Performance Reviews – Its Objectives and Criterions
Review of performance once or twice in a year provides an objective or a sense of focus on the key performance or development issues. Performance review meetings form the basis for enabling both the managers and the individuals to positively explore ways for improving the performance in the near future and to identify solutions for […]
3 Cs of Employee Engagement
A major percentage of employees find their work boring. Ask HR managers about employee engagement and they have only one answer: it is the biggest challenge that we are facing today. Days of huge increase in wages or salaries even in highly productive organisations have gone. It is unable to retain employees within the organisation […]
Is a Four Day Workweek the Answer to the Epidemic Of Stress And Burnout?
A 4 Day Workweek Can Be the Game Changer That Corporate America Needs With record numbers of professionals and workers quitting their jobs and with Millions more experiencing stress and burnout, worried business leaders like Satya Nadella and Sundar Pitchai among others, have called on corporates to explore ways and means of halting this slide […]
Evolution of Competency Based Assessment
Competency based assessment owes its genesis to the traditional method of Job analysis where a detailed description explored how a job is done. It was used as a decision tool for a number of HR processes like hiring, promotions etc. Job Analysis however had minimal or no reference to the knowledge, skills and attitudes required […]
How Employee Engagement helps in Change Management ?
Various independent and organisation based studies have revealed that employee engagement is the heart and soul of the change management process. Multiple researches at highly productive and reputed organisations seeking new competitive advantages in this ever changing business environment have exposed that the higher level of engagement, involvement and dedication of employees is the primary […]
This module covers the HRD function in organizations from a wide variety of perspectives. At the outset, after the introduction to the module in the previous article, it is time to look at some theoretical perspectives about the HRD function.
When the field of management science and organizational behavior was in its infancy, the HRD function was envisaged as a department whose sole role was to look after payroll and wage negotiation. This was in the era of the assembly line and manufacturing where the HRD function’s purpose was to check the attendance of the employees, process their pay and benefits and act as a mediator in disputes between the management and the workers. Concomitant with the rise of the services sector and the proliferation of technology and financial services companies, the role of the HRD function changed correspondingly.
For instance, the RBV or the Resource Based View of organizations was conceptualized to place the HRD function as a department that would leverage the human resources from the perspective of them being sources of strategic advantage.
The shift in the way the human resources were viewed as yet another factor of production to being viewed as sources of competitive advantage and the chief determinant of profits was mainly due to the changing perceptions of the workforce being central to the organization’s strategy. For instance, many software and tech companies as well as other companies in the service sector routinely identify their employees as the chief assets and something that can give them competitive advantage over their rivals. Hence, the HRD function in these sectors has evolved from basic duties and is now looked upon as a critical support function.
With the advent of globalization and the opening up of the economies of several nations, there was again a shift in the way the HRD function was conceptualized. In line with the RBV and the view of the resources as being international and ethnically diverse, the HRD function was thought of to be the bridge between the different employees in multiple locations and the management.
The present conceptualization also means that employees have to be not only motivated but also empowered and enabled to help them actualize their potential.
The point here is that no longer were employees being treated like any other asset. On the contrary, they were the center of attraction and attention in the changed paradigm. This called for the HRD function to be envisaged as fulfilling a role that was aimed at enabling and empowering employees instead of being just mediators and negotiators.
Finally, the theory of HRD also morphed with the times and in recent years, there has been a perceptible shift in the way the HRD function has come to encompass the gamut of activities ranging from routine tasks like hiring and training and payroll to actually being the function that plays a critical and crucial role in the employee development.
The theory has also transformed the function from being bystanders to the organizational processes to one where the HRD function is the layer between the management and employees to ensure that the decisions made at the top are communicated to the employees and the feedback from the employees is likewise communicated to the top.
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