruitment, career and succession
plans, employee transfer, promotion, training, performance evaluation,
remuneration, appeal and grievances handling, human resource planning,
safety and health, equal employment opportunity etc.

At this juncture it will be helpful to know some important concepts

which are related with human resource development. One of these
concepts are human resource capacity and capability.

? Dear student, what does Human resource capacity mean?

There are terms like ‘capacity’ and ‘capability’ which are often confusing
and misunderstood, Capacity refers to the over all ability of groups and
individuals to actually perform their assigned responsibilities. It includes
the capability, the overall size of tasks, resources, and frameworks within
which they are discharged. Capability, on the other hand, refers to the
individual's or group knowledge, skill, and attitude and their competence
that is necessary to accomplish their assigned tasks and responsibilities.
It is a critical element of capacity and one major determinant of efficient
and effective performance. Capacity as the process of identifying and
developing the management skills help to address such policy problems
as attracting, absorbing, and managing financial, human and
information resources; and operating programs effectively, including
evaluating program out comes to guide future activities.

Capacity building or capacity development is an integral part of the

decentralization process. It is a continuous process that aims to increase
individuals as well as organizational abilities to help them solve problems,
achieve the set objectives and sound performance. It focuses primarily on

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human resource development mainly through training and education .In
this regard the major focus of capacity building in Ethiopia is on human
resource, procedures and systems and institutions. Capacity building is
also an issue of sound governance, bureaucratic transparency and
accountability, and empowerment of citizens at all levels.

Human resource is critical for two main reasons:

a) HR creates and develops other resources such as; finance,
information, technology, etc.These are the results of human
activity. The sustainability of these resources depends on HR.
b) Without HR other resources have no use. Human beings give blood
and flesh to all other resources.
According to the human resource development approach (school),
capacity building is the brain child of the resource based school of
management. The HRD school of thought argues that organizations can
develop sustainable, competitive advantage only by creating value in a
way that is rare and difficult for competitors to imitate.
This core resource differs from traditional sources of competitive
advantage such as natural resource, technology, capital, land etc.
More over, according to this school of thought, HR can be taken as the
best source of competitive advantage if its management is strategic and
able to create effective resource mobility barriers.
Thus, since HR a critical and irreplaceable resource, because it creates
its own social structure, any capacity building program should give it
strategic priority.
The resource based school come-up with a conclusion that HR is an
asset rather than a cost. Therefore, investing in HR will yield return.
Hence, HRD as a strategic weapon has a central role in capacity building.
To be meaningful, HRD strategy as a component of capacity building
should emanate from national goals and objectives.

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1.3. HRD, Training, Education and Development

? Dear distance learner, can you define the concept of HRD?

HRD is the main subject matter of this course and is concerned with the
recruitment and retention of high quality people who are best fitted to
fulfill the organization’s objectives, defining and measuring levels of
performance and providing continuous opportunities for training and
development. By HRD we mean long-term HR capacity development. We
develop HR to harvest the required result at the right time. Therefore,
since HR is the real resource, designing national and organizational
strategic HRD programs that emanate from strategic plans of the nation
and organization is mandatory.
Investing in HRD will yield expected returns only when it is tactically
linked with strategic plan. In the absence of which may HRD and
training activities will be futile exercise. Investment in HRD can yield
proper returns only when it has business purpose.
In identifying development needs, we need to know the current and
anticipated needs. We should have an integrated or holistic approach for
a workable HRD strategy.

As development of human resources is different from material, financial

or any other kind of resources, appreciation of the human resources
means that a person becomes more capable of handling his affairs, or
basically improves his capability for decision-making.
There are several definitions of HRD but the most widely used is that it is
a package of several activities such as nutrition, health, culture,
education, labor, agriculture and rural development leading to
employment.
This package needs to be delivered to every child who is born in this
world; from conception to graduation is the range of human resource

12
development. Even after graduation HRD concerns itself with continuing
education and training, a life of dignity for all men and women.
Coordinated development of child of the group 0-14 is the major concern
of the HRD. Empowerment of women is another important concern. In
HRD analysis, development is not about factories, dams and roads and
its components are not cement, mortar and bricks. Development is
basically about people. The goal is the people’s fulfillment: Material,
cultural, educational and a sense of pride. In other words, HRD is a set
of structured and integrated social programmes which revolve around
and result in human development.

Broadly, HRD has been used either as an adjunct or as a

complimentarily or as an alternate strategy. Gunner Myrdal has listed
the following components of HRD. They are 1) Food and Nutrition, 2)
Clothing 3) Housing and Sanitation 4) Health 5) Information 6)
Energy consumption and 7) Education 8) Transport.

The World Bank, however, takes into consideration only three

components which go to make HRD package. Namely: Nutrition, Health
and Education. The International Labor Organization includes
employment to be the strongest component of HRD. In many developing
countries HRD has been conceived as an economic measure or a poverty
alleviation measure.
HRD as part of HRM calls for:
• Recruiting and inducting high quality people and deploying them
effectively;
• Identifying and improving the skills and motivation of existing and
longer serving employees;
• Regularly analyzing job content in relation to organizational
objectives and individual skills;

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 • Reviewing the use of technology and its use in replacing routine
tasks;
• Performance management and measurement through the
identification of the key tasks;
• Focusing on people’s skills and general intelligence rather than on
educational attainment;
• Identifying training needs;
• Providing training to improve current performance and to enhance
individual careers;
• Providing opportunities for individual self-development and
personal growth;
• Helping employees to manage their own careers; and
• Encouraging employees to accept change as an organizational
norm and an opportunity.
It must be remembered that HRD is not a sector of economy, although it
boosts economic forces. HRD means optimum utilization of existing
human capabilities. These capabilities include intellectual, technological
and creative taken in their totality. HRD is value-based. The core values
of HRD are equity, equality and distributive justice. Human development,
as HRD at macro-level is universally known, is a comprehensive and
composite concept as development itself. It calls for the participation of
both the rich and the poor in the process of development.

In the national context HRD is a process by which peoples in various

groups are helped to acquire new competencies for self-reliance, self-
confidence and self support. HRD is not welfare. It must raise the quality
of life. Training is the ladder by which HRD is accomplished and
nurtured. Training alone can improve the existing capabilities of human
resources and help them to acquire new capabilities needed for the
fulfillment of growth in different sectors of economy.

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From the organizational context, several definitions of HRD have been
given.HRD is a process which helps employees of an organization to
improve their functional capabilities for their present and future roles to
develop their general capabilities, to harness their inner potentialities
both for their self and organizational development and develop
organizational culture to sustain harmonious superior-subordinate
relationships, teamwork, motivation quality, and a sense of
belongingness. Perhaps the best and the most comprehensive definition
of HRD in the organizational context has been given by Prof. TV Rao. He
defines it as a process by which the employees of an organization are
helped in a continuous, planned way to:

1. Sharpen their 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 inner potentials for their own and /or organizational
development purposes, and
3. Develop an organizational culture in which supervisor-
subordinate relationships, team work, and collaboration among
sub-units become strong and contribute to the professional well-
being, motivation and pride of the employees.
There are a lot of misconception about training, education and
development functions vis-à-vis HRD. Without precisely knowing the
differences and functions of training, education and development, it
would further make it difficult for us to appreciate the objectives, roles
and significance of HRD both at macro and micro (organizational) levels.
In the succeeding paragraphs we will take a cursory view of the
differences and functions of training, education and development.

15
? Dear student, can you compare the concepts of training,

education and development?

(i)Training is the systematic development of the attitude knowledge and
skill behavior pattern required by an individual in order to perform
adequately a given task or job. It is also the process of increasing the
knowledge and skills for doing a particular job. It is an organized
procedure by which people learn knowledge and skills for definite
purpose. The purpose of training is basically to bridge the gap between
job requirements and present competence of an employee. Training is
aimed at improving the behavior and performance of a person. It is a
never ending or continuous process.
(ii)Education is the process of increasing general knowledge and
understanding of employees. Thus, education is wider in scope and more
general in purpose than training. The following table shows comparison
between Education and Training.
Table 1.1. Comparisons between Education and Training
Point of Comparison Education Training
1. Content and scope Broad and general Narrow and specific
job related
2. Nature Pure and theoretical Applied and practical
3. Duration Long duration Short Duration
4. Result Delayed and in Quick and apparent
apparent

However, it is difficult in practice to differentiate between education and

training because in many cases both of them occur simultaneously.
There is some education in all training and in all education there is some
training. The two are complementary and involve development of talent
and human potential.

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Upgrading employees’ performance and improving their skills through
training is a necessity in today’s competitive environment. Job demands
are changing very rapidly as technology advances. For instance, constant
improvements in computing hardware and software make frequent
training of employees who use computers essential. Organizations that
neglect to train their work forces are depriving themselves of the human
resources they need to prosper or even to survive.
The training process brings with it a number of questions that managers
must answer. These are:
 Is training the solution to the problem? A fundamental
objective of training is the elimination or improvement of
performance problems. However, not all performance problems
call for training. Performance deficits can have several causes,
many of which are beyond the worker’s control and would
therefore not be affected by training. For example, unclear or
conflicting requests, morale problems, and poor quality materials
can not be improved through training. Before choosing training as
the solution, managers should carefully analyze the situation to
determine if training is the appropriate response.
 Are the Goals Clear and Realistic? To be successful, a training
program must have clearly stated and realistic goals that will both
guide the program’s content and determine the criteria by which
its effectiveness will be judged. For example, management cannot
realistically expect one training session to make everyone a
computer expert. Such an expectation guarantees failure because
the goal; is unattainable. Unless the goals are clearly articulated
before training programs are set up, the organization is liable to
find itself training employees for the wrong reasons and toward
the wrong ends.

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 Is Training a Good Investment? Training can be quite expensive.
In addition to the cost of delivering the training program, there are
costs associated with analyzing and evaluating the program’s
effectiveness. In some cases, training may be appropriate but not
cost effective. Before beginning a training program, managers
must weigh how much the current problem costs against how
much the training to eliminate it wills cost. It could be that the
training cure is more costly than the performance ailment-in
which case alternatives must be considered. Determining whether
training is a good investment requires measuring the training’s
potential benefits in dollars. Training that focuses on “hard” areas
(such as the running and adjustment of machines) that have a
fairly direct impact on out comes (such as productivity) can often
be easily translated into a dollar value. Estimating the economic
benefits of training in softer areas-such as teamwork training-is
much more challenging.
 Will Training Work? A variety of training programs are in
widespread use. Some are computerized, others use simulations,
and still others use the traditional lecture format. Some types of
training are more effective than others for some purposes and in
some situations. Designing effective training remains as much an
art as a science, however, because no single type of training has
proved most effective overall. Beyond the type of training and its
content, a number of contextual issues can determine a training
program’s effectiveness. For example, an organizational culture
that supports change, learning, and improvement can be a more
important determinant of a training program’s effectiveness than
any aspect of the program itself. Participants who view training
solely as a day away from work are unlikely to benefit much from
the experience.Further, if participant’s managers do not endorse
the content and purpose of the training, there is little likelihood

18
that the training program will have any influence on work
processes.
Finally, training will not work unless it is related to organizational
goals. A well designed training program flows from the strategic
goals of the company; a poorly designed one has no relationship to
–or even worse, is at cross-purposes with those goals. It is the
manager’s responsibility to ensure that training is linked with
organizational goals.

Managing the Training Processes

?Dear students, what are the processes of training?

Effective training can raise performance, improve morale, and
increase an organization’s potential. Poor, inappropriate, or
inadequate training can be a source of frustration for everyone
involved. To maximize the benefits of training, managers must
closely monitor the training process.
As the next Figure shows, the training process consists of three
phases: (1) needs assessment,(2) development and conduct of
training, and (3) evaluation. In the needs assessment phase, the
problems or needs that the training must address are determined.
In the development and conduct phase, the most appropriate type
of training is designed and offered to the workforce.

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 Needs Assessment
Phase Development &
-Organization conduct of
needs Training
-Task need -Location
-Person needs -Presentation
-Type

Evaluation

(a)The Assessment Phase

The overall purpose of the assessment phase is to determine if
training is needed, and if so, to provide the information required
designing the training program. Assessment consists of three
levels of analysis: organizational, task, and person.
(i) Organizational analysis examines such broad factors as the
organization’s culture, mission, business climate, long and short-
term goals, and structure. Its purpose is to identify both overall
organizational needs and the level of support for training that
exists in the organization. Perhaps the organization lacks the
resources needed to support a formal training program, or
perhaps the organization’s strategy emphasizes innovation. In
either case, the organizational analysis that reveals such
information plays a major role in determining whether training will
be offered and the type of training (or alternative to training) that
would be most appropriate. If a lack of resources precludes formal
training, a mentoring program might be used as an alternative. An
innovative environment may call for a training program focused on
encouraging worker’s creativity.

