Is HRD More Suitable than HRM in a Developing Country Context - Literature review Example

Is HRD more suitable than HRM in a developing country context? Introduction Developing countries face the challenge of having enough skilled and well trained personnel to handle their workload. Human resource management does not serve to help in solving the problem. However, management systems have applied human resource development which ensures that the employees’ abilities and skills are enhanced to make sure that the employees are updated and introduced to the job they are about to do. Embarking on human resource development ensures that the workforce in the organisation is better and this is the first step to achieving better results in the organisation (Farnham, 2010). Developing the skills of the employees is viewed as the first step in achieving better results in the organisation and considering the plight of developing countries where the number of qualified personnel is low, this strategy should be used to upgrade their professional quality. Human resource development involves acts such as conduction of mentorship programs and training of the employees in regard to the tasks they will have to handle while working in the organization. Human resource management on the other hand involves the acquisition of human power that is employed in an organisation or company to help in delivering the goals that have been set. In setting of goals and objectives, the human resource sector comes up with the number of employees needed to handle the workload and the remuneration they will be getting. Human resource management is also involved in motivating the employees and ensuring that their working conditions are good to avoid limitation of their performance due to unfriendly environments (Mbongaya, 2006). According to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the basic needs of the employees have to be addressed before the employee can be asked to deliver on achieving the larger goals of the organization. This is done by ensuring the employees welfare is looked into. Developing countries face a major challenge when it comes to the acquisition of skilled workforce that can be employed in their developing industries and organisations. The challenge of having less people who are fully trained and have the professional know how of handling the duties that are being given can be addressed by promoting human resource development instead of putting more emphasis on human resource management. After the employees have been trained, they are ready to address the problems present in the organisation. Later, they can be motivated and made to achieve higher levels of achievement unlike when the human resource section could have embarked at acquiring the work force without training it (Stewart, 2009; McGuire, 2010). This essay will establish the need to promote human resource development in developing countries over human resource management. However, since it is hard to address one without showing the significance of the other the advantages of having good relations between the employees and the management shall be addressed as they play a key role in determining the way employees will perform. Definition of Human Resource Development Human resource development is the framework or the strategies that are laid in order to help employees in a given organisation, company or institution to improve and develop their personal and organisational attributes and their abilities so as they can improve their performance in the organisation (Mardsen-Huggins, n.d). Human resource development is a new aspect in the management of organisations as people and the people responsible for handling employees in organisations have been so keen on managing the human resources present that they forget that they need to develop the skills of the employees to deliver better. Human Resource Development in Developing Countries The major challenge in a developing country is ensuring that its economy is growing and it is maintaining a steady growth in its social and environmental aspects. It is hard to achieve these goals if the human resource sector is not addressed well. The quality of peoples’ abilities can only be boosted and improved by the use of human resource development. Many countries have set millennium development goals which can only be achieved if much emphasis is put to ensure that the citizens who form the major part of employees can give quality service and help in the achievement of the goals. These employees are not used to the new workplaces that they are often introduced to and so the human resource section has to ensure that it identifies the employees’ strengths and help them to improve their abilities. The key to success is ensuring that the employees have the best knowledge and skills so that they can do the job required efficiently. As indicated above, this cannot be achieved if the employees are not professionally empowered and oriented into the different jobs and roles they are to perform (O’Donnell, McGuire and Cross, 2006). Over the years, the developing countries have failed to perform well in their industries because of the failure to allocate enough resources towards the training and boosting of their employees skills. What they should note is that by empowering the employees and ensuring that they are fully concise of their duties, they will be able to work better and this will add up to the overall good of the organisation. Definition of Human Resource Management Human resource management refers to the management of people in an organization from a macro perspective (Godard, 2014). The major role of human resource management in an organisation is to ensure that there are healthy human relations in the organisation. It is also through it that individuals are developed and this is aimed at ensuring that the goals set by the organisation are achieved without fail. There are goals set by the organisation as well as the individual and so as the individual will be working to achieve the goals of the organisation, his or her goals will be achieved in the process (DESA, 2014). The management done by the human resource department in an organisation serves as an extension of the overall management of all the branches involved in the organisation. As it’s known, there are different factors that are involved in production, these include human factors that are addressed by the human resource sector. The management of these resources is a complex process that starts with the recruitment of the best candidates that are supposed to do various tasks in the organisation. On top of recruitment, the best candidates for various sections are selected and placed in the various jobs. The employees can rarely work for free and so the department of human resource management has to evaluate the individuals’ qualifications and the tasks they will be handling and propose the best compensation for them. This is done to ensure that they abide to the laws of the land and also to give the employees some motivation to work hard. Giving of incentives is common in various organisations