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Web support material to accompany Human Resource Management: Theory and practice, Third Edition © John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, published by Palgrave Macmillan

Words of wisdom‘A commitment to learning at work is as much a statement of values, an

assertion of the kind of society that people want to live in, as an economic

imperative. It implies a preference for a more inclusive society.’

‘Despite the fact that most employers appear to support the abstract

concept of lifelong learning, it is also clear from the same study that the

majority of employers were not enthusiastic about being encouraged or

assisted in supporting greater other or general training.’

‘One of the greatest business challenges is to find some models for how a

whole organization can learn.’

Human Resource Development


Human resource development (HRD) comprises the procedures and processes

that purposely seek to provide learning activities to enhance the skills,

knowledge and capabilities of people, teams and the organization so that there is

a change in action to achieve the desired outcomes.



Integrating HRD into strategy requires the development of the senior

management team so that the dilemma to be resolved between control

through planning and emergent learning becomes an acceptable form of

their thinking.

An orthodox view makes strategic HRD entirely responsive to organizational

strategy. Alternative versions provide for a more reciprocal and proactive

influence on organizational strategy.

Even when strategy is given full consideration, there are a number of

possible paths that may be taken.

Choosing a path other than skills and learning lies at the core of a (UK)

problem of low-priced and low-quality production and a low demand for

skills.

Strategy and HRD


A principle assumption underpinning HRD is that, through the provision of

learning activities in whatever form, employees are worth investing in, and there

will be benefits for the individual involved, the organization, the economy and

society as a whole.

Human capital theory: people’s performance and the results achieved can be

considered as a return on investment and assessed in terms of costs and benefits.

Approaches to HRD:

Voluntarist approach

Interventionist approach

Establishing HRD


Establishing HRD: the machine metaphor

The following implications can be drawn from the ‘machine’ metaphor:

Attitudes are important

Individuals have responsibility for their parts

Learning is based on a deficit model

Training closes a gap

Little place for feelings

Establishing HRD

(Marsick & Watkins 1999)


Developmental humanistic approach

Developmental humanistic approach

Based on the personal empowerment of the workforce through workplace

learning.

The key argument is that individuals are the most productive when they

feel that their work is personally meaningful. Learning provides a way of

coping with change and fulfilling ambitions.

HRD can therefore move beyond the technical limitations of training and

embrace key notions of learning and development implied in such

concepts as the learning organization and lifelong learning.

Establishing HRD


Skills and commitment

Skills and commitment

If HRD can have a positive effect on profitablility, attract good-quality staff,

indicate the values of the firm and engender commitment in times of

change, why is there still a low commitment to HRD in the UK?

Many employers underestimate or do not recognize skills gaps, or do not

consider future needs. Training is often concentrated among managers

and senior staff, whereas unskilled workers receive very little.

The UK’s failure to educate and train its workforce to the same level as its

competitors may be responsible for its relatively poor economic

performance.

Establishing HRD


Establishing HRD


The demand for skills

The demand for skills

To ensure a high demand for skills, action is required principally from

within organizations. Many organizations do not however regard HRD as

being central to their requirements.

If tasks are designed as requiring a high level of skill, this will trigger a

requirement for a highly-trained workforce and for an investment in that

workforce if skilled labour is not available in the external market.

The presence of skilled employees can contribute to the interpretation by

managers that any changes can be dealt with by their employees, so they

are able to take advantage of any benefits that the changes may bring.

Establishing HRD


The learning movement

The Learning Movement

The recommendations, ideas and exhortations relating to HRD and learning

at work, plus the structures to support these, are features of the learning

movement.

Even though the learning movement provides the resources to support HRD,

decision-makers still have a choice and can remain oblivious to pressures for

more HRD, or sceptical about the benefits.

Pursuing a policy of HRD has to reflect the strategy of senior managers who

are able to view their organizations in a variety of ways.

Particularly important are the actions of managers at all levels in supporting

learning and turning an aversion to risk-taking into opportunity-spotting.

Establishing HRD


Who should take responsibility?

How should needs be identified?

Whose interests should they serve?

What activities should be used?

Will they ‘add value’?

How does HRD relate to business goals?

Implementing HRD


Implementing HRDA systematic training model


A systematic training model

A systematic training model

Essential prerequisites for any effort to implement a training model are a

consideration of budgets, attitudes, abilities and culture or climate.

A key requirement of training activity is that it is relevant and reflects the

real world.

Bramley (1989) advocated turning the four stages of the training model into

a cycle in which evaluation occurs throughout the process, with an

emphasis on managers taking responsibility for the transfer of learning.

In this way the model is made effective rather than mechanistically

efficient.

Implementing HRD


An integrated approach

An Integrated Approach

An integrated approach highlights key interdependencies within

organizations, such as the link to strategy, the role of line managers and the

emergent features of learning.

A policy of HRD has to be translated into the structures, systems and

processes that might be called a learning climate.

At the heart of the learning climate lies the line manager-employee

relationship.

A number of roles have been associated with managers to support this,

including coaching and mentoring.

Implementing HRD


Implementing HRD


Learning in the workplace is seen as the crucial contributor to dealing with

change, coping with uncertainty and complexity in the environment and

creating opportunities for sustainable competitive advantage.

Workplace learning casts a whole organization as a unit of learning,

allowing managers to take a strategic view and others to think in terms of

how their learning impacts on the wider context.

Key ideas for application include the learning organization and

organization learning, knowledge management and production and e-

learning.

Workplace Learning


According to Senge (1990), the following disciplines should form the

foundation of the learning organization:

Personal mastery

A shared vision

Team learning

Mental models

Systems thinking

Workplace Learning


Workplace Learning

Understanding learning


Workplace LearningUnderstanding learning


Organizational learning

Cultural view: organization learning is mostly informal and

improvisational, ‘situated’ in a particular context and is a function of

activity that occurs at a local level within communities of practice.

Likely to be at variance from what managers want to happen.

Workplace Learning


Knowledge management is the management of the information,

knowledge and experience available to an organization – its creation,

capture, storage, availability and utilization – in order that organizational

activities build on what is already known, and extend it further. (Mayo

1998)

Human capital accumulation has therefore become one of the new

reasons for an investment in HRD and a contrast to the previous narrow

conceptions implied by human capital theory.

Knowledge Management


E-learning

One area in which the technology revolution is having a massive impact

in HRD is the provision of e-learning.

E-learning is learning that is delivered, enabled or mediated by electronic

technology for the explicit purpose of training in organizations. It does

not include stand-alone technology-based training such as the use of

CD-ROMs in isolation. (Sloman & Reynolds 2002)

Knowledge Management

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