Human Resources Development in Australia, the US, and the United Kingdom - Literature review Example

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Human Resource Development Introduction Human resources development (HRD) lies central to environmental, social and economic development, and so it is an important element for sustainably realising the development goals and for increasing opportunities for every person, especially the marginalised groups and persons within the society.  As defined by Abdullah (2009, p.487), HRD is the process of empowering individuals through promoting the instrumental capabilities that they possess, and which can be utilised to improve their individual quality of life in addition to that of their families, societies, enterprises and communities. In essence, HRD emphasises on performance learning perspectives, which in consequence benefits the interests of both individuals and shareholders (Senge, 2010). For this reason, Prasad (2012, p.152) describes HRD as an organisational process that is strategically orientated for management of HR growth and is also strategically related to workers’ training and development and the general success of the business. Undeniably, HRD theoretical framework differs from one nation to another because of the political factors, economic influences, the value system of the country, and government legislation (Abdullah, 2009, p.487). Such influences, as it will be evidenced in the paper, are predominantly influential in shaping HRD. In view of this, this paper seeks to compare Australia, United States, and United Kingdom with regard to how organisations have undertaken human resource development over the last decade by considering constraints such as the Global Financial Crisis and business slow-down. Purpose and Processes of HRD The HRD role as mentioned by Swanson and Holton (2001, p.86) is essential, in sustaining as well as promoting growth, and from training and education point of view, HRD contributes considerably to development of the economy based on improved worker income and productivity. Essentially, the economy comes to be more competitive, innovative and productive when the existing skilled human capability is high. Given that organisations are developed by human resources, they can crumble or soar, and particularly, HRD is complexly associated with the organisation’s fate. As addressed by Khan et al. (2012, p.56), human expertise is maximised and developed by means of HRD processes and must be used so as to benefit both the involved individuals and the sponsoring organisation. Basically, HRD is crucial for the development of the economy since it improves the productivity of workers, considering that economic development relies on the level of industrial production activity, which consequently relies on the human resource productivity. As pointed out by Akinyele et al. (2013, p.153), the HR quality establishes the failure or success of any effort to development, particularly regarding industrial development, international market response, and implementing technical change. Therefore, from this point of view, HRD needs exceptional attention so as to complement economic profile changes of the suggested development regions. As indicated in Abdullah (2009, p.487) study, there are commonalities in the theoretical purposes and concepts of HRD and training and development, given that they both offer learning and education to the human resources with the intention of improving the performance. This view has been backed by numerous scholars who concur that training and development together with HRD can result in improved performance (Abdullah, 2009, p.487). But this view has been refuted by other scholars who hold the view that training and development and HRD differ in their strategies as well as roles, whereby the role of training and development is to extend further than training, to consist HR selection, of counselling and coaching (Abdullah, 2009, p.488). HRD, on the other hand, has been viewed as a business approach and strategy to human resources training and development within the organisation, specifically for organisational and performance improvement. Management development as a process of HRD is the structured process through which managers improve their competencies, skills, as well as knowledge, through either informal or formal learning techniques, with the intention of improving both organisational and individual performance. As stated by CIPD (2014), the successful management of organisations is imperative for the success of the organisation and, more generally, to the well-being of the national economy. Furthermore, a number of critics hold the view that some developed countries like United Kingdom have particular deficiencies with regard to the skills and qualities of its management base in contrast to the managers at the international level (CIPD, 2014). Therefore, this connotes that the managers’ development in helping sustain their performance is essentially an important component of the wider organisational HRD strategies. HRD in Australia, U.S, and United Kingdom Australia has experienced major changes in government reform and policy initiatives, fortified by a considerable deregulation in the labour market in the last one decade. The Australian HRD in the mid-20th century took place within the setting of a centralised, complex, and administratively inflexible system of industrial relations typified by high levels influence from trade unions. This system according to McGraw (2014, p.95) resulted in a rigid work patterns, barely defined as well as fragmented the job-related skill groups, and management control along the lines of an economy rooted in the protectionism of the economy. In general, the collective consequence of such factors resulted in the HRD underinvestment. However, this changed thanks to the reforms that the successive federal governments introduced, which in the previous decade has