Strategic Human Resource Development - Essay Example

Strategic Human Resource Development The Human Resource Development (HRD) field has become more and more complex, and its growth has been directly linked to the attitudes of people about work, the evolution of employment-related laws and several significant sociological trends. Recent trends in the HRD field show recognition of the dynamic relationship of strategy, people, technology, and the driving forces of organizations. Evolving from the mere concept of workforce management through crudely set-up working arrangements between master craftspeople and their apprentices dating back before the Industrial Revolution, Human Resource Development has now again taken a new face, coping with the inevitably constantly changing trends in the rapidly globalizing world. A strategic perspective has been employed to HRD to keep it relevant to the changing needs of the companies. According to Garavan et.al. (1995), there are triggering factors that have pushed for the emergence of a Strategic Human Resource Development (SHRD). These factors include: (1) the need for new technology as a result of significant changes in the company’s processes, the redesigning of managerial work, the erosion of the difference between technical and general managers borne of decision support systems, the availability of important information and knowledge even at the lower levels, and the need of the market for a more rapid development; (2) the drive for quality as pushed by business pressures requiring higher quality product designs and services, necessity for deeper understanding of international standards within the context of top-quality programmes, and the need to know how to satisfy the customer; (3) the advent of new competitive arrangements as consequences of the changes in regulatory contexts like privatization, deregularization and changing into agency status, increased joint venture and strategic alliance arrangements, and the growing number of mergers, diversifications, takeovers and acquisitions; (4) the inevitable internationalization of business which consequently bring about the so-called globalization of markets and the emergence of relatively new economic groupings like the European market or the Pacific Rim region; (5) the need for more flexible and responsive organization which entails decentralized systems in mature and declining industries, pressures for performance improvement, moving from highly bureaucratic systems, and increase of small firms growing from start-up, maturity and decline stages; (6) the need to cope with limited supply of resources due to demographic pressures, staff’s limited mobility, mismatch of academic preparation from that of organizational demands, and the growing demand of individual employees for their own personal development (ibid.). Strategic Human Resource Development (SHRD), in other words, is necessary for companies and organizations to stay competitive amidst the fierce competition they face in the rapidly globalizing economy. Let us take for instance the case of PowerCo, an international energy company with huge annual sales and with more than 13,000 employees. With a strategic aim of eventually becoming the leader in the industry, PowerCo has somehow taken measures to achieve such goal. One significant measure is the creation and development of PowerCo Learning, a specialist unit purposely for the provision of management and professional development programs and in-house training for the lower level employees. As the company’s expressed commitment to the lifelong learning of its entire staff, as well as of its belief in sharing with the communities supporting its operations the company’s success and resources, PowerCo Learning unit operates with the mission statement: “Whoever you are, you have the power to become what you want to be.” Although apparently an external or a separate unit from the main operations unit of PowerCo, PowerCo Learning unit adheres to the same corporate values as the former, which mainly include: (1) Safety and security, ensuring highest levels of industrial safety and seeing to it that there is continuous improvement in health and safety performance; (2) Well-earned customer loyalty, constantly aiming to deliver quality and value for money services, enhancing and influencing customer needs; (3) Enhanced Shareholder Value, by creating shareholder value through building businesses and continuously seeking opportunities for more advantageous gains compared to competitors; (4) Positive working environment by seeking to provide a positive working environment to inspire employees towards fulfilling their full potential and maximizing their contribution to the company; (5) Trust of communities, maintaining their respect and trust by recognizing and responding to the needs, both locally and at wider environmental levels; and, (6) Teamwork and leadership, putting continuing importance on the way they work together and increasing focus on developing our team-working skills. As PowerCo moves towards its goal, however, it has realized various problems that it has to address, otherwise it will cease to be competitive in the industry. As the interview with the company HR director showed, there are various areas of improvement in the way the company handles its HR affairs. For instance, the company’s in-house specialist HRD staff mainly do the training needs assessment instead of the line managers who know more about their staff needs and the jobs’ needs. Also, the company relies too much on external training providers who develop and design trainings for PowerCo staff at somewhat excessive price. This does not allow internal innovations and creativity