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(ii)Task analysis: is an examination of the job to be performed. It
focuses on the duties and tasks of jobs throughout the
organization to determine which jobs require training. A recent
and carefully conducted job analysis should provide all the
information needed to understand job requirements. These duties
and tasks are then used to identify the knowledge, skills, need
abilities (KSAs) required to perform the job adequately. Then the
KSAs are used to determine the kinds of training needed for the
job.
(iii)Person analysis: determines which employees need training
by examining how well employees are carrying out the tasks that
make up their jobs. Training is often necessary when there is a
discrepancy between a worker’s performances and the
organization’s expectations or standards. Often, a person analysis
entails examining the worker performance ratings routinely
collected by the organization, then identifying workers or groups of
workers who are weak in certain skills. The source of performance
ratings is the supervisor, but a more complete picture of workers’
strengths and weaknesses may be obtained by expanding the
sources to include self-assessment by the individual worker and
performance assessments by a couple of the worker’s peers.

As noted earlier, performance problems can come from numerous

sources, many of which would not be affected by training. The
only source of a performance problem that can be addressed
through training is a deficiency that is under the trainee’s control.
Because training focuses on changing the worker, it can improve
performance only when the worker is the source of a performance
deficiency.
It is important to note that when we talk about the worker as the
source of performance problem, we are not referring only to

21
deficiencies in such hard areas as knowledge, skills, and abilities
directly connected to the job. Sometimes the deficiencies occur in
such soft areas as diversity, ethics, and AIDS awareness, and they
too require training to correct.
Training is not the only option available for responding to a worker
deficiency.If,for example, it is determined that the training needed
to bring workers up to desired levels would be too costly,
transferring or terminating the deficient workers may be the more
cost-effective course. Strict KSA requirements can then be used to
select new employees and eliminate the performance gap. The
obvious drawbacks of terminating or replacing employees deemed
deficient and these options are likely to harm commitment and
morale in the work place. For this reason, managers should
consider training preferable to transfer or termination.

The assessment phase should provide a set of objectives for any

training program that might be developed following the
assessment. Each objective should relate to one or more of the
knowledge, skill and abilities (KSAs) identified in the task analysis,
and should be challenging, precise, achievable .and understood by
all.
Whenever possible, objectives should be stated in behavioral terms
and the criteria by which the training program’s effectiveness will
be judged should flow directly from the behavioral objectives.
Suppose the cause of a performance deficiency is poor
interpersonal sensitivity. The overall objective of the training
program designed this problem, then, would be to increase
interpersonal sensitivity. However, interpersonal sensitivity is a
noble training goal, but the term is ambiguous and does not lead
to specific content for a training program or to specific criteria by
which the training’s effectiveness can be judged.

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(b)The Training and Conduct Phase
The training program that results from a thorough assessment
should be a direct response to an organizational problem or need.
Making sure that the training is relevant to the work place is
critical to ensure that it will produce a real improvement in the
organization.
Training can be carried out either on the job or off the job. In the
very common on-the-job (OJT) training approach, the trainee
works in the actual work setting, usually under the guidance of an
experienced worker, supervisor, or trainer. A checklist for using
OJT provides a list of the factors that HR professionals and
managers need to consider when developing OJT program. Job
rotation, apprenticeship, and internship are all forms of OJT.
 Job rotation: allows employees to gain experience at
different kinds of narrowly defined jobs in the organization.
It is often used to give future managers a broad background.
 Apprenticeship: OJT programs typically associated with the
skilled trades derive from the medieval practice of having the
young learn a trade from an experienced worker.
 Internship: Just as apprenticeships are a route to certain
skilled blue-collar jobs, internships are a route to white -
collar or managerial jobs in a variety of fields. Internships
are opportunities for students to gain some real world job
experiences, often during summer vacations from schools.

23
?Dear student, can you list the types of trainings?
As we noted earlier, there are many approaches to training. We focus
here on the types that are commonly used in today’s organizations:
Skills, retraining, cross-functional, team, creativity, literacy training.
 Skills Training: When we think of training, most of us probably
envision a program that focuses on particular skill needs or
deficits. Indeed, this type of training is probably the most common
in organizations. The program is fairly simple: The need or deficit is
identified via a thorough assessment. Specific training objectives
are generated, and training content is developed to achieve those
objectives. The criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the
training are also based on the objectives identified in the
assessment phase.
 Retraining: A subset of skills training, retraining focuses on giving
employees the skills they need to keep pace with the changing
requirements of their job.
 Cross-functional training: Traditionally, organizations have
developed specialized work functions and detailed job descriptions.
However, today’s organizations are emphasizing versatility rather
than specialization. Many companies need workers who can
quickly change job assignments, help out where needed, and
respond rapidly to changing conditions. Training workers in
multiple functions or disciplines is thus becoming increasingly
popular.
 Team training: many organizations are organizing more and more
of their work around teams. The following initial findings can be
used to guide team training efforts:

24
 • Team members should be trained in communication skills
(both speaking and listening) that encourage respect for all
team members.
• Training should instill the recognition that team goals and
individual goals are not always the same, and provide
strategies for dealing with conflicts that will inevitably arise
between the two.
• Training should emphasize the interdependence of team
members.
• Flexibility should be emphasized because teamwork almost
always gives rise to unexpected situations.
 Creativity training: Companies are looking for ways to do more
with less and to remain competitive in increasingly crowded
markets. As a means of tapping their worker’s innovative potential,
many organizations have been turning to creativity training.
 Literacy training: The abilities to write, speak, and work well with
others are critical in today’s business environment. The term
literacy means the mastery of basic skills-that is, the subjects
normally taught in public schools (reading, writing, arithmetic, and
their uses in problem solving). It is important to distinguish
between general literacy and functional literacy. General literacy is
a person’s general skill level, while functional literacy is a person’s
skill level in a particular content area.
(c)The evaluation Phase
In the evaluation phase of the training process, the effectiveness of
the training program is assessed. Effectiveness can be measured in
monetary or non-monetary terms. However it is measured, it is
important that the criteria by which the training is judged reflect the
needs that the training was designed to address. For example, a
training program designed to increase worker's efficiency might be

25
 justifiably be assessed in terms of its effects on productivity or costs,
but not in terms of employee satisfaction.
(iii)Development: Development is a process or a set of planned
activities that will help an individual, overtime, to develop to their full
potential, Development is a less tangible concept than training, but it is
considered more systematic than education. Development focuses on
enhancing a learner’s self-esteem and sense of identity. It involves
elements of discovery, reflection and change.
Table. 1.3. Training and Development Compared
Point of Distinction Training Development
1. Contents Technical and Conceptual and
mechanical operations philosophical concepts
2. Participants Non-managerial Managerial personnel
personnel
3. Time Period Short-term ,one shot Long-term and
affair continuous process
4. Purpose Specific, job related skills Total personality
5. Initiative From management- From individual himself-
external motivation internal motivation
6. Nature of process Reactive process to meet Proactive process to meet
current need future needs.

26
  Activity 1.

1. What is HRD? ------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
-----
2. Explain the types of training. ------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------
3. List the questions of training that managers
must answer.--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------

27
Section Two: Devising Human Resource
Development Strategies

Section overview
Dear students, this brief section will indicate how HRD is very important
for any organization whether it be at the local or national levels. In this
regard the section will explain the different approaches and strategies on
human resource development. It explains how organization can cope with
the ever changing business environments.
For many reasons senior managers in all sectors are paying an
increasing amount of attention to the development of their organization’s
human resources. In part this has been prompted by competitive
pressure and the need to recruit and retain high caliber staff, as well as
developing a more flexible and adaptable skills base to cope with volatile
markets.

Section objectives
• Understand the need for HRD;
• Discuss different approaches to HRD;
• Identify training and development needs
• explain the Role of HRD in managing change
2.1. The Need for Human Resources Development

? Do you know how organizations cope with the arrays of changing

environments? Based on study conducted in UK, researchers identified

a number of different strategic responses. These were:

28
 • Competitive restructuring as a way of addressing new and often
intensifies patterns of competition;
• Decentralization, in order to gain competitive advantage via a
closer customer relationship, devolved decision-making and
improved response and service levels;
• Internationalization, as a way of responding to the globalization of
their markets and the diminution their UK customer base;
• Acquisition and mergers were often an important route for some
organizations attempting to impose change on their business
environment rather than to respond to it in a more reactive
manner;
• Quality improvement was a way of meeting increased
environmental pressures for enhanced quality of products and
services that was coming from a variety of sources;
• Technological change was often the strategy adopted to cut costs,
raise quality and reduce working capital by eliminating work in
progress; and
• Finally new concepts of service provision and distribution were
important responses to change.

Whatever the sources of pressure, the common feature of these triggers

for strategic change is the highlighting of a skill performance gap. There
are in fact a range of possible responses that a firm can make when a
skill gap has been identified. The research team discovered that the
particular pathways towards a highlighted training and development
culture vary from firm to team. This departs from more simplistic views
that training leads to improved business performance (and that firms can
therefore be expected to train more), or that improved business
performance leads to increased (and more effective) training simply
because firms can fund it more easily.

29
2.2. Organizational Approach to HRD

? What approaches do organizations adopt when it comes to

developing their human resources? Some organizations take a very

appropriate and instrumental view. For instance, their overriding interest
in management development might be to secure senior management
succession. Characterized by top corporate control, their HRD initiatives
might include highly selective graduate recruitment, followed by high-
filter career planning, with prescribed moves and attendance at business
school and in-house seminars along the way.
In other organizations HRD may be equally centralized on the form of
standards set for analyzing development needs and appraising
performance, but employees at all levels participate in the development
programs and there is opportunity for individuals to move into the fast
track at various stages of their careers. In this method a panel of senior
managers usually meets on a fairly regular basis to review skill
requirements and to audit current and future potential among all
categories of staff. Other corporations allow their subsidiary businesses
to pursue and HRD approach they deem appropriate to support their
profit performance, which is the overriding criteria of success. We might
call this a delegated approach where there is a strong ethos of
participative teamwork and ongoing people development at the grass-
roots.
In other cases, possibly too many, to describe the approach as delegated
would be a charitable description because concerns for HRD in the
subsidiary organization are largely absent: the development of staff is left
to chance and opportunism, with little or no people strategy or training
provision being offered from the parent.

30
Some organizations, irrespective of their operating relationship, have
moved to the other end of the spectrum from the elitist, paternalistic
HRD described earlier. Here, all employees in the organization have a
stake in HRD: there is a sense of responsibility engendered by being part
of a team that sets targets and handles budgets: as a result, development
is taken seriously for everybody, from team leader to newest member,
and this in turn is supported by a culture that facilitate coaching, and
mentoring at all levels, helping to diminish the ‘ them and us’ mentality
and encourage shared responsibility for quality and continuous
improvement in everything they do.

Elements of this approach to staff development with its emphasis on

learning on the job and coaching new members of staff-are characteristic
of the way small businesses conducts their HRD.But it can be
inappropriate to superimpose HRD systems relevant in large businesses
on to the entrepreneurial value systems of small and medium sized
businesses. As they grow, flexible, holistic processes of learning and the
informal approach to staff development become inadequate; however,
conventional HRD methods and values forged in larger company settings
may badly mismatch what is required in a business-led environment
(creative solutions, personal and intuitive insights, networking, an
emphasis on effectiveness and short-term realism).
From the above discussions it can be clear that there is no single HRD
blueprint for all organizations. It will depend in part on their operating
relationships and their structure, in part on their degree of autonomy as
a business unit, and in part on their culture and their size. For some it
suits them to have a predictable centrally controlled approach for the
limited purpose of top succession planning; for others human resource
development is indivisible from business strategy- it is not something
aimed at a few, select individual competencies or isolated functions but

31
an essential part of everyone’s role. Between these extremes there are all
shades of sophistication in HRD policy.

2.3. Training Needs Assessment (TNA)

? Dear students, what does training need analysis (assessment)

mean?
Training needs analysis (TNA) is basically a process of collecting data
that allows an organization to identify and compare its actual level with
its desired level of performance. Performance here could be interpreted as
the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary for staff to do the job
effectively. Usually the process consists of collecting data on current
levels of performance and comparing these with the current desired
levels of performance and the desired level over the long term. The
shortfall in these comparisons reveals both immediate and long-term
training needs.
In its simple sense a TNA explores with each employee group what it is
trying to achieve, the barriers to achieving this and the suitability of
training as a means to remove or counteract these barriers.
While training needs analysis is frequently prompted by some kind of
shortfalls in current performance, like an upturn in labor turnover or
customer complaints, it is an equally appropriate tool for determining
how current competence could be improved, or for anticipating future
staff knowledge/skill requirements. The organization may change its
corporate objectives, perhaps expanding in to overseas markets,
broadening its product mix, or introducing automated production
processes. All such strategic shifts may require skills and knowledge in
the existing labor force. External constraints are less controlled by the
enterprise but their impact may also require careful diagnosis to
determine future training needs.