resulted in changes in HRD. Such reforms as stated by McGraw (2014, p.95) were at first initiated, due to the increasing lack of competitiveness of major industries in Australia in spite of the emerging globalisation. At first, the federal government had to dismantle the protection and trade barriers as well as the deregulation of the labour market. As pointed out by McGraw (2014, p.96), the reform emphasis on competitiveness changed to micro-economic labour market reforms from macro-economic policies and was viewed as generating an innovative culture in the work setting, wherein HRD surfaced as a the possible source of competitive advantage. More changes as well involved far-reaching restructurings to the national vocational training and education, numerous policies intended for encouraging business organisations to invest heavily in HRD, the skill frameworks introduction, the generation of a competitive market for providing training, as well numerous other transformational reforms. Despite such reforms, and regardless of significant difference between industries, it was established by Australian Bureau of Statistics that the general organisational HRD investment had failed to increase. Moreover, the practices within the organisations were still fragmented and were not strategically focused as compared to other developed countries. In spite of the relative economic success of Australia during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), HRD according to McGraw (2014, p.99) was somewhat unaffected. In Australian organisations, HRD is by tradition the main budget to be reduced and the last to be restored in case of economic depression. This can be evidenced by the 2008 GFC, whereby the HRD budgets were cut so that the organisations remain economically viable. Still, the 2011 survey by AHRI established that 71 per cent of the respondents from the 1,164 organisations surveyed had increased or maintained their HRD budgets after the GFC. Contrary, McDonnell et al. (2012) study between 2009 and 2011 established that 51 per cent of the multinational companies in Australia had reduced HRD activity and budgets. In the United Kingdom, the government and the organisations have in the last decade focused on up-skilling the workers as well as creating an emphasis on the life-long learning by means of various initiatives that collectively have significantly impacted the understanding and provision of HRD within the country (Lee, 2004, p.335). Even though such initiatives are steered by the UK government, most of such initiatives are for offering organisations advice and are rooted in the stakeholder perception of HRD. Similar to Australia, the UK government has in the previous years promoted competence across various sectors, with related control of quality, by means of Modern Apprenticeship Frameworks as well as National Occupational Standards, which are managed by Sector Skills Councils. According to Lee (2004, p.335), the Sector Skills Councils are self-governing organisations that were created by the government to offer organisations a say in the delivery and planning of skills and learning, which are crucial processes of HRD. In the United Kingdom, HRD is viewed as somewhat undeveloped and largely Western concept that surfaced from the development and management thinking, and which is shaped by European events and values. In the last decade, the UK has instituted an enormous mobile group of developers as well as trainers, who have been working in groups or individually. The majority of them have professional as well as vocational accreditation. Such individuals have been providing non-qualification development to small and large organisations, functioning as flexible portfolio workforces. In UK, learning is perceived as a competitive advantage and the most influential differentiator possessed by the HRD. The previous decade has demanded learning to take faster, across more cultural boundaries, in diversified places, as well as with more effectiveness. The real challenge that UK organisations have faced with regard to HRD has been how to establish innovative ways of putting learning technologies into practice that can efficiently and effectively deliver influential, strategic, and immediate results (Ruona et al., 2003, p.277). Besides that, UK organisations, especially multinational companies were heavily impacted the GFC, and since then the attention shifted from HRD to issues associated with knowledge management. This is because scores of UK organisations have not heartily integrated knowledge management in their HRD, but since the GFC, the organisations have been playing been concentrating on such initiatives. Prior to the global financial crisis, Modupe (2011, p.3) observed that the UK organisations had placed less emphasis on HRD role in organisational change and development efforts. As compared to UK and Australia, the U.S federal government has no instituted organisation responsible for HRD policy; however, it promotes HRD by means of a decentralised system. For example, for more than a decade the Department of Labour has been responsible for job training and employment, the Department of Education for adults’ vocational education, and HRD in science and technology has been supported by the Department of Energy Kim et al. (2009, p.175). Since the start of the 21st century, the federal HRD policy has concentrated on particular groups or classes like those who are financially vulnerable while the state governments have been concentrating on the local people. Particularly, based on the employment training, a key HRD process, a crucial role is played by the state government as compared to the federal government who as well offer more financial support. Different from that of Australia and the UK, the U.S HRD is conducted at three levels: local, state, and federal. In this case, all government levels in the previous decade have been creating, implementing, and analysing their own HRD