Human Resources Development (HRD) as a theory is a framework for the expansion of human capital within an organization through the development of both the organization and the individual to achieve performance improvement. Adam Smith states, “The capacities of individuals depended on their access to education”. The same statement applies to organizations themselves, but it requires a much broader field to cover both areas.
Human Resource Development is the integrated use of training, organization, and career development efforts to improve individual, group and organizational effectiveness. HRD develops the key competencies that enable individuals in organizations to perform current and future jobs through planned learning activities. Groups within organizations use HRD to initiate and manage change. Also, HRD ensures a match between individual and organizational needs.
Resources
An excellent resource for understanding the foundations of HRD can be found in “Brief Foundations of Human Resource Development” by Richard A. Swanson.
Process, Practice and Relation to Other Fields
Notably, HRD is not only a field of study but also a profession. HRD practicioners and academia focus on HRD as a process. HRD as a process occurs within organizations and encapsulates: 1) Training and Development (TD), that is, the development of human expertise for the purpose of improving performance, and 2) Organization Development (OD), that is, empowering the organization to take advantage of its human resource capital. TD alone can leave an organization unable to tap into the increase in human, knowledge or talent capital. OD alone can result in an oppressed, under-realized workforce. HRD practicitioners find the interstices of win/win solutions that develop the employee and the organization in a mutually beneficial manner. HRD does not occur without the organization, so the practice of HRD within an organization is inhibited or promoted upon the platform of the organization’s mission, vision and values.
Other typical HRD practices include: Executive and supervisory/management development, new employee orientation, professional skills training, technical/job training, customer service training, sales and marketing training, and health and safety training.
HRD positions in businesses, health care, non-profit, and other field include: HRD manager, vice president of organizational effectiveness, training manager or director, management development specialist, blended learning designer, training needs analyst, chief learning officer, and individual career development advisor.
Discussion
Human Resources Development is not a defined object, but a series of organized processes, “with a specific learning objective”. Specific interventions, areas of expertise and practice that fall within this definition of HRD are recognized as performance improvement, organizational learning, career management and leadership development. Human Resources Development as a structure allows for individual development, potentially satisfying the organization’s goals. The development of the individual will benefit both the individual and the organization. The Human Resources Development framework views employees as an asset to the enterprise whose value will be enhanced by development: “Its primary focus is on growth and employee development[…] it emphasizes developing individual potential and skills”
An apprentice will step through the development process to become a tradesman in their field as will a white-collar trainee to become a professional in their field. Training will allow the individual to complete a task within their field today Gutteridge and Hutcheson maintain that, “Training provides, maintains and enhances skills to perform the job.”
Education and training will develop the individual to become a tradesman or a professional in the future. A successful Human Resources Development program will prepare the individual to undertake a higher level of work, “organized learning over a given period of time, to provide the possibility of performance change.”
Human Resources Development is the framework that focuses on the organizations competencies at the first stage, training, and then developing the employee, through education, to satisfy the organizations long-term needs and the individuals’ career goals and employee value to their present and future employers. Human Resources Development can be defined simply as developing the most important section of any business its human resource by, “attaining or upgrading the skills and attitudes of employees at all levels in order to maximize the effectiveness of the enterprise”. The people within an organization are its human resource.
Human Resources Development from a business perspective is not entirely focused on the individual’s growth and development, “Development occurs to enhance the organization’s value, not solely for individual improvement. Individual education and development is a tool and a means to an end, not the end goal itself.”
Over a decade ago (as of 2011), a discussion in Human Resource Development International’s “HRDI special issue: defining HRD” in 2001 made it plain that HRD has existed as a field of study.