32
2.4. Diagnosing genuine training needs
There are a host of demands, each with their own advantages and
disadvantages, e.g. observation, questionnaires, interviews, scanning
available documentations, conducting works samples tests, consulting
employee records and reports, and so on. However, the most important
factor is to ask the staff concerned to diagnose their needs. In so doing
they are much more likely to become enthusiastic participants in any
development activities that ensue. They are also likely to know –better
than anyone else-what the problems, issues, and future opportunities
are for their jobs and will probably have the best ideas on what training
and development needs to take place.

2.5. The Role of HRD in managing change

? Dear students, what are the roles of HRD in managing change?

There are two ways in which HRD plays a central role in managing
organizational change. The first is by responding to a succession of
externally driven changes at an organizational level, and to subsequent
shifts in strategic direction, each of which has significant effects on
development oriented practices in the workplace.Second,HRD can and
should have an influential role internally by developing and shaping the
appropriate competencies, practices and attitudes that will help the
organization deliver its products and services.HRD has a key place in
linking human resource systems and policies to the competitive
capability of an organization. In particular, it can be concluded that:
• The stimulus for change invariably comes from the external
environment as the exposure of a business skill and the
implications of these identified problems /opportunities affect the
whole organization rather than one sub-system within.

33
• Change affects a complex web of interrelated elements within an
organization, and trying to introduce change by addressing only
one element in isolation, like structure, without taking account of
its wider cultural context, and associated HRD activities within the
organization, is only likely to lead to benefits that can not be
sustained in the long run. The risks of alienating people associated
with the proposed changes are high.
• a new computer systems, attempting to shift the attitudes of the
workforce, and even establishing new financial targets, all have
immediate impact upon the different stakeholders in an
organization and each will require slightly different HRD
approaches.
• The success of proposed changes invariably relies on goodwill and
commitment of those affected by them which means giving staff
access to decision-making, and providing information. Again HRD
has a major role to play in the workforce, equipping them with the
skills and “know how’ to cope with the changes, and giving them a
meaningful stake in the new regime.
Another external stimulus facing organizations more generally is
changing workforce attitudes. There is evidence that increasing
numbers of people are and will be engaged in ‘knowledge work’, which
requires judgment, flexibility and personal commitment rather than
mere adherence to procedure. Creating the structures, skills and
opportunities for more staff to independently generate and act on
ideas for improvement is a major HRD challenge for organizations in
the twenty-first century.
Part of the purpose of an organizational mission statement is to
anticipate some of these changes in the external environment and to
articulate where an organization is going, and what it wants to
achieve in the light of them. It is one thing to have a mission

34
statement, it is quite another for this to express a future vision or set
of values that is meaningful and energizing for the employees
concerned. Some of the reasons why individuals fail to identify with
the strategic intent of their organization are the following:
• There is insufficient personal benefit from its successful
outcome;
• There is dissonance between what it states and the way senior
managers behave;
• There is a skepticism as to whether it can be fulfilled;
• It asks for too great a sacrifice, or too much investment,etc;
• People are heavily committed to past history and traditions;
• It fails to inspire or secure acceptance; and
• It is imposed without adequate consultation.
So, the imperatives for change in an organization’s outer context
may be compelling, and indeed the mission statement may capture
them well, but the success of any subsequent changes depends
equally upon the inner context of the organization. This refers to
an organization’s capability to change (in the form of leadership,
organization structure and culture), the values and attitudes of the
workforce, the personalities of key people, the effectiveness of
political processes, and the adequacy of current competencies and
practices to deliver the mission.

HRD has a major impact on these inner capabilities for change,

both in areas of motivation and attitude, as well as in the areas of
skill levels and management expertise.HRD can contribute in these
areas through the integrated use of organizational development,
career development, and training and development.HRD can
improve the individual, group and organization effectiveness.

35
Closely related to these three primary HRD areas are a number of
HRM systems and policies. Human resource planning determines
the organization’s major human resource needs strategies and
philosophies.Peformance management systems ensure individual
and organizational goals are linked through such things as
appraisal and assessment procedures and selection and staffing
attempts to match people and their career needs with available
jobs and career paths. While each of these HRM systems
incorporates development, this is not the primary orientation or
process.
In many ways the three development areas of HRD can be viewed
as a set of key leverage points in bringing about effective
organizational changes.

 Activity 3.

1. What is the role of HRD in managing change?

------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------
2. What is Training needs analysis (TNA) means?
------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
----------------

36
Unit Summary

Dear distance students, by now you have understood that human

resource development is the most critical ingredient of economic
development. The process of economic development is nothing but the
process of expanding the capabilities of people. The ultimate focus of
economic development is human resource development.

The most work able definition of HRD is that it is a package not of one
activity but of several activities such as nutrition, health, and
education,environment,training, employment, housing, clothing, culture,
gender equality i.e. Empowerment of women quality of life, Service sector
Information Technology, and above all Convergence and Coordination. At
micro (in organization) HRD is defined as an organized learning
experience aimed at matching the organizational need for human
resource with the individual need for career growth and development.
Planning for the Human Resource Development has received increasing
attention in recent years from policy planners, practitioners, academicals
and international agencies.
There have also been initiatives in examining the possibilities and from
work of an integrated approach to HRD. i.e. linking development
planning of a country with the major human resource variables. Human
resource development is the most critical ingredient of economic
development. The process of economic development is nothing but the
process of expanding the capabilities of people. As you can understand
when you read the module, the ultimate focus of economic development
is nothing but human resource development.

37
 Check List
Direction: Dear students this is the section in which you confirm your
understanding of the lessons in this unit. Put a tick mark () in the yes column for
activities that you have clear understanding and in the no column for activities that
you doubt that you have good understanding.
I Can: Yes No
 Define HRD and HRM;
 Identify types and phases of training;
 Discuss different approaches to HRD;
 Identify training and development needs;
 Explain the challenges in training;
 Understand the need for HRD;
 Discuss the differences between training, education and
development

38
Self-Assessment Questions
Part one: Choose the best answer among the given
alternatives
1. Perhaps competency-building may be needed to the following groups
except
a) For richer countries;
b) For those who are born rich;
c) For those who have an access to all comforts;
d) B and C
e) None of the above
2. Any nation should also give recognition to the following non-
measurable components of development
a) Freedom and equity;
b) Literacy and numeracy;
c) Longevity;
d) All except C
e) None of the above
3. All but one is wrong assertion about development.
a)HRD is the necessary and sufficient ingredient of economic
development;
c) The process of economic development is nothing but the process of
expanding the capabilities of people;
c) The ultimate goal of economic development is HRD;
d) Motivation of human-beings is one dimension of HRD;
e) All of the above
4. Identify the correct statement about HRD
a) HRD is value-neutral;
b) HRD is not welfare;
c) HRD is a sector of economy;

39
 d) A and C
e) None of the above
5. As a package of activities HRD is composed of the following except
a) Environment;
b) Information technology;
c) Convergence and coordination;
d) Gender equality
e) None of the above
6. The following factors can determine training program except
a)Performance appraisal;
b) Job requirement;
c) Human resource survey;
d) Organizational analysis;
e) None of the above

7. Identify the wrong idea from the following statements

a) At an individual level the goal of HRD is to develop capabilities;
b) At the organizational level HRD aims at ensuring a sense of pride of
employees.
c) At the national level the goal of HRD is to have competent and
motivated people to
ensure higher levels of productivity.
d.B and C
e) None of the above
8. Identify the wrong match
a) Kurt Lewin-------set up National Training Laboratories.
b) In the later half of 19th century--------HRD emerged in the corporate
sector
c) The term HRD was first used ----------by Dr. Leonard Nadler
d) None of the above
9. Some of the reasons why individuals fail to identify with the strategic

40
 intent of their organization are :
a)insufficient personal benefit from its successful outcome;
b)dissonance between what it states and the way senior managers
behave;
c) a skepticism as to whether it can be fulfilled;
d)It asks for too great a sacrifice and investment.
e)All
10. The following are enabling systems that directly affect governance
council’s ability to get the job done except
a) Leadership capability of the HR executive
b)Technology
c) Stakeholder engagement
d)Employee communication
e) None of the above
Part Two: Say True or False
1. HRD is a two way process.
2. The importance of HRD can be overlooked.
3. In economic terms, HRD means accumulating human capital.
4. HRM and personnel management can be used interchangeably.
5. HRD is a sector of economy that boosts economic forces.

41
 Unit Two
Human Resources Governance

Unit Introduction
“HR governance” is an emerging organizational practice. There are no
commonly acknowledged definitions of human resource governance.
However, for the purpose of this module HR governance is the act of
leading the HR function and managing related investments. This section
briefly discusses the most important issues of human resource
governance such as origin and definition of HRG, elements of HRG,
creating the structure of HRG and ways to optimize the ability of HRG
councils.

Unit objectives
Upon completion of this unit, students will be able to:

 Define the concept of human resource governance;

 Understand the history of human resource governance;

 Explain the core elements of HRG;

 Discuss the responsibilities of HRG councils;

 Explain HRG principles and philosophies.

Pretest Questions
 What is human resource governance?
 What are the main elements of human resource governance?
 What are the major roles of human resource governance
councils?

42
Section One: Defining HRG and its Elements

Section overview
Defining the concept of human resource governance is very problematic.
Due to its complexity and wide nature, there is no internationally agreed
upon definition of the concept. However, the term can be explained as
the act of leading the HR function and managing related investments. In
this section, characteristic elements, principles, philosophies of human
resource governance will be discussed in detail. In addition, the function
and role of human resource governance councils will be explained.

Section Objectives
After reading this section, you would be able to deal more effectively

 Define the concept of human resource governance;

 Understand the history of human resource governance;

 Explain the core elements of HRG;

 Discuss the responsibilities of HRG councils;

 Explain HRG principles and philosophies.

2.1. HR governance: A Definition and Key Elements

? Dear distance learner, what do you understand by HRG?

“HR governance” is an emerging organizational practice. There is

currently no commonly acknowledged definition. Mercer’s definition
identifies the responsibilities effective governance fulfills as well as the
opportunities it creates.
HR governance is the act of leading the HR function and managing
related investments to:

43
  Optimize performance of organization’s human capital
assets;
 Fulfill fiduciary and financial responsibilities;
 Mitigate enterprise HR risk;
 Align the function’s priorities with those of the business;
and
 Enable HR executives decision making
Governance is not a strategic objective. It is a systematic approach to
management that enables the function to achieve strategic and
operational objectives.
Exhibit 1 illustrates the relationship among business, human capital,
and HR functional strategies that influence HR’s operating model and
inform its governance system.

Exhibit 1.
How HR governance aligns with organizational strategies
HR operating model
Sourcing
What activities will we do
HR function ourselves / have others do?
Human capital strategy
How will we Infrastructure
Strategy
How will we secure, deliver expected What capabilities are needed
manage and value and to fulfill HR’s strategy?
Business contribution to
motivate a
workforce that can the Process Technology
Strategy execute business organization? People organization
strategy?
Governance
How will we lead the
function and manage related
investments?

Performance Monitoring and Renewal

44
2.2. The importance of Human resource Governance

? Dear distance student, can you guess Why HR Governance is

crucial?
A wide-ranging set of influences has propelled corporate governance
issues out of the boardroom and onto the desktops of business
executives throughout the organization. HR executives face significant
challenges, including managing a global function, realizing returns on
technology, accelerating the pace of organizational change, leveraging
human capital strategically, and reforming management practices in
response to proliferating regulation.
Historically, most HR leaders have not been challenged to think formally
about functional governance issues, so they operate with an implicit
model. In those few instances where governance is made explicit, it is
usually synonymous with compliance and does not address the central
issue- improving leadership and management of a function that invests
an average of 36 percent of operating revenue in compensation, health
care, retirement, training, and other human capital investment.
With over a third of revenue at stake, it is time for HR leaders to develop
an explicit model for functional governance-and to communicate the
model proactively to involved stakeholders.

2.3. The short history of governance

The concept of corporate governance arose from a confluence of legal,
political, and economic ideas. Generally speaking, formal debates of the
pat 50 years have centered on the question of whether an organization
can manage itself without regulation-and if not who should do the
regulating.

