Understanding Human Resource Development - Essay Example

Running Head: Human Resource Development Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course code: Date of Submission: Introduction Human Resources Development is one of the disciplines within human resource management. Human resource development refers to a discipline that focuses on the people who work for an organization. In essence, the discipline encompasses a set of systematic and planned activities adopted by human resource department in organizations to provide its members with the necessary skills to meet current and emerging demands in the job market (Noe and Wenkler, 2009). With evolutions and transformations in the job market, employee needs skillsthat go beyond the training in classroom in order to be competent. Human resource development includes coaching, group work, and problem solving. It also requires basic employee development that is effective and effective. There are three basic areas of human resource development. These fundamental areas include individual development (personal), career development (professional), and organizational development (CIPD, 2002). The importance and effectiveness of each component varies from one organization to another depending on the nature of their operations, the criticality of human resources to organizational efficiency, and the organization's commitment and focus to improve its human resources (Noe and Wenkler, 2009). However, all the three components have one focus that is,individual performance improvement. Since individual performance improvement is the focus for human resource development program, it is important to incorporate all the three components for effective human resource development program. My Human Resource Development Portfolio The knowledge acquired in class is so useful in designing human resource development strategies and coming up with effective methods of assessing and evaluating their efficiency and effectiveness. Topic such as strategic training, assessment of HRD needs TNA/HRDNI, traditional training methods, training evaluation, employee development, career management and special challenges in career management, and special issues in employee training and development are useful in providing a good base for designing good human resource development strategies. The use of class tutorials, discussion groups, lecture notes, and other materials are useful in understanding the techniques applied in human resource development strategies (Noe and Wenkler, 2009). Attributes of Effective Manger Gary Fayard is one of the most effective managers in the history of corporate world. Having served as Coca Cola’s vice president for over 20 years, Gary Fayard demonstrated strong leadership characters and attributes that are admirable by any manager wishing to dispense his or her leadership activities in an impeccable manner. Since the company’s inception in 1886, its effective leaders like Gary Fayard saw it rise to an international company running errands across the entire globe. His great leadership attributes saw him rise from being director of Pan-American Beverages in 2001 to director of Coca Cola Enterprises Inc. in same year and Chief Financial Officer of The Coca-Cola Company and Executive Vice President of The Coca-Cola Company in late 2001. He served in the position till 2003 he became president of Coca Cola FEMSA S.AB de C.V. Some managers have the ability to inspire and motivate their followers, but many managers as well fail miserably to motivate, inspire, and engage theirs. In most cases, when employees choose to leave a position or abandon their jobs, it is often because of poor management and unfair supervision strategies or poor relationships with people in their working environments(CIPD, 2002). An effective manager like Gary Fayard has the responsibility of ensuring that everyone in his team succeeds in developing his or her career. They also have the responsibility to ensure effective achievement of team’s goals and objectives. For effective management, skills and talents are very important. Effective managers develop their managerial skills through training, mentoring, and experience (Tovey et al., 2004). However, if a manager is void of natural talent, then the chances of becoming effective managers may diminish significantly. The most productive companies are quite proactive in developing effective managers through human resource development programs. Communication, leadership, adaptability, relationships, development of others, and personal development are the common traits for effective managers(CIPD, 2002). The following attributes of effective leadership are helpful in making executives such as Coca Cola’s Gary Fayard very effective. 1. Communication Gary Fayard’s strong and effective communication skills enable him to instruct and listen to other people. Such leaders with effective communication skills are able to critically analyze information and relate it back to their team. They also have the ability to understand, decipher, and relate the organization's goals and objectives back to their employees in order to maintain good performance and productivity. Conversely, ineffective communicators may not be able to have clarity in the information delivered, may not be able to relate information to their team, or even deliver information in an appropriate manner (CIPD, 2002). 2. Leadership Despite their job titles, leadership is a very vital attribute that most managers do not possess or even understand. It is common practice for organizations to promote employees with the best individual performance (Tovey et al., 2004). Seeing the progress of Gary Fayard in Coca Cola, it is evident that good leadership skill is a central key for promotions. True leaders are able to instill trust among employees, provide direction in team or group, and delegate responsibilities among team members. 3. Adaptability The ability to adapt to various works also contributes to effectiveness of a manager. When a manager has the ability to adjust quickly to circumstances that may arise unexpectedly, he is able to lead his team to adapt as well and thus effective achievement of goals (Tovey et al., 2004). With this trait, Fayard would think creatively to come with the best decisions for their teams. 4. Relationship building Effective managers should strive to build personal relationships with their teams. Employees are more likely to exceed expectations when they trust their manager. When managers establish a relationship with employees, it builds trust and employees feel valued. Valued employees are more willing to get the job done right and apply extra effort when needed (Tovey et al., 2004). 5. Developing others The best managers come up with the best strategies to develop other members in their teams and know how such strategies will work effectively. Developing others involves nurturing each individual's talents and motivating them to consolidate their talents towards productivity and achievement of goals (Tovey et al., 2004). 