Contemporary Issues Influencing HR Development In Organizations - Coursework Example

CONTEMPRARY ISSSUES CONFRONTING HRD PROFESSIONALS AND INFLUENCE HRD PROCESS IN ORGANIZATIONS Name Course Tutor Date Introduction There has been a rising concern expressed by most management studies over the field of Human resource Development. According to McGuire & Cseh (2006) most researchers have therefore delved into this field turning every stone to make the management understand the concept of HRD and its importance. Human resource development (HRD) refers to a structure aimed at helping the employees of an organization develop their personal and organizational skills, knowledge, and abilities (Okoye & Ezejiofor, 2013). HRD concerns itself with employee training, career development, performance management, succession planning, mentoring, tuition assistance, organizational development, coaching and key employee identification within the organization (Okoye & Ezejiofor, 2013). As such, HRD is mainly aimed at developing a superior workforce that will enable a balanced achievement of both individual and organizational goals (McGuire & Cseh, 2006). HRD can either take the formal or informal form. However, successful organizations take care of both forms for efficiency (Fenwak, 2005). For an organization to perform exemplarily in the current globalised world, there must be a committed workforce contribute to the organizational success (Okoye & Ezejiofor, 2013). The role of HRD professionals should not be overlooked in organizations being that they are the one charged with the duty of developing and rolling out HRD. The core function of the HRD professionals is to ensure that there are HRD strategies that are geared towards learning culture and foster continuous employee learning. This is a clear indication that the professionals have to come up with new approaches in maximizing organizational effectiveness, addressing the organizational problems and ensures the organization achieves good learning outcomes (McGuire & Cseh, 2006). However, there has been a shift on the view of HRD and thus the rise of contemporary preventing the HRD professionals from performing well as they should. Additionally, there has been a plethora of factors that affect the HRD processes in an organization. This paper explores the contemporary issues that affect HRD professionals as it equally looks at the factors that influence the HRD process in an organization. Contemporary Issues Confronting HRD Professionals The war of talents and the need to become the employee of choice has made the HRD field to be perturbed a great deal. The HRD professionals are therefore faced with a myriad of challenges. First off, organizations are fighting to become global so as to reap from the globalized business world. This has meant expanding into different countries as well as having in place a diversified workforce. As this happens, people from different backgrounds are merged together. This together with the fact that the world has become a global village makes the HRD professionals to face cultural challenges (Fenwak, 2005). The first phase of the challenge is on the diversified workforce itself and the second on the difference in culture across countries (Bierema & Callahan, 2014). The professionals are therefore forced to come up with strategies that incorporate the diversity in culture (Fenwak, 2005). The enhancement of knowledge has and continues to be a challenge to the HRD professionals. This is because they have to get an understanding of different philosophies that are applied in various parts of the world. There has been the rise of more women and other minorities from different ethnicities in the contemporary workforce (Singh & Dhawan, 2014). The HRD professionals must be tolerant and understanding towards the workforce at all cost (Singh & Dhawan, 2014). There are gaps in knowledge and learning capacity presented when the workforce is diversified (Fenwak, 2005). As such the HRD professionals have to conduct research so as to integrate the needs of the workers without discrimination. A problem sets in especially when the employees in question are older people (Bierema & Callahan, 2014). With regard to their level of education and learning curve developing them consumes too much time. Wang et al (2008) ridicules the western management principles and theories stating that they are much different from the cultural values of Chinese people as well as lack applicability there. The only way to solve this is to integrate the HRD practices with the cultural practices of China for effective HRD (Wang et al, 2008). Technology is very dynamic and keeps on changing as time progresses. The rate at which news technologies are replacing the old technologies especially in the manufacturing and business world is astounding (Bing, Kehrhahn, & Short, 2008). Employees are not left behind in embracing new technology into their daily practices. Bing et al (2008) opine that they use such technologies to boost their knowledge on how to improve their skills, develop new behaviors at work and master vital work practices that ensure their suitability in the organization. However, this is being pushed on the employees by the organizations as a mean of motivating them. The new technologies and systems are of less importance without the intervention of HRD professionals (Bierema & Callahan, 2014). HRD professionals in this case are challenged to promote meaningful interaction between and across teams. This includes the virtual teams whose diverse participants are need help so as to acquire capabilities for engaging in the virtual communities (McGuire & Cseh, 2006). HRD professionals must have expertise and be credible enough to play a leading role in the creation of knowledge based productive environments (Singh & Dhawan, 2014).HRD professionals are