45
Until recently, US regulation of corporate governance has come from
state statutes and stock exchanger rules. But in 2002, federal law
makers usurped the field when they passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. For
HR executives; Sarbanes-Oxley has many implications, including
personal, legal accountability for the reliability of reporting and decision
making for benefits plans and programs. But it may be shortsighted to
limit the scope of this far-reaching regulation to the ingle activity of
effective plan governance.
The term “HR governance” may have been conceived in the mid 90s
along with HR’s widespread effort to transform the function from an
administrator in to a business partner. Sarbanes-Oxley is another
important motivation for HR executives to examine functional operating
models with the goal of improving business contribution.
Sarbanes-Oxley is now being considered as a model for corporate
governance in Canada and the EU. So the most interesting chapter in the
history of HR governance is just now being written.

2.4. The elements of HR governance

? Dear student, can you mention elements that constitute HRG?

There are five core elements in an HR function’s system of governance.

These elements enable functional leaders to manage areas of focus and
accountability effectively. While distinct from each other, these elements
are interdependent, meaning that each one must be individually
articulated and developed to govern explicitly and effectively.
(i)Structure and accountability outline the design of the guiding group
(the council) itself as well as its relationships with involved stakeholders.
A charter document usually articulates the council’s areas of focus based
on strategic, operational, and functional accountabilities. The charter
may also address roles, meeting structures, and protocols.

46
(ii)Effective councils link strongly to structure and refer to the
personal, interpersonal, and group effectiveness of the council and other
involved stakeholders.
(iii)Philosophy and operating principles describe, at a minimum, the
function’s risk tolerance, approach to delegating authority, and expected
level of management autonomy at business unit or geographic levels.
(iv)Core management activities include HR strategy development,
business planning, oversight of rewards plans and programs, HR
resource allocation, and HR staff development/leadership succession.
Through these core management activities, the council sets direction and
priorities, ensures effective execution overtime and enforces internal
controls.
(v)Performance monitoring refers to the framework and metrics used to
evaluate and communicate the function’s operational effectiveness,
compliance, and contribution to business success.

2.5. Creating a structure for HR governance

? Dear student, what kind of structure is important for effective

HRG?
Effective HR council structure are both formal and flexible-formal enough
to optimize information gathering and decision making, yet flexible
enough to allow council members to complete the real work of leading
and managing the function.
In many organizations, HR functional decision making falls to the chief
HR executive alone. Creating an explicit structure for HR governance is a
way to enhance decision making using the diverse insights and talents of
the organization’s most experienced professionals to think, decide, and
respond. With each decision, a capable council communicates priorities
back to the organization, balancing both strategic and operational needs.

47
Councils serve as the formal link between the HR and the business. But
unlike many corporate boards, HR councils rarely limit their role to
oversight and approval. As HR business partners, council members are
actively engaged in the functions core management activities and are
accountable for operational results.

Human Resource’s most visible organization risk is establishing a formal

council structure that doesn’t govern effectively. Effective governance
demands collaboration and commitment to group objectives on the part
of council members. In reality, people are often asked to join councils
because of their position in the organization, not based on their ability to
work on a team or their interest in governance issues. So, just as
effective councils clearly define structure and accountabilities, they also
must consciously evaluate, manage, and improve group behavior.
Enabling systems
Beyond group dynamics, there are other enabling systems that directly
affect a governance council’s ability to get the job done;
 Leadership capability of the HR executive: to articulate a vision
and priorities, to engage the council, and to manage the decision
making;
 Technology: to leverage all aspects of the function’s capabilities,
including service delivery, knowledge transfer, employee
communication, information gathering compliance, and
performance monitoring.
 Stakeholder engagement: to accelerate the council’s activities and
to manage any resistance to change. Effective councils explicitly
identify stakeholder groups, determine their likely responses to
change, and develop strategies to encourage desired attitudes and
behaviors.

48
  Employee communication: to explain how HR’s priorities and
activities support employee and business success. Careful
consideration should be given to who receives the information
gathering through HR performance monitoring, so that clear lines
of sight can be established among employees, HR, and corporate
goals.
 Process management and control: to optimize how the council
drives achievement of goals. Often education in business and HR
metrics is needed to fully align process management and control
systems with performance measure.
2.6. Implementing a Governance Philosophy
and Operating Principles

? Dear student, can you list some of the governance principles?

As organization move into global markets, the complexity of business

operation can increase geometrically. For many companies, a critical
driver of success is how effectively they can leverage resources, knowing
when to be flexible and when to insist on standard approaches. HR
executives who understand the organization’s attitudes towards risk
tolerance, commonality of HR practice, and delegation of HR authority
across strategic business units are best positioned to align the function
with business needs.
(i)Managing HR’s Core Activities
The act of governing the HR function is accomplished through a few core
management activities that comprise the bulk of council work:
 Strategic planning,
 Budgeting and business planning,
 Fiduciary and financial oversight of rewards plan and major
investments, and
 Staff development and leadership succession for HR.

49
Clearly defined process for strategic and business planning enable
council members to assess the urgency, business alignment, and impact
of proposed initiatives. With these processes in place, councils can then
be more flexible, shifting focus from one activity to another business
needs arise.
At a rapid growth company, administrative procedures were considered
formalities. Leadership devoted its energies exclusively to building a
nimble (quick) organization that could identify and exploit business
opportunities quickly. Along with the triumphs of rapid growth came a
host of new organizational requirements, including the need for more
formalized ways of controlling and managing:
• A rapidly expanding balance sheet;
• Major infrastructure investments;
• Complex organizational structures; and
• Regulatory and fiduciary requirements.
Company leadership was forced to recognize significant financial and
business risks posed by the lack of formal governance systems. In HR,
the chief HR executive was coping with a set of issues that, if left
unattended, could have escalated in to unacceptable financial returns
and even regulatory intervention. It was in this context that the
company’s reward committee (a sub-committee of the board of directors’
compensation committee, which oversaw all aspects of employee pay and
benefits) was asked to document its governance practices. In response,
the committee created a charter that south to reflect the best parts of the
company culture while providing needed operating boundaries and
controls.
Charter guideline and procedures tried to strike a balance between the
specificity required by regulations and the reality of execution in a
business environment characterized by rapid change. The charter

50
specified governance practices, including the committee’s membership,
chain of command, and reporting procedures.

(ii)Clarifying authority and fiduciary roles

The company’s decision-making styles was heavily consensus oriented,
making it difficult for rewards committee members to embrace the reality
that federal regulators:
 Held them personally accountable for plan management;
 Considered explicit, consistent decision-making processes to be
equally important to good plan governance as each individual
decision; and
 Classified the failure to remedy a known fiduciary breach as an
additional fiduciary breach.
Once the reward committee came to terms with these accountabilities,
they decided to describe responsibilities and authorities explicitly for
themselves, for the compensation committee to which they reported, and
the work groups they supervised.
The desire to comply fully with regulations was a major driver of the
company’s efforts to formalize governance activities, but not the only one.
Of equal concern was the value of the company’s brand and its
reputation among customers and shareholders. Further, company
leaders viewed the creation of effective governance systems as an
opportunity to build employee trust by communicating about the efforts
that had gone toward effective management of employee program and
interests. Documenting and explicit approach to plan management and
control was much more than risk mitigation tool for this organization. It
was perceived as a means of safeguarding the company’s brand assets
and building employee loyalty to extend the trajectory of rapid growth.
(iii)Monitoring performance and contribution
Effective HR council can answer various performance questions:

51
  How efficiently and effectively does the HR function deliver
services?
 How effectively is the function focusing on priorities and
completing milestone tasks (for example, new program
implementation)?
 Is HR managing its finances prudently and complying with legal,
regulatory and internal requirements?
 What is the HR function contributing to the value of the
organization?
Time and care are needed to select measures that reflect the unique
drivers of financial performance and risk in an organization. Measures
that motivate individuals and teams provide information about what
action needs to be taken to achieve desired outcomes. And they link
performance drivers (such as accuracy) with outcomes (such as cost
savings), providing a rationale for change.
HR councils use performance measures to communicate goals and
priorities, energizing HR staff and business leaders. Using performance
measures as a catalyst for change requires that measures not be set in
stone. They are best revised as regularly as operational, customer, and
financial measures are updated for the business. As much, Mercer
believes there is no benchmark set of HR measures that is standard for
all organizations. But after measures are chosen, benchmarking
information can be extremely useful for providing comparison data to set
specific performance targets.
Once measures are selected, HR councils typically organize them within
frameworks used by the business to best facilitate alignment of goals and
communication between HR and business leaders.
(iv)Governing for Superior Performance
Effective HR governance concerns itself with all aspects of HR functional
management. Effective HR governance is:

52
 o Consciously planned and designed;
o Balanced in focus between the human capital needs of the
organization, and operational and fiduciary responsibility;
o Understood, accepted, and acted on by involved stakeholders
within and outside HR;
o Aligned with existing corporate models to which it must link; and
o Able to measure how it contributes to the sustained success of
both the function and the business it supports.
There are expected trends toward more complex operating models and
increasing regulatory oversight to continue. While Chief Executive
Officers and boards of directors are intensely focused on how to govern
effectively, HR executive should anticipate these types of questions:
 What is the model for governance of the HR function?
 What are the HR’s areas of focus? How are activities in
these areas being managed?
 How do the function’s philosophies on risk, autonomy,
and delegation of authority align with the business?
 Do HR leaders understand their fiduciary and financial
accountabilities?
 How are the performance of the function and the
effectiveness of the governance council monitored?

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  Activity 1.

1. What is Human Resource Governance? -----------

---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------
2. Explain elements HRG. -------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
3. List the factors that may affect the council’s
Ability to get the job done
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Unit Summary
As we can understand from this unit there is no precise definition of the
concept of human resource governance. Due to its complexity and wide
nature, there is no internationally agreed upon definition of the concept.
However, the term can be explained as the act of leading the HR function
and managing related investments. In this section, characteristic
elements of human resource governance such as effective councils
management activities, principles, philosophies of are discussed in
detail. In addition, the function and role of human resource governance
councils have been explained.

54
55
 Check List
Direction: Dear students this is the section in which you confirm your
understanding of the lessons in this unit. Put a tick mark () in the yes column for
activities that you have clear understanding and in the no column for activities that
you doubt that you have good understanding.
I Can: Yes No
 Define Human Resource Governance
 Identify elements of governance;
 Discuss management activities that comprise the
 bulk of council work;
 Identify training and development needs;
 Explain the importance of Human resource Governance;

56
Self-Assessment Questions
Part one: Choose the best answer among the given
alternatives
1. HR governance is the act of leading the HR function and managing
related investments to:
a) Optimize performance of organization’s human capital assets;
b) Fulfill fiduciary and financial responsibilities;
c) Mitigate enterprise HR risk;
d) Align the function’s priorities with those of the business; and
e) All
2. Which is not correct about HRG?
a) HRG is an emerging organizational practice
b) There is commonly agreed definition of HRG
c) It is the act of leading the HR function
d) Governance is not a strategic objective
e) None
3.All but one is the elements of HRG
a) Structure and accountability
b) Effective councils
c) Core management activities
d) Performance monitoring
e) None
4. HR executive should anticipate the following types of questions except
a) What is the model for governance of the HR function?
b) What are the HR’s areas of focus?
c) How do the function’s philosophies on risk, autonomy, and
delegation of authority align with the business?
d) Do HR leaders understand their fiduciary and financial
accountabilities?
e) None

57
5. Effective HR governance is:
a) Consciously planned and designed;
b) Balanced in focus between the human capital needs of the
organization, and operational and fiduciary responsibility;
c) Understood, accepted, and acted on by involved stakeholders
within and outside HR;
d) Aligned with existing corporate models to which it must link; and
e) All

Unit Three

58
THE ROLE OF HRD IN SOCIO-ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT

Unit Introduction
In the previous unit, we have seen the historical emergence of the
concept of HRD; define concepts of HRD, HRM and human resource
governance. The major distinctions among education, training and
development have been made.
This unit is mainly designed to introduce students with the important
characteristics, methods, objectives, philosophies, and principles of HRD
and thereby enable students with the role of HRD in socio-economic
developments.
The first section highlights some important features of HRD.In the
second section of the unit, we will discuss briefly the specific and general
objectives of HRD.The third part is about the methods of HRD which can
be employed to achieve the objectives of HRD.The rest of the unit are
devoted to discuss issues like philosophies and principles of
HRD.Qualities of HRD manager and the out comes of HRD will also be
part of this unit.

Unit Objectives
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand the general and specific objectives of HRD;
• Explain important characteristics of HRD;
• Discuss the major methods of HRD;
• Jot down the governing HRD philosophies;
• Understand the need and significance of HRD;

59
 • identify basic principles of HRD;and
• Discuss the core functions of HRD Department.

Pretest Questions

• Can you explain the general and specific objectives of HRD?