to boost their performance in the organisation. Challenges Facing Human Resource Development in Developing Countries Despite the need to promote human resource development in the developing countries, they are various challenges that organisations encounter in its fulfilment. The first challenge is financial constraints. The acquisition and application of certain new business and organisation technologies requires so much money that the company may not have at the moment. Acquisition of the equipment and technology is not enough as this should be followed by the training that is done on the employees to ensure that they use it to accomplish various tasks in the organisation (Ndam et al., 2010). However, by doing that the quality of the employees is improved and this will hence improve their performance and achievement of the set objectives will be easier (Hatala, 2006). Failure to embrace new technology is not advisable especially in business as it leads to poor performance and the clients coming may be requiring services needing to be addressed by equipment the company does not have or if it have there are limited people who can deliver it. Another great challenge that is addressed using human resource development is the difference in education systems (International Labour Organisations, 1996). Different countries adopt different curriculums and the things taught maybe outdated by the time the employee is hired to work in a given organisation. This therefore calls for the need to address the problem by coaching and training the employee on the updated trends that they will be using in their business and their daily tasks. In many organisations, after an employee is hired the first step is to establish whether they are updated with the latest trends in the field and if not they are scheduled for training. Looking at these factors it is therefore advisable to conclude that human resource development is needed more in developing countries than the emphasis put on human resource management. Human Resource Development vs. Human Resource Management In a developing country perspective, the major problem encountered in the hiring and mandating of employees to perform various tasks is lack of specific skills that can enable them to deliver more efficiently. Development of one’s skills and unleashing of their potential is one of the key factors that helps in the making of an efficient workforce that is capable of steering the organization to new heights. Achievement of the objectives and goals set in an organization is an entailing process that needs precision and cooperation between the management and the employees. Looking at the objectives of human resource management, one notes that it is not possible to achieve the best with the employees if human resource development is not applied. In most cases, the management needs to have employees who are creative and innovative and who can be able to forge their way through various situations. After offering the basic morale and boosting of the workers will to work it is important to coach them and introduce them to new ways of ensuring that the organization works to achieve its goals. As indicated above, it is common to find organizations failing to have basic requirements to run it. It is therefore needed to have employees who can adjust to the changes and innovate new ways of achieving the objectives set. This can only be achieved by human development and not human resource management. What one should note is that human resource development is a branch of human resource management. Whereas human resource management deals with all aspects of human resource, human resource development is aimed at achieving a superior workforce that can work to deliver on the mandates of the organization. In a developing world context, human resource management deals with employee skills development so that they can work in a better way and achieve the goals set more easily. Human resource development can involve informal ways of achieving its goals such as the use of mentorship programmes that are aimed at ensuring that the employees are upgraded in terms of skills and hence become more adapted to handle the various tasks that they are accorded. Effects of Human Resource Development in Developing Countries In the above sections, I have highlighted the roles and the differences of human resource development as well as human resource management common referred to as human resource. There are goals set by human resource sections when initiating the human resource development plans. First the management wants to have an effective workforce that is superior in terms of knowledge and skills. Through programmes such as mentorship which are conducted in the developing countries, the employees are introduced to the real scope of the work they are supposed to handle and corrected on top of being guided on how to go about it. Training is also one of the effective plans that have been put in place to address the inefficiency of the employees which is brought about as a result of poor training or lack of exposure before they are hired to assume their positions in the company. There is a slight difference between the training one receives while in school and the one that one receives while in a given organization as part of training or mentorship. The one at the organization is practical oriented and aimed at ensuring that the employee is exposed to the hardships he/she will encounter in their daily work. At the end of the training the trainers expect that the trainees have achieved the required skills and are capable of addressing any kind of work in the trained areas. The interaction during the training sessions are also important in enhancing healthy relations between the employees and the management. During this time the management is able to figure out and identify exemplary and outstanding individuals who can be mentored to assume positions of responsibility in the future. The human and customer needs keeps on changing. In a developing world concept, the employees are exposed to dealing with customers who have various needs and some of whom cannot express themselves in a good way. The employee therefore needs to receive training so that he can address them effectively rather than call on support when dealing with a stubborn or an ignorant person. Unlike human resource management, human resource development increases ones knowledge and unleashes the capabilities that could have been masked over time. During the training and other human development programs, the trainees are given the environment that can boost their imagination and come up with new ways that can be employed or which have been employed in other regions to address the problems that are in the organization. Career development is an entailing task that calls for the effort of most of the managers and other stakeholders in the organization. During this time, the employee is supposed to address their weaknesses and work extra hard to bring out the strong part out of them so that they can unleash their hidden potential. In most cases, some of the employees