Assignment on Human Resource Management (HRM) (Sample-5)

 
1.      Introduction:

Human resource development is accountable for development and training of the employees. It includes training a person after his first entrance in the company; arrange some scope to learn new skills and knowledge, allocating resources that are really helpful for the employee’s tasks and any other improvement activities. It is a part of corporate culture; it is a continuous and systematic process which allows identifies, maintain and promote personal performance and learning.
HRD is responsible to meet quantitative and qualitative demand for human resource in a sustainable way and it is also responsible to give weight of employee’s skills and interest. Today’s world is very challenging and everyday there is technical improvement. So it is very important to stay in right track all the times and for this task employee’s development and learning is very important. If all the members of an organization become skillful it is relatively easy to gain success. HRD ensures employees efficiency in an organization.     

2.      Understand the role of human resource development within organizations:

2.1  Compare and contrast 3 pioneer definitions of the term ‘human resource development’ (HRD)

According to the McLagan (1989), “Human Resource Development is the integrated use of training and development, career development and organizational development to improve individual and organizational effectiveness”. He focused on training development, career development and organizational development.

Watkins (1989) mentioned that “Human Resource Development is the field of study and practice responsible for the fostering of a long-term, work-related learning capacity at the individual, group and organizational level of organizations. As such, it includes- but is not limited to- training, career development and organizational development”. He concentrated on learning capacity training and development, career development, organizational development.

Gielly and England prescribed that “Human resource development is organized learning activities arranged within an organization to improve performance and/or personal growth for the purpose of improving the job, the individual and/or the organization”. His gave his theory on basis on learning activities, performance improvement.   

2.2  Assess the need for human resource development in organizations.

Human resource is very important as it helps to facilitate those things to the organization:

1.      Training and Development: it provides development and training to managers and employees. It improves their skills, efficiency, qualifications and qualities.

2.      Organizational development: it maintains good relations throughout the organization. It solves resistance to change, low productivity, internal conflicts and problems of absenteeism.

3.      Career Development: it provides employee’s career planning and development. It informs employees about future promotional position and how to reach there.

4.      Performance appraisal: it conducts potential appraisal, performance appraisals, etc. It informs employees regarding their weakness and strength and how to increase strength and how to overcome weaknesses.

5.      Multidisciplinary: It uses many different subjects like economics, communication, psychology, management and education to train up and develop the employees.

6.      Key element for solving problems: organization faces many problems for social, technological and economic changes and those can be solved by creative effort skills and knowledge. HRD provides those supports. 

7.      Continuous in nature: HRD is a continuous process and it never stop as change is continuous in the environment and organization.

8.      Integrated use of sub-system: it has many subsystems like training, career planning, potential appraisal, and performance appraisal.

9.      Placement: it places right man in right job on basis of training, potential appraisal, and performance appraisal. Placement increases employee’s efficiency.

10.  Promotions and transfer: it gives transfers and promotion to the employees based on performance

11.  Motivation by reward: it also motivates employees by providing financial and non-financial reward for suggesting new ideas, performing and behaving betters. [2]

2.3  Evaluate the internal and external barriers to Learning and Development

There are external and internal barrier in an organization.

External Barriers

It arises from external environment and organization has little or no influence or control over it. The initial stage of identifying external barriers is to look at the organizations main shareholders like general public, supporters, other organizations and founders. If there are problems between founders it is really impossible to overcome those barriers. Competitions between organizations is another main barriers like suddenly one company provides goods and services with low price and high quality which cause huge loss as customers and public will move to new company.   

Internal Barriers

Sometimes employees feel the internal environment is very difficult to learn. These are often expressed in terms of “If only our organisation..., was structured differently..., seemed to value learning..., put enough resources into learning..., did not have a ‘blame’ culture...” and so on. There are some barriers at an organizational level and other inter-personal or even psychological level. Inter-personal conflict, organization-employee conflict has very adverse impact on organizational performance.   

Individuals may experience psychological barriers to learning as a result of:

·         Previous bad experience

·         Need for simple solutions

·         Cynicism

·         Lack of time

·         Lack of motivation

·         Lack of confidence

·         Old habits

·         Self-image

·         pride [3]

3.      Be able to critically analyze learning and development theory.

3.1  Evaluate learning and development theories (Mention and explain 3 theories discussed in the lecture).

David A. Kolb give his theory based on the experiential learning theory and he explained “Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development” (1984).The ELT model has two approaches to gain experience like abstract conceptualization and concrete experience and two approaches for transforming experience: active experimentation and reflective observation. According to him, all effective learning processes must contain these four elements [4].