• What are the basic features of HRD?
• What are the philosophies of HRD?
• Can you explain the importance of HRD?
Section One: Features and basic objectives of HRD

Section overview

This section of the unit dwells on clarifying the most fundamental

principles and unique roles of HRD. By definition, all HRD activities and
programs imply change, whether it be at an individual, workgroup or
organizational level. A number of different objectives for HRD can be
identified. Some of the objectives are; HRD as a tool, HRD to gain
competitive edge, HRD as creator of learning climate, and HRD for
engineering change.

Section objectives

After reading this section, you will be able to:

• Discuss how HRD can be used as a tool in pursuit of quality, cost
reduction and some form of enhanced performance;
• Explain different HRD method of organizations to achieve
organizational objectives;
• Pinpoint the basic characteristics of HRD;
• Identify the benefits of HRD to gain competitive edge;
• Explain the use of HRD to create a general climate of learning; and

60
 • discuss the role of HRD as a key device in engineering
organizational change and as a way of managing change.
1.1. Features of Human Resource Development

? Dear distance learner, can you mention the importance features

of HRD?
The following are important characteristics of HRD.
a. Human resource development is a planned and systematic
approach to the development of people. It is not a fragmented or
piecemeal approach but a total system of interacting elements
designed to improve the total personality.
b. Human resource development is a continuous process of
developing the competencies, motivation, dynamism and
effectiveness of employees. It is based on the belief that there is no
end to the development of an individual and learning continues
throughout life.
c. Human resource development is an inter-disciplinary concept.
Experts belonging to different disciplines tend to adopt a
compartmentalized approach to HRD. But HRD involves
confluence of ideas from many sciences. Sociology provides new
insights in the growth and development of human system through
the studies of families, communities and other groups. Psychology
provides explanation of human behavior in terms of perception,
motivation, and morale etc. It provides instruments for use in
selection, induction, training counseling etc. of employees,
Anthropology focuses on traditions, kinship culture etc. which is
helpful in conflict management, intercultural relation ships, etc,
Political science provides conceptual base for power, status,
policies, etc.

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 d. Human resource development has both micro and macro aspects.
At the micro level, HRD is concerned with improving the skills,
attitudes and behavior of employees in organizational setting for
the benefit of both the individual and the organization. At the
macro level, HRD involves improving the quality of life of people in
a country. Development of people is done by providing the right
environment where in the individual may grow to his fullest stature
and realize his fullest potential. HRD is a part of educational and
developmental planning for nation’s welfare.
e. HRD is a process not merely a set of mechanisms and techniques.
The techniques like performance appraisal, counseling, training
and organization development are used to initiate, facilitate and
promote this process. The process has no limit and therefore, the
techniques have to be reviewed and revised periodically.

1.2. Objectives of Human Resource Development

? Dear distance learner, what are the specific objectives of HRD?

Objectives are the ends which all HRD activity is planned. In defining
these ends consideration should also be given to the objectives of other
departments and of the organization as a whole and to social objectives.
It is bad enough when objectives do not support and interlock with each
other. The specific objectives of HRD systems are to develop:
(1)Capabilities of all individuals working in an organization in relation to
their present role;
(2)Capabilities of all such individuals in relation to their future role;
(3) Better interpersonal and employer-employee relationships in an
organization;
(4)Team spirit ;
(5)Coordination among different units of an organization;

62
(6)To develop organizational health by continuous renewal of individual
capabilities (averting manpower obsolescence) keeping pace with the
technological changes;
(7)To provide comprehensive frame work and methods of the
development of human resource in an organization.
(8)To generate systematic information about human resources for
purposes of manpower planning, placement, succession planning and
the like;
(9)To increase the capabilities of an organization to recruit, retain and
motivate talented employees;
(10)To create a climate that enables every employee to discover, develop
and use his/her capabilities to a fuller extent, in order to further both
individual and organizational goals;
(11)To ensure that adequate number of persons with sound background
and experience, both as generalists and specialists, are available at
different levels to facilitate enhanced standards of service to
customers and fast growth;
(12)To provide human resource policies that are not only fair and just
but also perceived as fair and just;
(13)To provide employees equitable opportunities to move up in the
organization on the basis of their performance and ability;
(14)To ensure that responsibility for results is provided right from the
lower levels so that employees can develop a sense of independence
and self confidence;
(15)To provide employees opportunities for learning new and varied skills
thus making the work more satisfying and meaningful;
(16)To provide opportunities for training and development of employees
with special potential and
(17Above all to ensure competence- (capacity-) building for a health and
happy living of nation at all levels.

63
In addition to the above specific objectives, the more generalized
objectives of HRD are systematically
discussed below.

(a) HRD as a Tool

HRD uses as a tool in pursuit of quality, cost reduction and some form of
enhanced performance. Some of the tools are fairly blunt, used in fairly
indiscriminate ways to achieve in-defined purposes. For instance, senior
managers, may enhance the low morale among supervisory grades, set
up leadership skill training courses in the hope that this will lead to a
new decisiveness and vision among the line management. Some training
tools are precision tools brought in to operation to perform fixed jobs
such as upgrading operators to handle newly automated processes, or
training branch managers in interviewing skills in preparation for a
recruitment campaign
(b) HRD to gain competitive edge
HRD uses to gain competitive edge, both through content of such
activities and the way in which they are delivered. More and more
organizations are using HRD, for example, as a way of integrating their
business planning process with wider organization development and
human resource activities, from recruitment through to succession
planning. This may be achieved by introducing each training event
(whether technical, marketing or managerial skills) with a module
(modular approach) linking it explicitly to the business context and
strategy, or by only designing programs containing principles and
activities that demonstrably meet customer requirement. This may mean
tailoring in-house packages to the specific needs of different businesses.

(c) HRD as creator of learning climate

HRD uses to create a general climate of learning in the organization. The
focus here is on the learning needs of individuals, it is to be hoped in

64
accordance with organizational goals, and the belief behind it is that
within each member of staff is a vast creative potential waiting to be
unleashed. Accordingly, the trend is away from structured, taught
courses and towards a learner-centered approach, where methods such
as on-the job training, strategic secondments and temporary task forces
are seen as the best form of development.
In this king of environment, training courses are developed in response
to the direct needs of individuals in their day to day work and three main
factors are recognized; the workforce is generally better educated with
higher expectations than it used to be; people develop better when they
have some control over the learning processes; and learning requires a
more holistic approach, whereby the activities of management and
management development are interwoven rather than discrete activities.
(d) HRD for engineering change
There is a growing recognition that HRD can be a key device in
engineering organizational change. To be successful, significant changes
are required in managerial approach; from technical expert to
commercially aware manager, results oriented, thinking strategically,
with accountability for managing a defined business area. This will
brought new dimensions of delegating substantial authority to
subordinates, motivating teams and working productively with other
others to achieve company objectives.

1.3. HRD Mechanisms / Methods

Dear distance student, can you mention the main methods of HRD which
help to achieve the objectives of HRD discussed above?
Any systematic or formal way of developing the competencies and
motivation of individuals in an organization and building the
organization’s climate can be called an HRD Method. As such there can
be many HRD methods available for organizations. However, the most
frequently used methods are:

65
(1)Human Resource planning,
(2)Performance Appraisal and Feedback,
(3)Training, Education and Development ,
(4)Potential Appraisal and promotion,
(5)Career Development and career planning,
(6)Compensation and Reward,
(7)Organizational Development techniques,
(8)Role analysis and Role Development,
(9)Quality of work life and Employee welfare,
(10)participative devices,
(11)Communication,
(12)Counseling,
(13)Grievance Redressed,
(14)Data storage and Research, and (15) Industrial Relations
Following is a brief description of these methods.
1. Human Resource planning: Human Resource Planning is the
backbone of all HRD efforts. It is concerned with the following.
i) Assessment of human resource needs, including forecasting such
needs based on the analysis of the policies of the organization,
trends of its development plans for diversification, etc.
ii) Human Resource Audit, i.e. examining whether human resource
strength for various jobs is in adequate or more than what should be
employed. Thus, human resource planning is linked with corporate
plans and strategies on the one hand and the job analysis on the
other.
2. Performance Appraisal and Feedback :
Dear distance student, can you discuss the concepts of performance
appraisal and feedback?
Performance appraisal (evaluation) is a very critical HRD mechanism
under which the performance of an employee is periodically appraised

66
by the employee himself in collaboration with his boss. In the light of
the difficulties faced by the employees he redefines his future goals.

The mechanism emphasizes the development of employees (by

identifying their growth needs) rather than their evaluation. Open,
objective and participative appraisal and feedback develop better
superior-subordinate relations. During the appraisal interview the
superior shares the concerns of the subordinate and even guides
him to achieve his targets.

3. Training and Development:

Dear distance student, can you define the concepts of training and
development? I hope, by now you are able to define these concepts.
Although training is often used in conjunction with development, the
terms are not synonymous. Training typically focuses on providing
employees with specific skills or helping them correct deficiencies in
their performance. For example, new equipment may require workers
to learn new ways of doing the job, or some workers may have a
deficient understanding of a work process. In both cases, training can
be used to correct the skill deficit. In contrast; development is an
effort to provide employees with the abilities that the organization will
need in the future.
In training, the focus is solely on the current job; in development, the
focus is on both the current job and jobs that employees will hold in
the future. The scope of training is on individual employees, while the
scope of development is on the entire work group or organization.
That is, training is job specific and addresses particular performance
deficits or problems, while development is concerned with the work
force’s skills and versatility. Training tends to focus on immediate
organizational needs, while development tends to focus on long-term
requirements.

67
 The goal of training is fairly quick improvements in workers’
performance, while the goal of development is the overall enrichment
of the organization’s human resources by preparing employees for
future work demands. Training strongly influences present
performance levels, while development pays off in terms of more
capable and flexible human resources in the long run.
It is essential to remember these differences when generating and
evaluating training programs. For example, using a training approach
to affect a long- range issue is likely to be futile. Similarly, taking a
development approach to improve current job performance problems
will probably prove ineffective.
Three broad areas in which training may be imparted are technical,
behavioral and conceptual. It is commonly believed that the rank and file
workers need training in the technical area only. Training in the other
two areas is not very useful for them. But recent experiences of many
Indian companies such as Petrofils (Baroda), have shown that behavioral
training to workers produces several useful results such as the following:

a) Improvement in workers behavior with their superior and

peers.
b) Development of “we” feeling instead of “I”.
c) Decrease in the habit of hiding one’s own mistakes and
highlighting others’ mistakes.
d) Increased interest in suggestion scheme.
e) Increased awareness of family needs and more interest in
family affairs.
4. Potential Appraisal and Promotion: It is another important HRD
mechanism concerned with identifying the potential of an employee
for future development and promotion in the organization. This
focuses on finding out periodically the extent to which a given
individual possesses the critical attributes required to handle

68
 higher level responsibilities. Thus, it is linked with job and role
analysis. In HRD promotion is not considered to be a reward. This
is because it is not based on performance but it is based on the
potential of an employee.
5. Career Development and Career Planning: it may be useful to
help new employee to be aware of the various phases of
development in the organization, and plan with senior employees
their specific career path. Necessary help may also be given to
employees with limited potential to acquaint them with reality. In
the HRD system corporate growth plans are not kept secret. They
are made known to the employees to plan their career.
6. Compensation and Reward: These are common positive re-
enforcers. They should be clearly related to the performance and
behavior of employees. Failures to reward employees properly or
over rewarding have their own negative implications. Under-serving
employees reduces the reinforcing effect of rewards under HRD.
While salary structure is based on job analysis, salary increase is
linked with performance.
7. Organizational Development Techniques: Many organizations
make use of several organizational development techniques for the
development of their human resource. These include team-
building, organizational mirroring, T-group (training group), etc. In
team building people learn how to work in collaboration with each
other. Under organizational mirroring, the host group gets
feedback from representatives from several other organizational
groups about how it is perceived and regarded. The intervention is
designed to improve the relationships between groups and increase
the inter-group effectiveness. In T-group participants learn to be
more competent in inter-personal relationships. They learn about
themselves, how others react to their behavior and about the
dynamic group formation, group norms and group growth.