6. Developing themselves Finally, an effective manager is aware of his or her own personal development. In order to achieve successful development of others, managers must first seek to develop their skills and improve them. This attribute results from manager’s willingness to improve his skills and talent for better performance in their leadership positions (Noe and Wenkler, 2009). Just as Fayard developed his skills and nurtured his natural talent, individual development is necessary for effective leadership. Effective management comes with several key components and attributes. Most of these attributes however are not easily achievable. Organizations and companies need to recognize the characteristics associated with successful management, and then come up with effective human resource development program to help employees achieve these traits. Importance of Human Resource Development Human resource development is a key factor in any organization and country as well.This importance is because humans are the agents of development in any level of the society. Human resource development is essential for growth of an organization. Any organizational growth has a close association with the development of its workforce. In changing situation, human resource development is the total system interrelated and interacting amicably with other systems in organizations, thus resulting in organization’s success in production, finance, and marketing. Furthermore, human resource development promotes development of good work culture (Noe and Wenkler, 2009). This is because the exercise improves the efficiency of employees, reverses the effects of boredom and monotony at workplaces, improves communication within an organization, and finally improves creativity of employees while promoting mutual relationship between management and the employees. Effective human resource development also ensures good development of potentialities (CIPD, 2002). This is so because the focus of human resource development manager essentially is to enable employees to self-actualize through a systematic approach by which their existing talents improve through further training. Finally, human resource development ensures a tremendous growth of employees. Human resource development helps employees to know their strengths and weaknesses in their respective fields and enables them to improve their performance through systematic training strategies. It is the responsibility of the management to provide adequate opportunity for the development of human resource and for the development of their talents so that their development will benefit the organizational growth and improve talents (CIPD, 2002). Human Resource Development Strategies that Lead to the Qualities Mentioned Above Human resource development strategy is a plan that defines how the human resources departments would utilize an integrated array predefined activities to develop the human resources to achieve organizational objectives. Several activities help in developing human resource. Most organizations take into consideration various activities and programs aimed at developing their human resources. These activities however vary from one organization to another depending on the complexity of their operations and size of the organization. Nonetheless, I would propose thatmost organizations employ three common activities in their human resource development programs (Tovey et al., 2004). Gary Fayard employed some strategies to develop his human resources for effective achievement of goals and objectives.These activities include training and development, organizational development, and career development. Training and Development Training in this context aims at improving the knowledge, skills, and behaviors of employees at least for the short-term period. Training is important in particular tasks such as employee orientation, skill, and technical training, coaching, and counseling. On the other hand, development entails preparing employees for future responsibilities while on the same time increasing their ability capacity to perform at a current job (Eisenhardt, et al., 2002). Effective development plan entails management training and supervisor development. Organizational Development Organizational development is the process of improving the effectiveness of an organization and taking into consideration employees’ well-being through the application of behavioral science concepts that focus on behaviors at both macro- and micro-levels. Coca Cola developed its organization through effective strategies formulated by its great leaders like Gary Fayard. Career Development According to human resource development, developing employee career is an ongoing process by which employee progress through various stages of development until they reach their maximum level of productivity. For effective achievement of career development in Coca Cola, Gary Fayard came up with good strategies for career planning and career management (Tovey et al., 2004). Furthermore, other strategies such as communication strategies, accountability and ownership strategies, quality strategies, and entrepreneurial strategies are quite important in human resource development. Employee’s accountability and ownershipleads to higher productivity and customer acceleration in organizational set up, hence effective achievement of goals and objectives (Tovey et al., 2004).Quality needs to be fostered in the employees through training and development. Entrepreneurship strategy implies that every employee needs to be an independent entrepreneur within the organization. Once employees are entrepreneurs, they can generate ideas and bring them to reality by using the existing resources and support of the org to create innovative and creative products and services. Challenges in Human Resource Development There are many challenges facing human resource development. Such challenges include changing workforce demographics, competing in global economy, eliminating the skills gap, need for lifelong learning, and the need for organizational learning are among the major challenges facing human resource development. Competition in the global economy challenge future human resource development strategies through realization of new technologies, the dire need for highly skilled employees to stand market competitions, the requirement of cultural sensitivity, and the need for better and effective communication skills (Delahaye, 2005). Another threatening challenge is the need for lifelong learning resulting from constant organizational changes, change in market products, change in operational processes, and change in supply and demand chains. Finally, the need for organizational learning that demands that organizations must be a able to learn, adapt, and change appropriately according to market demands and emerging issues. All these challenges threaten the success of human resource development in most organizations (Delahaye, 2005). Conclusion Human resource management and development seeks to focus on matching the needs of the business with employee needs and development of employees. Organization’s commitment to develop its employee ensures that they do so for improved productivity, performance, fostering employee skills, and nurturing talents. This activity lies under the responsibility of human resource department in every organization. It is the responsibility of human resource to come up with training programs to help employees develop their skills and hence effective achievement of company goals and objectives (Delahaye, 2005). With effective human resource development strategies, employees will be in a position to take up more responsibilities and become effective leaders and managers. This means that effective human resource development strategies will ensure that leaders attain the best leadership attributes necessary for effective management. Such leadership attributes include good communication skills, ability to develop others, adaptability, the ability to develop themselves, and building good relationship with followers. Considering the importance of human resource development, it is necessary that every organization design effective strategies for human resource development in order to achieve maximum productivity and maintain high standards of knowledge within it. Such strategies should entail detailed training programs. Reference Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2002). Training and Development 2002: Survey Report. London: CIPD (also available to download from CIPD website www.cipd.co.uk. (03/12/2012) Delahaye, B. (2005). Human resource development: Adult learning and knowledge management (2nded.). Milton, Qld: John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. Eisenhardt, K.M. and Santos, F.M. (2002). Knowledge-based view: a new theory of strategy?In A. Pettigrew, H. Thomas and R. Whittington (eds) Handbook of Strategy and Management. London: Sage, pp.139-164 Noe, R. A. & Winkler, C. (2009). Employee training and development: For Australia & New Zealand. North Ryde, N.S.W.: McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd. Tovey, M. D. and Lawlor, D. (2004). Training in Australia: Design, delivery, evaluation, management.FrenchsForest, NSW: Pearson Education, Prentice-Hall Read More