plan in line with the state or federal constitution or the labour laws. However the HRD plan from the local, state, and federal government have one thing in common, they acknowledge that all organisations have the freedom to operate independently within the permissible boundaries as well as that strong competition is helpful in maximizing HRD effects. Therefore, the government HRD plans at all levels are designed not to control or supervise the organisations, but for supporting the organisations autonomous efforts as well as for promoting competition. Akin to the United Kingdom, the business slowdowns mainly attributed to the 2008 economic recession helped organisations to understand the significance of HRD. For economic viability, most organisations cut their HRD, but they reinstated after the recession. And since then on-the-job training, as well as self- development, have increased tremendously within the organisations. Moreover, organisations supporting HRD were motivated by the global financial crisis to increase their HRD. In UK, HRD was in the past considered as a cost instead of investment, and even though this has certainly changed in a number of organisations in UK, CIPD (2010, p.8) posits that majority of UK organisations offering support to training and development are not performing well as compared to those from other industrialised countries. Poor investment in HRD has been recognised as the key factor in UK’s economic performance, and although this has been changing, the UK is still trapped in low skills, low-usage economy where organisations still compete on price instead of quality. This, however, has changed after the government introduced measures to reduce skills gaps and heighten skill levels. This in consequence has resulted in the accumulation of human capital and its successful investment in UK economic development. Global Financial Crisis and Business Slow-down Evidently, the 2007/2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent business slow-downs and economic turmoil did pose numerous challenges to practitioners as well as scholars in the HRD field. The credit started with a credit squeeze in 2007 and resulted in massive losses in the stock market as well as the downfall of numerous global financial institutions in 2008 (Kingsley, 2012). Generally, the developed economies governments at first responded with several stimulus packages, and later with measures for economic austerity. Since then, the global economy has experienced stagnation or slow growth and scores of developed countries, consequently endured prevalent deflation. Expectedly, since the GFC, organisations in UK, US, Australia, and those in other developed countries experienced extensive economic uncertainties which resulted in numerous HRD challenges. Until now, the above-mentioned countries have been experiencing varying HRD and economically associated responses across the globe. Whereas the U.S. and the United Kingdom have continued experiencing long economic recession periods as well as the ensuing budget crises, Australia have experienced an increased HRD and economic growth. Traditionally, the United States labour market was considered to be highly dynamic and flexible, but recently it has been trending down thanks to the numerous labour market turnover measures. Moreover, reduced dynamism in the U.S labour market has resulted in the macroeconomic implications, whereby lower mobility in the labour market has obstructed labour resources reallocation, and consequently has resulted in labour market recoveries (Cairó, 2013, p.2). Besides that, lower job reallocation has improved on-the-job human capital incentives formation; hence resulting in productivity improvement as well as possibly reduced joblessness as well as higher job stability, especially in UK and US. The previous decades has evidently offered organisations in the three reviewed countries with a fresh opportunity to reflect on the type of world they desire to operate in. The present HRD plans are focusing on addressing the multifaceted needs of the human performance. Conclusion In conclusion, it has been argued that internationalisation, as well as globalisation, has considerably impacted the economic as well as business activity of all organisations at both the international and the national level. This in consequence has impacted the HRD. With regard to the global financial crisis, it has been argued in the paper that organisations experience turmoil as well as changes at all organisational levels, but an effective HRD plan can offer a valuable conceptual framework for managing organisations so as to manage effectively the crisis facing the organisation. From the above review, it is evident that Australian organisations consider individualised and short-term focus as the main driver for HRD investment driver, but this strategy is neglecting the long-term concerns of strategic HRD. In the United Kingdom HRD has for long been disregarded as a cost, and so the HRD investment has for years been misdirected with regard to overall competency of the organisation and this has been a concern for both government and HRD practitioners. The U.S., on the other hand, understands the value of HRD, and most of its HRD policies are met to promote completion amongst organisations and not to supervise or control them. References Abdullah, H., 2009. Definitions of HRD: Key Concepts from a National and International Context. European Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 10, no. 4, pp.486-95. Akinyele, S.T., Adegbuyi, O., Ogbari, M. & Ahamdu., F.O., 2013. Influence Of Human Resource Development Programs On Workers Job Security In Industrial Organizations : Empirical Evidence From Mobil Oil Nigeria. BVIMSR’s Journal of Management Research, vol. 5, no. 2, pp.151-60. Cairó, I., 2013. The Slowdown in Business Employment Dynamics: The Role of Changing Skill Demands. Job Market Paper. 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