69
 As organization should be concerned as much about its health as
about its growth, it needs to diagnose its problems from time to
time and take steps to cope with them. This is usually done
through Action Research which is the main stay of all
organizational development efforts.
8. Role Analysis and Role Development: This is an extremely
important technique of HRD. Under it the job of an individual in
the organization is analyzed and enriched in terms of his role and
not in terms of his job. He, his immediate superior and
subordinates sit together to discuss their expectations about the
job from each other. They then arrive at a consensus about the
individual’s role and prepare his role description.
9. Quality of work Life: For ensuring a congenial atmosphere in an
organization for implementation of HRD methods, only good wages
are not enough. They also need to be provided with good physical
conditions and motivating work. The presence of these factors may
not help the success of HRD initiatives but their absence definitely
produces adverse effects. In an HRD system there is always a focus
on employee welfare and quality of work life.
10. Participative Devices: To arrive at settlements concerning
worker’s wages and service conditions and to review the working of
existing settlements and examine their impact on work place
discipline, work ethics, customer service, etc. the following are some
important participative devices:
(i) Information Sharing: enables to share information about
business profitability, service delivery, performance of the
organization/ company, competition, marketing, etc.
(ii) Joint Surveys: helps management and union to undertake joint
surveys on the state of morale, motivation, grievances of workers,
etc. and jointly plan ways of dealing with these problems.
(iii) Task Forces: undertake study of problems like ‘Absenteeism’,

70
 indiscipline, etc and suggest ways to solve the problem.

(iv) Collaborative Projects: undertake jointly certain projects, e.g.

project on employee welfare or workers’ education.
(v) Quality Circles: involve workers at the grass root level for periodically
discussing work-related problems. Quality circles are small groups of
employees which are formed voluntarily. They work on the simple
premise that the people who do a job every day know more about it
than any one else, particularly when quality or productivity is
involved. In the last few years, many companies, both in the private
and public sector have recorded substantial gains by implementing
the suggestions given by quality circles in their organizations.

11) Communication: This process is fundamental to all aspects of life

and is vital to the function of integration. Real communication takes
place when the listener truly hears and understands the position and
intent of the speaker. This requires a type of listening which is called”
projective”. While hearing the remarks of the speaker, the listener
must project himself into the mind of the speaker in order to
understand the speaker’s view point.
12) Counseling and mentoring: It is an important HRD mechanism to
provide timely guidance to workers on problems relating to hand and
heart.
13) Grievance Redressal: A grievance redressal procedures is vital to all
organizations-big or small. The mere fact that an employee has access
to a judicial type of justice is satisfying even though he never has an
occasion to use it.
14) Data Storage and Research: This also is a very important HRD
mechanism. It is very essential to preserve systematic information
about every individual employee on various topics such as the
employee’s personal characteristics, performance-potential,

71
 promotions, salary, etc so that this may be used for counseling, career
planning, training, promotion, etc… More over this information also
serves as a base for research on employee problems. Some times fresh
data may be needed for identifying appropriate interventions for
improving the utilization of human resources. This involves the
following four discrete yet interdependent steps:
i) Choosing the type of data to be collected.
ii) Deciding how to collect the data
iii) Deciding how to edit the data
iv) Determining how the results of the survey will be fed back to the
organization.
15) Industrial Relation: Last, though not the least, important
subsystem of HRD is industrial relations. It is a catalytic force which
plays a vital role in facilitating or inhibiting the impact of all other
methods. Good industrial relations based on mutual trust and good
will make execution of HRD programmes easy. Poor industrial
relations based on mutual distrust and fear makes execution difficult.

In HRD unions are encouraged to make a thrust towards the

psychological and social well-being of workers. Some important areas in
which they are asked to participate are as follows
(a) Communication: Unions can pass on greater and more varied
information to workers about themselves and the organization. At
present they only communicate on service conditions and related issues
under the belief that workers are not interested in receiving information
on any other issues. This is wrong,
(b)Counseling: Unions can play a very positive role in providing
counseling services to employees. Cases of excessive drinking; drug
addiction; indebtedness etc. are not frequent and need to be attended to
by the unions. Defending a workman during departmental enquiry for
these misconducts is not enough,

72
(c) Education and Training: Another important area in which unions
can play a development role is education of workers. Unions can help
them acquire new human relations and work-related skills. The former
would include skills of collaboration, empathy, collective action, etc. The
latter would include skills to do new jobs and new projects,
(d) Welfare: Unions can help management in developing innovative
welfare schemes for employees such as workers’ co-operatives, workers’
banks, nursery schools, etc
(e)Family and Vocational Guidance: Unions can help workers’ families
in several ways. For example they can provide guidance in respect of the
education and career of workers’ children. They can provide conciliation
services in settling family quarrels. They can help in creating jobs for the
wives of workers and so on and
(f) Research: Unions can play a very significant role in generating data
on various dimensions of workers needs, aspirations, standard of living,
etc. For this purpose they can launch research projects either
independently or in collaboration with academic institutions. For
ensuring the effectiveness of the above techniques:
1. They should be properly designed keeping in view the
organization’s needs;
2. They should be systematically linked to produce the holistic effect;
3. They should be periodically reviewed to examine whether they are
producing the desired effects and
4. They should receive commitment from top.

It should be noted that some of the above methods (such as performance

appraisal), potential appraisal, role analysis, and role development are of
very limited advantage in the development of workers and are, therefore,
used mostly or developing managerial competencies only. Methods
generally used for developing competencies of workers are grievance

73
redressal(handling), participation, welfare, counseling, and quality of
work life, quality circles and training.

1.4. HRD Philosophy

? Dear distance student, can you list some of the HRD

philosophies?
All the above mentioned and discussed mechanisms/methods are based
on the following (philosophy) of HRD.These are:

1. Human Resources are the most valuable assets in the

organization.
2. Unlike other resources, human resources can be developed and
increased in an unlimited extent.
3. A healthy climate characterized by openness, enthusiasm, trust,
mutuality, and collaboration is essential for developing human
resources.
4. HRD can be planned and monitored in ways that are beneficial
both to the individual and to the organization.
5. Employees committed to their work and the organization if the
organization perpetuates a feeling of “belonging”.
6. Employees are likely to have this feeling if the organization
provides for management styles and systems.
7. Employee commitment is increased with the opportunity to
discover and use one’s capabilities and potential in one’s way.
8. It is every manager’s responsibility to ensure the development and
utilization of the capabilities of subordinate, to create a healthy
and motivating work environment, and to set examples for
subordinates to follow.

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 9. The higher the level of manager, the more attention should be paid
to the HRD function in order to ensure its effectiveness.
10.The maintenance of a healthy working climate and the
development of its human resources are the responsibilities of
every organization.

1.5. Need and Significance of HRD

? Dear distance student, can you explain the major significances of

HRD?
Every organization that wants to become dynamic and growth-oriented or
to succeed in a fast changing environment needs HRD. Organizations
can become dynamic and grow only when employee capabilities are
continuously acquired sharpened and used. HRD plays a vital role in the
success and growth of an organization in the following ways:
i. HRD improves the capabilities of people by making them better aware
of the skills required for job performance and by improving clarity
about performance standards. HRD strengthens executive skills.
ii. HRD improves communication system in the organization. Every
member better understands the expectations of other members from
his role.
iii. HRD Helps an organization in procuring the right people at the right
time and in making their effective use.
iv. HRD improves employee commitment to the organization due to
greater objectivity in the administration of rewards. Contributions of
employees are valued and rewarded in a better way.
v. HRD provides an opportunity of continuous and all round growth of
employees through succession planning and career planning.
vi. HRD improves collaboration and team work. Employees become more
open and trust each other.

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vii. HRD improves problem-solving and adaptation skills of employees.
They become more innovative, proactive and risk taking. Resistance
to change is required.
viii. HRD generates a lot of useful data which facilitate human resource
planning and control.
HRD ultimately leads to higher productivity service, lower costs and
successful growth in the organization as well as ensures longer live,
healthy and happy living of people in the country. Nation and
organizations which make their people grow continuously; them selves
grow and succeed better.
1.6. Principles of Human Resource Development

? Dear distance student, can you explain the main principles of

HRD?
In order to make HRD effective, the following principles must be followed:
1. Corporate policy on Human Resource: the nation (at macro level)
and the organization (at micro level) must state their human
resources policy explicitly. The policy should be communicated
through out the country and the organization and should be
vigorously pursued.
2. Commitment of Top management: Complete faith and support of
top nation’s leaderships and management is essential for the success
of HRD. Leaderships and managers at all levels will support HRD
efforts only when the top leaders and the chief executive consider
their people as the greatest asset. They must have respect for all
individuals. Actions speak louder than words. In the organization, the
chief Executive may take the following actions to promote HRD.
i) Create an enabling culture where under individuals can grow up
to their full potential.
ii)Chair the HRD task force himself.

76
 iii) Attend the initial HRD orientation programmes for line
managers.
iv) Periodically review the progress of HRD.
v)Commit time and resources to HRD.
vi) Focus on employee development throughout.
3. Sound Planning: The HRD needs to be different from one
organization to another. Therefore, the HRD needs of the organization
should be properly examined and ascertained. Then a plan should be
prepared for the proper utilization of new skills. Otherwise, skilled
employees may be getting frustrated and may resign to join some other
organizations.
The action plan should focus on developing the diagnostic and
problem solving capabilities of the total organization. Due
attention should be given to the internal and external
environment of the organization. Proper linkages should be
created between the various sub-systems/mechanisms of HRD.
4. Conducive Climate: HRD efforts can be successful only when the
environment in the organization is positive and developmental. The main
features of such climate/an environment are:
a) Openness or freedom to express one’s ideas and opinions.
b) Trust and mutuality among people.
c) Team spirit or collaboration.
d) Reasonable freedom for experimentation and risk-taking.
e) A belief that developing the competencies in the employees is the
job of every manager/supervisor.
f) Faith and acquire new competencies of any stage of life.
g) Interest in confronting issues and solving rather than hiding
problems.
5. Competent Function arises: Person with proven reputations and
skills should be appointed as the heads of the HRD Department /Core
process. The head of the HRD Department should directly report to the

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chief Executive. This is necessary to ensure status and credibility of the
HRD Department/ Core process. The HRD professional should strive for
improving the conditions for the growth and development of employees.
6. Gradual Approach: HRD requires basic changes in organizational
culture. It should be introduced, therefore, in stages. Each subsystem of
HRD should be sequentially phased and built one over the other. Such
phasing may consist of:
i. Geographical phasing: It means introducing the HRD system in one
or two parts of the organization and slowly spreading it to the other
parts.
ii. Vertical phasing: It implies introducing the HRD system at one or
two levels in the organization and expanding it gradually to the
other levels.
iii. Functional phasing: it involves introducing one function or
subsystem of HRD and gradually extending all the functions.
iv. Sophistication phasing: It refers to introducing simple forms of sub-
systems and then applying more sophisticated forms.
7. Sharing Experiences: HRD professionals should continuously
exchange their professional experiences for professional development.
Knowledge in behavioral sciences is growing continuously and, therefore,
exchange of experiences. Every organization can write about its HRD
experiences in the publication.
8. Regular Monitoring: Appropriate mechanisms should be created for
continuous review of progress in the implementation of HRD. Necessary
changes/improvements should be carried out on the basis of such
reviews.

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1.7. Functions (core processes) of HRD Department

? Dear distance student, what is the core functions of the HRD

department? HRD departments in any organization have the following

major functions. These are:
a. Develop a Human Resource philosophy for the entire organization
and get the top management committed to it openly and
consistently.
b. Keep inspiring the line managers to have a consistent desire to
learn and develop.
c. Constantly plan and design new methods and systems of
developing and strengthening the HRD climate.
d. Be aware of the business/social/ other goals of the organization
and direct all their HRD effort to achieve these goals.
e. Monitor effectively the implementation of various HRD job
systems/mechanisms.
f. Work with unions and associations and inspire them.
g. Conduct human process research, organizational health survey
and renewed exercise regularly.
h. Influence human resource policies by providing necessary inputs
to the human resource department/top management.

