Gaps in Human Resource Development - Assignment Example

Human Resource Development (HRD) helps employees develop skills important for the success of the company. HRD develops personal skills, knowledge, and other abilities. Human resource development focuses on developing a superior workforce that can accomplish organizational goals and objectives. However, there are gaps between human resource research and actual practice in organizations. Bridging the gaps can be crucial for ensuring successful human resource development.

There is a gap in teamwork skills and abilities. In practice, most organizational group individuals who have the best skills together believe they would offer the best for the organization. However, recent scientific research established that generic teamwork skills are more than an individual’s personal skills and abilities. Another gap is in the approaches to the composition of teams in organizations. Most organizations take the average of team members on a particular trait and treat the score as the team's mean composition. However, recent scientific research suggests that the most appropriate approach to measure team composition traits depends on many other circumstances. Scientific research, therefore, suggest that the mean score is not the best approach for Human resource managers to use to evaluate team composition

Demographic diversity in teams also presents certain gaps between research in human resource development and the actual practice of human resource development. Diversity in the workforce is changing over time with increased involvement of gender, age, and cultural diversity in the organization. There are also changes in the management of a diverse workforce for organizations. In many firms, there is a perception that demographic diversity increases team performance. However, according to research, more demographic diversity does not always result in increased team performance. Other studies suggest that demographic diversity does not influence team performance, especially on a long-term basis. (Hollenbeck, DeRue, & Guzzo, 2004)

Suggestions

To solve the gap in choosing the best people to form a team, it is important for organizations to develop a foundation of knowledge, skills, and abilities. The firm can examine a number of factors based on theoretical and methodological background. Organizations should develop teams depending on feedback, cooperation, team spirit, morale, and adaptability of the employees. Choosing a team should not focus on individual skills. The choice should be comprehensive in nature

In order to integrate between human resource practice and scientific research regarding the best method to use in determining team composition, there is a need to use other methods. For instance, the group’s minimum score, maximum score, or score variability are better methods to represent the team. According to Lepine, Hollenbeck, Ilgen, and Hedlind (1997), the composition of the team depends on the additive effects of individual traits among the team members. Therefore, each member of the team contributes to team performance depending on individual abilities. Individual abilities represent a means score method for measuring team composition. This method is more appropriate in assessing team composition than the mean score.