are made to serve in positions that do not fit them. Take for instance a person who does not possess good oratory skills having been posted to deal with customers directly. In most cases he will underperform or find himself in tricky situations where he cannot address the customers as expected. Such a position should be filled by a person who is good in public relations and who is able to interact well with customers. Industrial psychology is an important sub-segment of human resource development. It involves introduction of the employee to the workplace dynamics and dealing with other workers in the organization. The employee is rarely to work alone in his position and so understanding how to interact with others and at the same time work for a common goal is of great importance. Therefore, for the organizations to achieve their objectives in the developing countries, they have to adopt human development strategies to boost the employees’ ability as well as address their drawbacks in handling of the mandated tasks. Conclusion Developing countries are often faced with the challenge of lacking qualified and properly trained personnel who can adequately and professionally handle the tasks in a given organisation. This predicament is solved by human resource development which aims at making the employees’ skills and ability to handle a given part of the task better. In that line, it is important to introduce human resource development in such countries as a way of ensuring that the people who have the minimum requirements or have been selected to handle some work in an organisation have the professional know how therefore boosting their precision and delivery on their mandate. Human resource development has gained popularity compared to human resource development on the basis of that human resource development aides at unleashing the employees’ potential in a special way unlike while using the strategies in human resource management. While human resource management will emphasize on the relations between the employee and the management, definition of their roles in the organisation and how to boost their working morale, human resource development will deal with ensuring that the employee is armed with the most updated skills and training that will enhance his working. Adopting the human resource development strategies is a challenging task in the developing countries. First these countries do not have the finances required to fund most of the projects that are supposed to be running. On the contrary, they rely on loans that may come with attached obligations from the countries offering them. Adopting strategies such as employee training as a way of improving on their skills is proving increasingly hard. Some of these organisations find it tough to train their employees for free and at the same time risk losing them to a better boss if the pay they are giving is not appealing. In that line of financial constraints, these countries also have problems getting some machines that would prove important in updating the employees’ knowledge on a given field. This ends up with half-baked employees who in most cases have the theoretical knowhow of the concepts involved in a given issue yet are not introduced to the real application of such concepts. This has been witnessed mainly in the offering of science courses in countries where such is not fully embraced and so the resources available to facilitate the students’ learning are absent. The result will be the formation of practical deficient who are incapable of working in any competitive position unless their skills are updated. The need to adopt human resource development instead of human resource management is therefore advised while dealing with the developing countries. This is the only way that the employees’ efficiency and production can be enhanced. References list: Debrah, Y. A., & Budhwar, P. S. (2002). Human Resource Management in Developing Countries. Rout ledge Research in Employment Relations. Available at. http://www.acehrm.edu.np/documents/iHRM/HRMinDevelopingCountriesBook.pdf DESA. (2014). Human Resources Development. Available at. http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/oesc/humanresources.shtml Farnham, D. (2010). Human Resource Management in Context, 3rd Edition. London: CIPD Publishers. Godard, J. (2014). The Psychologisation of Employment Relations. Human Respource Management Journal. 24(1). 2014. p. 1-18. Habib, N. M. (2012). The Role of developing Countries Governments’ in HRD Programs, The Egyptian Experience. International Journal of Business and Social Science. 3(3), Available at. http://ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_3_No_3_February_2012/28.pdf Hassan, M and Yaqub, M.Z. (2010) Strategic Role of Human Resource Development as Boundary Spanner.  European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences. Hatala, J-P. (2006). Social Network Analysis in Human Resource Development: A New Methodology Human Resource Development Review Vol. 5, No. 1. Holtbrugge, D. (2010) Recruitment and Retention in Foreign Firms in India: a Resource-based View. Human Resource Management, May–June 2010, Vol. 49, No.3. International Labour Organisations. (1996). Human Resource Development in Asia and the Pacific in the 21st Century: Issues and Challenges for Employers and their Organisations. Available at.http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/actemp/downloads/publications/tanhrd2.pdf Japan International Corporation Agency. (n.d). Human Resource Development in Developing Countries. Mardsen-Huggins, S. (n.d). What is Human Resource Development? Available at. Mbongaya, A. I. (2006). Best Perspectives to Human Resource Management. African Centre for Community and Development. Available at. http://www.africancentreforcommunity.com/articles-Dateien/Best%20Perspectives%20to%20human%20resource%20management%20by%20Arrey%20Mbongaya%20Ivo.pdf McGuire, D. (2010). Human Resource Development: Theory and Practice, London, Sage. Foundations of Human Resource Development (Chapter One), available online. http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/36589_01_McGuire_CH_01.pdf Ndam, S. N. (n.d). The Need for Industrial Human Resource Development in Developing Countries. Available at. http://crm.hct.ac.ae/events/archive/tend/014ndam.html O’Donnell, D., McGuire, D. & Cross, C. (2006). Critically Challenging some Assumptions in HRD. International Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 10, No.1.  Online at: http://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/268/1/268.pdf Stewart, J. (2009). What is Human Resource Development? 10th International Conference on Human Resource Development Research and Practice across Europe Theme: HRD: Complexity and Imperfection inPractice, 10th - 12th June 2009 Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. http://www.ufhrd.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/10-1-symposium-hamlin.pdf Taylor, S. (2007). Creating Social Capital in MNCs: the International Human Resource Challenge.  Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 17, no 4. Read More