1.8. Qualities of a Human Resource Development Manager

? Dear distance student, what are the essential qualities of a HRD

manager? A successful HRD manager requires the following skills.

i.) Essential Qualities( i) Positive thinking and positive attitudes
towards people,( ii) A high desire to learn( iii) Interest in people,iv)Helpful
attitude)Initiative taking or pro-activity,(vi)Practice and

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perseverance(vii)Communication skills,(viii)Objectivity in approach,
and(ix)Personal example and sense of discipline
ii. Functional competencies (i)Knowledge of appraisal systems and
their functioning in a various organizations(ii)Knowledge of potential
appraisal, assessment centers, in basket exercises and such other
potential development mechanisms,(iii) Knowledge of various tests,
questionnaires and other measures of human and organizational
processes, (iv) Ability to design and coordinate trainings or programs for
management supervisors and workers(v) Professional knowledge of
human resource management and basic understanding of the industrial
relations(vii) Knowledge of career planning practices and skills to develop
systems( viii) Knowledge & skills of counseling(ix)Knowledge and skills in
behavioral science research(x)Knowledge of role analysis methods, team
building interventions job rotation, etc.(xi)Knowledge of learning theories
and personality development
iii. Managerial Competencies(i)Organizing ability-the ability to
identify talent and organize work, maintenance and monitoring and
feedback of information(ii)System design and development
skills(iii)Implementation skills(iv)Change agent skills, and (v)Leadership
abilities

1.8. Human Resource Development Out Comes

Dear distance learner, what are the main outcomes of HRD?
The following are the various outcomes that result from HRD methods
via improvement in the human processes,
(i)People in the organization become more competent because on the
other hand they become better aware of the skills required fro job
performance and on the other hand there is greater clarity of norms and
standards,

80
(ii)People understand their roles better because through increased
communication they become aware of the expectations which other
members of their role set have from them,
(iii) People become more committed to their jobs because now there is
greater objectivity in the administration of rewards. They come forward
with better and more creative ideas,
(iv) People develop greater trust and respect for each other. They become
more open and authentic in their behavior. Thus, new values come to be
generated,
(v) There is greater collaboration and team work which produces synergy
effect,
(VI) People find themselves better equipped with problem solving
capabilities. They become more prone to risk-taking and proactive in
their orientation. There is greater readiness on their part to accept
change,
(vii) Lot of useful and objective data on employees are generated which
facilitate. Better human resource planning,
(viii)The top management becomes more sensitive to employees’ problems
and human processes due to increased opens in communication,
(ix)A high level of commitment from the corporate management to the
development of human resources in the organization. This arises from
the belief that human resources can be developed and multiplied in ways
that contribute to the growth and development of the nation in general
that of the organization in particular,
(x)Readiness on the part of the organization to invest (time, finances and
energy in programmers to make organizational role a source of Learning
and enjoyment increased, and
(xi)A reasonably good degree of openness and trust in the organization
and preparedness on the part of top management to create more
openness, trust and mutually among employees.

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The net result of the above outcomes is that the nation/ the organization
become more effective. It achieves new heights in terms of growth and
prosperity of more effective. It achieves new heights in terms of growth
and prosperity of nation and productivity, cost, growth, diversification,
profits and public image of the organization. However, one should not
expect this result in a short period. But if these results do not appear
even after a reasonably long period one should also be remembered that
excellent HRD outcomes at any given point of time are also a
consequence of many decisions which emanate from both within and
outside the organization and are often beyond the control of HRD.

 Activity 3.

1. What are the general and specific objectives of

HRD?--------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
2. What are the essential qualities of HRD
manager?
------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
3. Explain participative devices which are
helpful to mitigate issues of discipline, ethics etc in

an organization. --------------------------------
---------------------

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Unit Summary
In this unit, efforts have been made to mention some of HRD features.
We have briefly indicated that HRD is a planned and systematic
approach. It is also a continuous process with a micro and macro
aspects.
HRD envisages to enhance the capabilities of all individuals working in
an organization in relation to their present as well as future role.(It
improves interpersonal and employer-employee relationships in an
organization.HRD increases team spirit and facilitate smooth
coordination among different units of an organization.

Objectives are the ends which all HRD activity is planned. In defining
these ends consideration should also be given to the objectives of other
departments and of the organization as a whole and to social objectives.
In this unit, you have also studied the main method, philosophies, and
principles of HRD.

83
 Check List
Direction: Dear students this is the section in which you confirm your
understanding of the lessons in this unit. Put a tick mark () in the yes column for
activities that you have clear understanding and in the no column for activities that
you doubt that you have good understanding.
I Can: Yes No
 Discuss the main objectives of HRD;
 Explain the important functions of HRD;
 Discuss methods of HRD;
 Understand HRD philosophies;
 Analyze principles of HRD
 Understand characteristics of HRD
 Discuss the significance of HRD

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Self-Assessment Questions
Part one: Choose the best answer among the given
alternatives
1. Identify the incorrect objectives of HRD
a) Develop organizational health by averting manpower obsolescence;
b) Generate systematic information about human resource;
c) Provide fair and just human resource policies;
d) Provide employees inequitable opportunities
e) None of the above
2. All but one is not the method of HRD
a) Human resource planning;
b) Appraisal of performances;
c) Training and development;
d) Career planning
e) None of the above
3. The following are basic philosophies of HRD except
a) Like other resources, human resources can be developed in a
limited extent;
b) Human resources are the least precious assets in any organization;
c) Compared to lower level mangers, higher level managers should
give much attention to HRD functions
d) A and B
e) All
4. Which is not true about the significance of HRD?
a) HRD improves commitment of employees to their organization;
b) HRD improves problem-solving skills of employees;
c) HRD improves communication skills;
d) HRD may generate higher costs

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 e) None of the above

5. The HRD manager needs to have the following qualities except

a) Disinterest in people;
b) Knowledge of appraisal;
c) Counseling skills;
d) Research skills in behavioral sciences
e) None of the above
Part Two: Say True or false
1. HRD is a more fragmented approach.
2. HRD is a tool in pursuit of quality and cost reduction.
3. Learning requires a holistic approach.
4. Subjective and top-down approaches to appraisal improve superior-
subordinate relations.
5. Quality circles are large groups of people which are formed voluntarily.

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 Unit four
HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT ISSUES,
CHALLENGES AND REMEDIS

Unit Introduction
As people throughout the world awake each morning to face a new day,
they do so under very different circumstances. Some live in comfortable
homes with many rooms. They have more than enough to eat, are well
clothed and healthy, and have reasonable degree of financial security.
Others, and these constitute a majority of the earth’s 6.6 billion people,
are much less fortunate. They may have inadequate food and shelter,
especially if they are among the poorest Third. Their health is often poor,
they may not know how to read or write, they may be unemployed, and
their prospects for a better life are uncertain.
This unit is about macro-level challenges of development that has been
facing the world. It tries to highlight the root causes and rationale behind
such unspeakable misery the world has been facing. The first section is
devoted to discuss the major challenges and remedies to address the
challenges. The next section explains the main assumptions concerning
HRD; discuss different policy measures to ensure sustainable livelihood
to all; and explains priority actions in poverty reduction strategies and
the central elements of an employment policy.

Unit Objectives
After the completion of this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand what development mean;
• Identify the main challenges of development;
• Discuss the remedies to address HRD challenges;
• Explain the main assumptions of HRD;

87
 • Discuss policy issues to ensure sustainable livelihood for all.

Pretest Questions
• What is development?
• Can you identify the challenges of development?
• What are the remedies to address HRD challenges?
• Can you explain the assumptions concerning HRD?
• Do you know the policy options to ensure sustainable livelihood?

Section One: Development: its challenges and

Remedies

Section overview
According to the UNDP Human Development report of 2006, viewed
through the lens of human development, the global village appears
deeply divided between the streets of the haves and those of the have-
nots.For instance, real income per capita is $41,950 in the United
States,$3,460 in India, and $720 in the DRC.There are also enormous
gap in measures of welfare, life expectancy, nutrition education and
health status among the countries of the world.
In this section we examine the challenges of development especially HRD
and the remedies available to come out of the problems.

Section objectives
After completing this section, you will be able to:
• Understand what development mean;
• Identify the major challenges of Development;
• Discuss the remedies to address HRD challenges

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1.1. Concept of Development

? Dear distance student, what is development? As you learn from

your course in development theories, development is a multidimensional

concept. It includes both quantitative and qualitative changes in the life
of the population.
The achievement of sustained and equitable development remains the
greatest challenge facing the human race. Despite good progress over the
past generation, more than 1 billion people still live in acute poverty and
suffer grossly inadequate access to the resources like education, health
services, infrastructure, land and credit required to give them a chance
for a better life. The essential task of development is to provide
opportunities so that these people and the hundreds of millions who are
not better off, can reach their potential (World Bank, 1992).More than
three fourth of the world’s live in developing countries, but they enjoy
only 16% of the world’s income-while the richest 20% have 85% global
income (UNDP, 1995).
The world has witnessed unprecedented human progress and
unspeakable human misery in the last fifty years, Humanity has
advanced on several fronts:
 Most nations have won their freedom
 The threat of a sudden, unpredictable nuclear war which loomed
over so many generations since the Second World War has receded
with the end of cold war and conclusion of disarmament
agreements.
 Human development progressed three times faster than industrial
countries did a century ago. Rising life expectancy, falling infant
mortality, improvements in educational attainment, nutrition
technology, and communications.

89
  Richer in terms of human capabilities, facilities, and quality of
living.
 Communicate with one another across the world and therefore
carry on economic, professional, educational, social and other
activities with ease.
 While nearly 70 percent of people survived in abysmal conditions
in 1960, only 32 percent suffered such conditions in 1992.
 Global GDP increased sevenfold-from 3 trillion to $ 22 trillion in
fifty years. With population doubling from2.5 billion to 6.1 billion,
per capital income has more than tripled.
 Dramatic developments have taken place in technology.
 Information technology has increased the technological powers of
mankind to unimaginable levels.
 Human ingenuity has given rise to break-through in science and
technology from informatics to space exploration, from ever-new
medical frontiers to ever-greater addition to knowledge.

1.2. Challenges of HRD

? Dear distance learner, what are the major challenges of

development?
The developments of the last fifty years also indicate that while remark in
progress has been made in a number of directions, the fruits of
development have not benefited the world’s growing number of poor
people. And where some benefits have reached the poor, new problems
are appearing in the form of deteriorating social fabric and environmental
degradation. As stated by Prof.T.V.Rao the world faces the major
developmental challenges of ensuring the fruits of development reach
the most needy through equitable distribution of resources, opportunities
and benefits and developing human capabilities and address the

90
challenges of development(i.e.)political, economic and Social.Dr.Ruby
Dhar has described the details of the human deprivation issues as
follows:

-A fifth of the developing world’s population goes hungry every

night; a quarter lacks access to even a basic necessity like safe
drinking water, and a third lives in a state of widespread poverty.
-We live in a world of disturbing contrasts. Where so many go
hungry, there is so much food to waste, so many children do not
live to see child hood,
-So much money is spent in inessential weapons.
-All nations, whether rich or poor, are affected by growing human
distress weakening social fabrics, rising crime rates, increasing
threats to personal security, spreading narcotic drugs and a
growing sense of individual isolation.
-Threats to human security are no longer personal, local or
national. Global poverty and environmental problems respect
no national boarders. They travel the world.
-Environmental fragility of the planet has come under sharp
focus, Inadequacy of resource base for agriculture to meet rising
food needs, threat of forests and loss of bio-diversity continue
relentlessly.

However, the countries that have been able meet both these challenges
have demonstrated the importance of investing in developing people and
improving the quality of their life through the adoption of human
resource development strategies.

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1.3. Remedies for HRD Challenges

? Dear distance student, what are the remedies to the challenges

of development discusses above?

In the wake of human achievements accompanied by human misery, we

must re-examine our concept of development. Several reasons provide
the rationale for the renewed emphasis on human resource development,
and certainly the contextual situation outlined above is a paramount
consideration.
The following would seem to be the key assumptions and premises
concerning human resource development. These are:
(1)Human resource development is a complex and multifaceted concept.
It is also a continuous process. It requires sensitivity to changing needs
in order to set priorities accordingly,
(2) Human resource development is both a means and an end. A balance
should be maintained between the two. If a choice between these two
aspects has to be made, it should be in treating HRD as an end rather
than as a means, since ultimately what is important is human
satisfaction and the quality of life,
(3) Developing people is the essence of any human resource development
effort and it is an important goal of all other development activities
(plans), policies, programmes, establishment of new structures,
mechanisms. All forms of development, economic, technological,
ecological, and agricultural, in terms of improving their happiness
through better quality and standards of life,
(4) In the last few decades some countries have developed well,
economically, technologically and in human terms. Life expectancy has
increased, incidence of illness reduced and starvation has nullified. The

92
percentage of the poor has also reduced considerably in the countries.
Some of the developing countries are in the process of joining industrially
developed group while others have not been able to make much progress.
Human resource development strategies followed the more successful
countries seem to have made the difference. While a few other countries
have done well economically in terms of their per Capital GNP etc, the
benefits were limited to the rich. The number of poor has even gone up in
such countries and the quality of life and access to basic minimum
facilities have even gone down. The distribution of economic benefits has
been very unequal,
(5) Currently, for most of the developing countries, human resource
development strategies should focus on alleviation of poverty existing at
present and possibly in the future. For this purpose, investments in
education and health services at the basic levels and the creation of
employment and / or self-employment opportunities become critical,
(6)The world is becoming a global village with improvements in
technology trade, mobility and Communications. Increasing globalization
and significance of information technology have thrown up new
opportunities for some countries, and challenges for others, to cope with
the changing world and compete in the open market with the industrially
developed countries,
(7) Learning from past experience, many developments are becoming
increasingly aware of the need to involve people through participation,
empowerment, better access and opportunity,
(8) The national development policies are increasingly becoming aware of
the criticality of human factors in development and the principles of
democracy,
(9) There is an increased understanding of the strategic role of women in
human resource and economic development,
(10) Attention should be focused on the effective utilization of the existing
stock of human resources as evidenced by the growing unemployment of