therefore faced with the challenge of upgrading their skills regularly in order to keep up with the pace and meet the requirements of the new generation. The HRD professionals have to ensure that they are a step ahead in initiating change in the organizations so as to ensure that there are high performing teams (McGuire & Cseh, 2006). There is also need to reduce the cycle time for innovation and training and development so as to avoid clashing with the ultimate productivity of the organization (Bierema & Callahan, 2014). This calls for the professionals to keep upgrading their skills so as to cope up with the work dynamics in the contemporary world (Abdullah, 2009). It is also through this that the professionals are able to assess the technological needs of the organization and make recommendations where necessary (Sthapi, 2010). The quest for knowledge workers over non-knowledge workers in the contemporary workplace has made the HRD practitioners to hire technical expertise and competent workers (Sthapi, 2010). It is a known fact that the technical and vocational training institutions do not have the capacity to produce a workforce well equipped for the current workplace. The practitioners are therefore faced with the challenge of hiring skilled workers who have the knowledge required (Sthapi, 2010). The process of developing and retaining these workers has also been a challenge for the practitioners. The rate of labor mobility in organizations is unappealing; this has caused organizations to lose some of the employees they have spent too much resources and time developing (Singh & Dhawan, 2014). Most of the employees who are currently seeking employment have the necessary training a job requires. This makes the existence of the professionals in the organization null (Bierema & Callahan, 2014). Additionally, most organizations would require the employee to take a personal initiative of career development and training. In the event that the HRD is outsourced the HRD professionals must be on the knowhow of the organizational structures and integrate them with the training and development. The other main duty of the HRD professionals is to foster learning and development in the workplace. While performing this important task, HRD professionals have been facing problems relating to employee attitude and behavior (Abdullah, 2009). The complete integration between the managers that is line and senior managers and the HRD professionals is lacking (Sambrook, 2011). This has been exacerbated by the educational gap between the two and the organizational chart that places the managers over HRD professionals. This confronts the HRD professionals in delivering their duties effectively (Singh & Dhawan, 2014). On the same issue of attitude and behavior the low level employees may also resist going for training and development mainly because they have pessimistic attitudes and are resistant to change (Sambrook, 2011). Most employees are also knowledgeable. This makes the HRD professionals to come up with suitable performance measurement standards especially when selecting employees for talent development and succession planning. Organizations are turning from the old ways of looking at the success of the organizations. Most organizations look at the fiscal statements as a measure to determine their values. The HRD professionals are confronted to demonstrate the value of HRD to the stakeholders (Fenwak, 2005). There are also substitutes to HRD through such avenues as outsourcing that continuously makes the chances of existence of the HR professionals in an organization slim (Tabibi et al, 2011). The managers must prove to the multiple stakeholders that they have credibility, applicability, competence and can contribute to the competitive advantage of the employees (Hamlin, Ellinger, & Beattie, 2008). The professionals must ensure that there are alternative cost effective ways of training and developing the contemporary workforce. They should be inclined towards making the organization have the best and knowledgeable workers compared to the rest however similar the workforce maybe (Sambrook, 2011). There are organizational changes that must be applied for efficiency. This includes dignity of the employee, effective leadership, and clear conscience relationship between the organization and the stakeholders. The HRD professionals are therefore challenged to cope up with the changes and ensure that the employees are not resistant to the strategies that they formulate (Sambrook, 2011). The HRD professionals must also be conversant with various components of performance management (Okoye & Ezejiofor, 2013). The Professionals also must undergo training themselves on how to integrate the training needs of the organizations and the performance management systems (Sthapi, 2010). This is because failure to do so may aggravate the chances of employees who have been trained and developed, hoping from the job to other jobs or organizations with effective systems (Sthapi, 2010). This has been exacerbated by the rise of information and technology as well as increased awareness of the contemporary employee over their autonomy to make decisions. Factors Influencing HRD in Organizations The aforementioned factors affect the HRD professionals posing a challenge to them to work extra hard in ensuring that the organization has the best workforce. The factors can also influence the HRD process of organization too. However, in the context of the organizations, the factors discussed below have been presented by most management literature to affect HRD process in an organization. Human Resource or Capital Human capital still remains the arsenal of HRD in organizations. The workforce is viewed as the driving power behind the success of organizations (Tabibi, Khan, Nasiripour, Vahdat, & Hessam, 2011). This is because