among the departments. Besides, external service providers tend to generalize too much, seeing one company like all the others. Further, technical people like engineers have been bombarded with trainings primarily focused on people skills instead of on keeping them updated with the latest technical and technological advances in the field of engineering. Also lacking has been mechanisms for knowledge transfer to ensure that those who learn are able to share the knowledge, especially that there are apparent gaps in the engineering career management where there are very few potential successors. This has been worsened by the fact that those in the UK are reluctant to move, happy as they are with their posts. Added to these, PowerCo still has that paternalistic dependency culture where most staff, especially those at the lower levels, rely on the PowerCo Learning unit to plan and develop their careers for them. Perhaps also due to what the lower level staff see that most trainings or talent management tend to be focused at the top. Critically assessing PowerCo, it is clear that a strategic approach to human resource development is necessary for the company to solve most, if not all, of its issues and concerns as presented. Walton (1999) defines SHRD, as a field that looks at ensuring the presence of processes within an organization that would facilitate learning; at ensuring that appropriate stewardship is exercised over the learning process; as well as giving appropriate direction to ensure that core competencies of organizations are enhanced through learning. Another definition of SHRD is from McCracken and Wallace (2000), which states that SHRD is the development of a learning culture with a range of training, development and learning strategies to respond to corporate strategies as well as to assist in shaping and influencing it. From the different models of SHRD, it is clear that the PowerCo case is using the Training Maturity Model, which, as described by Lee (1996), has no systematic training, has tactical training but isolated, its training is mostly integrated with operational management, uses training as the means to implement corporate strategy and to achieve change, where training and learning possibilities influence the shaping of strategy, and where training and learning are processes used to formulate strategy. To elaborate further, it can be said from the case presented that the SHRD in PowerCo is regarded as an outside or external service provider only, in that it is not ingrained in every facet and level of the organization, structurally or otherwise. It is viewed as something that does not necessarily concern the employees or the company itself. It is only used as a tool to reach out to the company’s communities and to carry out trainings and other human resource activities in keeping with the corporate goals and objectives that it carries. Thus, it has been so easy to rely on other external service providers to design and conduct training and other development activities for the company. What the external suppliers of the company can do is to influence the company to embrace and implement a comprehensive strategic human resource development, by placing some pressure on the company, especially on the critical issues of carbon emissions and other such environmental issues which surely would cause the company to act. To reiterate what has been pointed out earlier, external pressures from partners and suppliers can effectively help the PowerCo change positively. As Garavan et.al. (1995) stresses, one of the driving forces that influence the implementation of SHRD in an organization is the drive for quality, wherein business brings about pressure for higher quality product design and the delivery of better services, as well as the requirement for deeper understanding of international customer-supplier working by top-quality programmes. Ultimately, it is the pressure of having to know how to deliver what the customer wants. The position of the PowerCo in reviewing its human resource development vis-à-vis the issues enumerated earlier like the maximization of internal sources as training needs assessors as well as resource persons to create a culture of knowledge-sharing, as well as the minimization of external service providers in order to minimize on costs, is already an indication of an organization that is gearing towards survival and equipping itself to face fierce competition in a globalizing world. It is, thus, quite ready for the SHRD to provide the necessary solutions to the company’s woes. It is imperative, however, for the kind of industry and the kind of organizational structure of PowerCo to adopt an SHRD Model that would best suit it and help propel it into a leading international energy company that it aims to be. Among the SHRD Models, PowerCo would best be helped to consider implementing Garavan’s (1991) concept of SHRD, with nine characteristics, which are the following: (1) SHRD is integrated with the organization’s mission and goals; (2) SHRD is well-supported by top management of the organization, ensuring control of resources and centrality of decisions; (3) SHRD conducts or is based on sound and comprehensive environmental scanning; (4) SHRD is complete with HRD plans and policies; (5) SHRD ensures that line managers are committed and involved; (6) SHRD ensures the existence of complementary human resource management activities; (7) SHRD provides for expanded trainer role among staff and employees from within the organization; (8) SHRD recognizes and respects cultural diversity; and, (9) SHRD puts emphasis and importance on evaluation. With these characteristics of SHRD as proposed by Garavan (1991), PowerCo’s