93
youth and their inability to transform them selves from job seekers to job
creators,
(11) Serious resource crunch faced by various developing countries
requires these countries to seek solutions for a right kind of allocation of
existing resources combined with a search for mobilizing new resources
and effective use of the existing resources,
(12) The tendency of some countries under going structural adjustment
to ignore social dimensions has resulted in a decline of the quality of
human resources and social development, particularly of the poor and
the vulnerable,
13) There has been confusion in the integration of planning due to the
inability to see and monitor the linkages between different sectors,
(14) Privatization, sometimes without a socially responsible private
sector has led to the exploitation of the poor,
(15) The expectation that external aid will solve all human resource
development problems,
(16) Development is increasingly being seen as people-centered,
(17) Increased presence and the successful change agent role played by
the NGOs in bringing about change points towards policy/ programmes
and their efficiency,
(18) There is an increased understanding of the linkages that exist
between literacy, basic education, health, nutrition, sanitation,
environment population growth, technology, role and status of women,
unemployment, quality of human resources, as indicated by the
composition of their capabilities (knowledge, attitude and skill base,

(19) There is an increased criticism of the inefficiency or low effectiveness

of the public services and the proportion of tax payers’ money spent to
maintain government staff, and
(20)The synergistic value of the human resource development concept
and its ability to focus on the right kinds of groups, problems and issues

94
that have potential for sustained development are increasing being
Recognized. Choices need to be made between sectors and between
different strategies of implementation.
These are some of the key points concerning human resource
development which are both emerging from and being applied in the
current approaches to human resource development. As mentioned
above to address the growing challenges of human security a new
development paradigm is needed that puts people at the center of
development, regards economic growth as a means and not an end
protects the life of opportunities of the future generation as well as the
present generation and respects the natural system on which all life
depends.
Such paradigm of development enables all individuals to enlarge their
human capabilities to the full and to put those capabilities to their best
use in all fields-economic, social, cultural and political, projects the
options of unborn generations, and does not run down the natural
resource base for sustaining development for the future that adds so
much richness to human life.
In the final analysis, development should be:
(1)Pro-people, pro-jobs and pro-nature; give the highest priority to
poverty reduction, employment, social integration and environmental
regeneration,
(2)Bring human numbers into balance with the coping capabilities of
societies and the carrying capacities of nature,
(3)Accelerate economic growth and translate it into improvements in
human lives with out destroying the natural capital needed to protect the
opportunities of future generations,
(4)Recognize that not much can be achieved with out a dramatic
improvement in the status of women and the opening of all economic
opportunities to women, and

95
(5)Empower people enabling them to design and participate in the
processes and events that shape their lives. At the very least, human
development initiatives must provide:
• Universal primary education for girls as well as boys.
• Adult literacy with the female rate to be no lower than the male one
• Primary health care for all with special; stress on immunization of
children.
• Nutrition of adequate levels that sever malnutrition is eliminated
and moderate malnutrition rates are significantly lowered.
• Family planning service for all willing couples.
• State drinking water and sanitation for all.
• Credit for all to ensure self-employment.

These are the very minimum targets. Much more needs to be done for
providing livelihood, infrastructure, production facilities etc.

 Activity 1.

1. What are the core assumptions and premises

concerning HRD? -----------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
2.What are human deprivation issues?-----------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------

96
Section Two: Policy Formulation

Section overview

Dear distance education students, this section highlight the essence and
significance of the national policies to address the challenges of
development. The national policies must ensure a sustainable livelihood
for all. The strategies for this purpose will have to focus on three core
themes. Namely: poverty reduction, employment creation and social
integration.

Section objectives
After completion of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain the main assumptions concerning HRD;
• Discuss different policy measures to ensure
sustainable livelihood to all;
• Understand priority actions in poverty reduction
strategies
• Explain the central elements of an employment policy

2.1. Approach to Policy Formulation

? Dear distance student, what are the main policy instruments to

address the challenges development?

At the national level, new balances must be struck between the efficiency
of competing markets, the legal and regulatory frameworks that only
governments can provide the investments to enhance the capability of all
and the provision of social safety nets for those with unequal access to

97
the markets. Balances between the compulsions of today and the needs
of tomorrow, between private initiative and publication between
individual greed and social compassion are solely needed for this
purpose.

The essence of the policy must be to ensure a sustainable livelihood for

all. The strategies for this purpose will have to focus on three core
themes. Namely: poverty reduction, employment creation and social
integration.

a. Poverty Reduction
Strategies for poverty reduction must help ensure a widespread
distribution of social services to the poor, particularly basic education
and primary health care, since a large part of poverty in developing
countries is concentrated in rural areas, poverty reduction strategies
often requires a more equitable distribution of land and agricultural
resources, one of the most powerful ways of opening markets to the poor
is to ensure more equal access to credit. The criteria for credit worthiness
must change and credit institutions must be decentralized. The best way
to extend the benefit of growth to the poor and to involve them in the
expansion of output is to rapidly expand productive employment
opportunities and to create a frame work for ensuring sustainable
livelihood for every one. Any viable strategy for poverty reduction must be
decentralized and participatory. The poor can hardly benefit from
economic development if they don’t even participate in its design. Every
country needs an adequate social safety not to catch those whom
markets exclude. The focus of development efforts, in addition to in
addition to increasing over all productivity, must be to increase the
productivity of the poor.

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The strategy for poverty reduction will differ from country to country. But
there are six priorities for action. These include:
(i) The starting point is to empower women and men and to ensure their
participation in decisions that affect their lives and enable them to build
their strengths and assets,
(ii) Gender equality is essential for empowering women and for
eradicating poverty,
(iii) Poverty reduction requires pro-poor growth,
(iv) Globalization offers great opportunity but only if it is managed more
carefully and with more concern for global equity, and
(v) The state must provide an enabling environment for broad-based
political support, pro-poor policies and markets.
b) Employment creation

? Dear distance student, what are the mechanisms of employment

creation?
Creating sufficient opportunities for productive employment and sustain
livelihoods is one of the most important tasks. The central elements of an
employment policy are likely to include:

i) Education and Skills

Most new employment opportunities are likely to be generated by the
private sector. But markets can not work effectively unless
governments create an enabling environment. Fair and stable
macroeconomic policies, an equitable system of incentives for private
investment are important ingredients of the environment.

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ii) Access to Assets
A more equitable distribution of physical assets (land) and better
access to means of production (credit and information) are often
essential to ensure sustainable livelihoods.

iii) Labor-intensive Technologies

Developing countries have to be able to make the most efficient use of
their factors of production and to exploit their comparative advantage
of abundant labor; tax and price policies should try to encourage
labor intensive employment.
iv)Public Work programmes
Where private markets consistently fail to produce sufficient jobs in
certain regions or at certain times of the year, it may be necessary for
the state to offer employment through public works programmes to
enable people to survive.
v) Disadvantaged Groups
Where markets discriminate against particular groups, such as
women or certain ethnic groups or disabled people the state may need
to consider targeted intervention or programmes of affirmative action.
C. Social Integration
In order to avoid violent social dislocations decisive measures have to
be adopted to promote more equal opportunities for all. Such
measures include equality before the law, minority rights, anti-
discrimination policies, education and employment opportunities for
the disadvantaged groups and creation of avenues for participation in
governance.

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  Activity 2.

1.What are the core areas to ensure sustainable

livelihood for all?------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
2. Compare and contrast the achievements
registered and the challenges faced in terms of
development?-----------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------

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Unit Summary
Under this unit, you are able to see that HRD is a superior strategy
(than welfare strategy and Basic Needs strategy) because HRD alone is
an agent of change. The welfare approach treats human being only as
a beneficiary where as the Basic Needs Approach relies on providing
material goods and services to people rather than enlarging their
choices. You have to bear in mind that human development has two
sides. One is the formation of capabilities (in health, education and
skills), the other is the use of capabilities thus acquired. If the scales
of human development do not finally balance, there will be human
frustration making the HRD process self defeating. HRD therefore, is
both a means and an end. Any attempt to separate one from the other
would either slow down the speed of development or result in to top-
sided development. Thus, HRD is a process of participation not only
in production, or consumption of basic goods but also their direction
and training.

Basically, it is the human beings in the country who brings about

growth and development. Man is the means as well as the end of all
economic growth. Man is not meant for production but production is
meant for man. The problem before the nation at present is to elevate
the concept of HRD from the level of purely academic discussions in
the fields of education and developmental studies, to a position of
strategic importance and make it a practical policy issue to be split up
into different programs.

HRD as part of the planning strategy plays an important role in

development. Increase in productivity, increase in life expectancy and
increase in literacy rate have come about in different developing

102
countries when HRD was made the central focus of planning.
Economists like Charles Schultz and normal Hicks firmly believe in
the role of HRD as an investment which yields rich dividends both at
micro as well as macro level.

As you can understand when you read this unit and the previous
units, Human Resource Development should be treated as an
integrated concept. It deals with the development of all people and is
not limited to any one section or sector. It is important and equally
critical for all sectors wherever people are involved and are required to
make things happen. It is needed for all groups, but particularly the
underprivileged; it is needed for the unemployed and underemployed,
the employed and the self-employed; it is needed by the politicians,
bureaucrats and intellectuals to play their roles better and more
effectively; it is needed for running the governments effectively, for
improving the effectiveness of various agencies and their services, it is
needed for NGOs to be effective and play a strategic role, it is needed
for ensuring economic, scientific and technological development of
nations; it is needed to ensure that people leave a health place of
living for future generations.

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 Check List
Direction: Dear students this is the section in which you confirm
your understanding of the lessons in this unit. Put a tick mark ()
in the yes column for activities that you have clear understanding
and in the no column for activities that you doubt that you have
good understanding.
I Can: Yes No
 Define the concept of development
 Identify the challenges of HRD
 Identify different remedies for HRD challenges
 Understand policy measures
 Discuss policy formulation approaches

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Self-Assessment Questions
Part one: Choose the best answer among the given
alternatives
1. At the very least, human development initiatives must provide:
a) Universal primary education for girls as well as boys.
b) Adult literacy with the female rate to be no lower than the male one
c) Primary health care for all with special; stress on immunization of
children.
d) Nutrition of adequate levels that sever malnutrition is eliminated
and moderate malnutrition rates are significantly lowered.
e)All
2. The major challenge that the world do not face is
a) Ensuring the fruits of development reach the most wealthy classes
b) Developing human capabilities
c) Address the challenges of development
d) Ensuring peace and security
e) All
3. All but one explains the issue of human deprivation
a) Lack of access to basic needs
b) Abject poverty
c) Increasing crime rates
d) Environmental sustainability
e) None of the above
4. Identify the wrong assumptions and premises concerning HRD
a) HRD is a complex and multifaceted concept
b) HRD is a means not an end
c) The essence of HRD effort is developing people
d) Development is being seen as people-centered
e) All

105
5) Development should
a) Be pro-people
b) Be pro-jobs
c) Be pro-nature
d) Empower people
e) All
Part Two: Say True or False
1. Un equitable distribution of resources is essential to enhance
sustainable livelihood.
2. Programs of affirmative action are helpful to redress the problems of
disadvantaged groups of the society.
3. Privatization if not managed properly may lead to the exploitation of
the poor.
4. Threats to human security are personal in their nature.
5. The world has witnessed unspeakable human misery in the last five
decades.

106
 References
-Mohammed Wado (2009), Human Resource Development: Origin,
Concepts, Principles and Mechanism. Oromia Civil Service
Commission, Finfine.
-Stoner,James A.f.,R.Edward Freeman,and Daniel Gilbert JR(2002),
Management. Sixth Edition.New Delhi:Prentices Hall of India plc.
-Todaro M. P. and Stephen C.Smith (2009), Economic Development.
Pearson Education Limited.
-Thomson R. and Christopher M.(1998), Developing Human
Resources. Butterworth Heinemann, Planta Tree, Great Britain.

Answer Keys
Unit One:
Part One: Multiple Choice Questions
1. D
2. A
3. A
4. B
5. E
6. E
7. D
8. B
9. E
10. E
Part Two: True or false questions
1. True
2. False

107
3. True
4. True
5. False
Unit Two
Part One: Multiple choice
1.E
2.B
3.E
4.E
5.E
Unit Three
Part One: Multiple Choice Questions
1. D
2. E
3. D
4. D
5. A
Part Two: True or false questions
1. False
2. True
3. True
4. False
5. False
Unit Four
Part One: Multiple choice questions
1. E
2. A
3. D
4. B
5. E

108
Part Two: True or false questions
1. False
2. True
3. True
4. False
5. True

109