of the inherent skills, talents, knowledge as well as experience they bear (Hamlin, Ellinger, & Beattie, 2008). For organizations to compete favorably in the global economy there must be skillful and knowledgeable workers (Benazir & Priya, 2014). These workers must also be continuously groomed with lifelong learning (Benazir & Priya, 2014). The shortage of HRD professionals in the contemporary workplaces greatly hampers the HRD process in an organization. These professionals are responsible for managing vast specialized forms of HRD in the organizations (Sthapi, 2010). Being the most important human capital in the implementation of HRD initiatives, their absence in organizations presents a hazy future for the HRD initiatives (Bing, Kehrhahn, & Short, 2008). For example the process of implementing HRD may be affected if there is shortage of HRD practitioners with the knowhow of needs analysis, evaluation and follow-up assessment in the organization (Bing, Kehrhahn, & Short, 2008). Mobility of Labor There has reportedly been a high mobility of labor across the globe. This has been made possible by the labor reforms following the globalization process (Abdullah, 2009). This process has impeded the HRD of most organizations and is a barrier to employees training and development initiatives. Abdullah (2009) asserts that employees have been seen to hop between jobs seeking for better salaries and job satisfaction. There has also been the issue of organizations poaching some of the already developed workers (Fenwak, 2005). It is argued by most authors that the generation x has presented a workforce that is very volatile (Okoye & Ezejiofor, 2013). Organizations tend to weigh the options between developing the new employees and outsourcing (Abdullah, 2009). The process of outsourcing has therefore been considered by most organizations over training and development which forms the core of HRD (Abdullah, 2009). The result of this has been the rejection of this important Human Resource Management tool (Benazir & Priya, 2014). Additionally, the increase in the number of organization s poaching employees has made the implementation of HRD in organizations impossible (Benazir & Priya, 2014). Changing Workforce Dynamics The workforce has been dynamic in the recent years. According to Abdullah (2009) there has been a concern of the increase in the numbers of aged workforce or the so called baby boomer generation (Fenwak, 2005). In similar way, the elite expertise workers also known as gold collar or the generation X workers have exponentially increased (Callahan, 2007). In the developing nations such as USA there is increased number of baby boomers generation workforce. Training and developing this workforce proves difficult and takes quite some good amount of time and resources (Okoye & Ezejiofor, 2013). This is mainly because of the learning abilities and the education levels of such individuals. On the other hand the generation X individuals is very much able and has high bargaining power to take control of their own training and development needs (Benazir & Priya, 2014). The latter results into job hoping making organizations see no need to invest in HRD. Poor Resource Allocation Due to the rising number of alternative ways to get employees and the corresponding increase in the number of knowledge based workers in the job market, resource allocation for HRD in organizations has declined (Callahan, 2007). Most organizations after conducting cost benefit analysis always opt for the methods that assure them of return on investment. Some of the methods that have been used by organizations include outsourcing to agencies that provide the services not provided by the organization as well as creating conditions that lure already trained and developed professionals (Fenwak, 2005). This has ensured stability in organizations cutting the cost. On the contrary, this magical move affects the HRD process of organizations that has the advantage of ensuring sustainability in the workforce (Fenwak, 2005). Poor resource allocation to HRD would mean that the obsolete systems will also not be developed as dictated by change (Fenwak, 2005). Conclusion HRD still remains to be relatively raw field in the annals of management. Globalization and its consequent impacts are jeopardizing both the existence of this powerful field and the HRD professionals. There are issues in the contemporary workforce that that present a challenge to the HRD professionals and thus confronting them. Some of these issues include technological changes, change in workforce demographics, lack of commitment from the management and employees, workforce diversity, change in organizational structure, the changes in organizational practices, and the change in the metrics of organizational success among others. All these factors have aggregated to the need to transform HRD field so as to make it easy for the HRD professionals to fit in the current organizations. Just in the same way there are factors that have made the implementation of HRD into organizations almost impossible. The factors identified to be the major factors causing this include poor resource allocation, the human capital in organizations, the mobility of labor, changing workforce dynamics and technological advancement among other factors. There is a gap between the current research and practice on the factors that affect HRD processes in organizations. Scholars and practitioners should therefore research these factors so as to save HRD amidst the substitutes that are threatening its existence such as outsourcing. References Abdullah, H. 2009. Major Challenges to the Effective Management of Human Resource Training and Development Activities. (2009). The Journal of International Social Research, 2(8): 11-25. Al-Sayyed, N. 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