HR issues and perhaps confusions will somehow be eased and resolved. A quick review of these issues vis-à-vis the SHRD characteristics will provide a better understanding of this point. Strategic Human Resource Development as emphasized by Garavan (1991) being an integral part of the organization’s mission and goals will ensure that PowerCo’s corporate values and goals are carried out to the internal clients which are basically the organization’s employees and staff, as well as its external clients which are basically its community partners, customers and suppliers. As pointed out by Dotchin and Oakland (1994 as cited by Maxwell et.al. in 2004), it is important to ensure that employees take part in ensuring quality service since their roles and behavior are more important than the manufactured products themselves. SHRD being well-supported by top management is essential, otherwise, PowerCo’s changes and innovations towards improving its services will never be implemented and materialized as planned or proposed. This is key to the success of a successful SHRD, especially that budgetary requirements entail the implementation of SHRD plans. This is also related to the characteristic of SHRD having plans and policies. This will be impossible without clear and full support from the top management. It is essential that sound and comprehensive environmental scanning is used as basis for SHRD activities and plans of PowerCo, especially that it deals with very high profile industry – energy – which has implications on several high profile global issues like environmental degradation, global warming and other such issues that keep the world aware nowadays. PowerCo’s concerns on training, on training roles, etc. can also be resolved through SHRD. Since it ensures the commitment and involvement of line managers, ensures complementary human resource activities, and seeks to expand training roles from within the organization, dependence on external training providers will eventually be minimized if not totally eliminated, saving the organization from excessive and actually unnecessary costs of outsourcing. Aside from this, more customized, tailor-fit trainings as designed and developed by committed line managers from within the organization, will yield better results. Innovativeness and creativity, as well as the culture of knowledge sharing, will be developed among peers and among superiors and subordinates. As well, sense of responsibility for the others’ development will be subconsciously developed among supervisors or line managers. Added to these, the mere fact that line managers will have expanded training roles and responsibilities, will uniquely keep them involved in the training and development of their own subordinates or team members, which will help a lot since they themselves already know their subordinates’ limitations, strengths, and areas for improvement. In other words, external, detached training needs assessors are taken off the layer, thus the ease in implementing training and development activities. With equal emphasis on respect for culture and cultural diversity, SHRD explicitly tackles matters regardless of cultural limitations and therefore, suits well PowerCo’s highly diverse cultural groupings. Further, SHRD’s emphasis on evaluation only ensures that it will be a continuing process of change for the better, ensuring that PowerCo reaches its goal and keeps itself up. In conclusion, SHRD is the only way that PowerCo can keep up with the changing times. As PowerCo struggles to gain its foothold in the international energy industry arena, its most potent resources – human resources – need to be handled as most appropriately and as most carefully as possible, given the trend in decreasing or limited available qualified human resources due to various factors in society. Translated into realistic terms, the fast pace by which technological advances as well as socio-economic and socio-political trends take shape in the rapidly globalizing world, where economies have no boundaries and limits, it is imperative for organizations or companies to cope. As a way of coping, it is helpful to change from within. Re-shape, reform the way human resource development is done by making it a strategic part of the whole organization. There are a growing number of literatures available about SHRD, thus there is no excuse for organizations not to be able to adopt it to make their organizations still relevant and able to play along the other players in their respective industries. It is a waste of precious time and resources for HR practitioners not to adopt the SHRD concept. The message is clear: there is no other way to stay in business other than be strategically relevant. References Garavan, T.N. (1991) ‘Strategic human resource development’, Journal of European Industrial Training, vol.15, no.1, pp.17-30. Garavan, T.N. (2007) ‘A strategic perspective on human resource development’, Advances in Developing Human Resources, vol.9, no.1, pp.11-30. Garavan, T.N., Costine, P., & Heraty,N. (1995) ‘The emergence of strategic human resource development’, Journal of European Industrial Training, vol.19,no. 10, pp.4-10. Harrison, R. (2002) Employee Development, 3rd ed, London: CIPD. Maxwell,G. et.al. (2004) ‘Quality service in the international hotel sector: A catalyst for strategic human resourcedevelopment?’, Journal of European Industrial Training, vol.28, no.2/3/4, pp.159-182. McCracken, M. and Wallace, M. (2000) Exploring strategic maturity in HRD: Rhetoric, aspiration or reality? Journal of European Industrial Training, vol.24, no.8, pp.425-467. Walton, J. (1999) Strategic Human Resource Development, Great Britain: Pearson Education Ltd. Read More