The Honey & Mumford stages are:

1.     Having an experience

2.     Reviewing the experience

3.     Concluding from the experience

4.     Planning the next steps.

All the stages have related styles and they are names as activist, reflector, theorist and pragmatist. The Honey & Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ) is a self-development tool and it is not as Kolb’s learning style. Here managers have to complete a work-related behavioural checklist without asking them how they learn. Managers have to asses themselves regularly to learn various things form everyday experiences. [5]

Dennis W. Mills discusses the work of Anthony F. Gregorc and Kathleen A. Butler in his article entitled "Applying What We Know: Student Learning Styles". Gregorc and Butler worked to organize a model describing how the mind works. This model is based on the existence of perceptions—our evaluation of the world by means of an approach that makes sense to us. These perceptions in turn are the foundation of our specific learning strengths, or learning styles. This model has two perceptual qualities: abstract and concrete and two ordering abilities: random and sequential. [5]

3.2  Evaluate the concepts of Personal and Organization Development

Personal development deals with improving personal performance whereas organizational development deals with improving a company’s performance. Personal development is a part of organizational development. Organizational development has some methodologies and processes like balance between life and work, diversity, coaching, leadership development, organizational design and strategic planning. For doing profitable and stable business there are no other option except skilled, strong and complete employees and managers. Personal development focuses on regular employee’s self-improvement, creativity, assertive confidence, setting personal goal and follow the gut, management ability and emotional intelligence. Organizational development has various planned interventions and techniques which are implemented on organizational structure, human resources and processes within the organization. It includes various activities to improve organizational environment and performance. It analyzes informal and formal parts of the organization. Formal parts are the compensation, human resources, policy, structure, objectives and informal parts are social relationships, attitudes, values. The main purposes of organizational development are solving problems and helping people to acquire knowledge and improve skills. Personal development is the part of organizational development and organizational reputation and outcomes depend on personal development. Personal development activities are consisting of training, learning skills and education, providing feedback and motivation and so on.  [6]

3.3  Identify and explain 4 factors influencing tourist demand in a tourist destination area of your choice.

4 major factors which influence tourism demand are describing in the following portion:

Price Variable

This is the main factor which influences tourist. Tourist mainly focus on travelling or transport cost and living cost. Tourist can visit a place by air, sea and land. If the travelling and accommodation cost is relatively high, generalize tourist are not that much eager to travel that place. Price may vary with place, time, occasion, season and so on. During the summer time, travelling is more expensive than winter. Travelling to Malaysia is more expensive than Maldives.     

Income Variable

Socio-economic factors have an effect on tourism. If the income is high people are willing to travel or visit. If income is low people are reluctant to go for travelling. For accumulating money for travelling people must have good income. Low-income people can travel in the country but it is quite tough to travel international places. Tourism also depends on individual’s leisure time, education and occupation. 

Political Variable

Political stability and security is another important factor which influence tourist. If there are sufficient security for tourist and politics is quite stable, tourist are very much willing to visit those countries like Switzerland, Finland and so on. On the other hand, if the politics in not stable and security is not satisfactory then tourists don’t feel interest to visit. Like Nepal tourism sector hamper very badly for last 4 years for its political instability and unsecured condition.   

Cultural factors:

Culture heritages and resources attract tourist to visit their countries. Like India, China has a lot of cultural heritage and resources and people visit those countries to observe their culture. Sometimes some occasions attract tourist to some countries for a certain specific time.[7]

3.4  Apply and analyze 2 theories or models relevant to understand and motivate the tourist demand in the above chosen destination.

John and Susan (1999) mention there are 6 main factors which motivate people to travel certain places like status and culture, personal development, personal, emotional and physical. If any person has any of those motivating factors or more than one or all of them, they feel satisfaction and go for travelling. Physical motive is the motive for relaxation, emotion motive for longing or nostalgia for a specific place or enjoy the romance, etc. Personal motivation motivates people to visit friends or relatives areas to make new friends or re-bonding again. Personal motivation sometimes helps to increase knowledge. Cultural motivation helps to learn new cultures. Personal status motivates to obtain fissionability and exclusivity.   

According to the David McClellan “people can be stimulated to do something in general or to choose a destination in particular by their differences of needs”. People travel just to satisfy their various needs which influence their choice of destination. People can choose a place according their needs, choice or interest.

4.      Understand the organizational factors that influence learning and development.

4.1  Analyze the influence of organization leadership and culture on learning and development

Leadership and culture of an organization have an influence on learning and development. Leaders facilitate various opportunities among their employees to learn and develop new skills and acquire knowledge. Leaders create an empowering culture where staffs can challenge, question, propose or argue. Leaders lead a team where everybody works together to organizational success and personal development. He brings significant benefits among the employees to acquire knowledge and improve their skills. When any employee is not up to the mark, leader point out him and take initiatives to develop himself personally or arrange some training or educational program. If there any change in operation or technology, leaders teach their team or groups according to the demand. Sometimes leaders told the authorities to take some initiatives to change in operation and introduce some learning and development program to do profitable business. Employees are able to learn leadership and motivating skills by observing their leaders.     

Organizational culture also helps in learning and development process. It comprises of employees feelings at work, their perception regarding the organization and their identification with the organization. If there is good relation among management and employees and employees-employees then it is possible to conduct learning and development courses and training successfully. The success of learning and development depends on behaviour of people, formal structure, way of management, patterns of behaviour, and employee’s perception of values, rules and regulation and so on.   

4.2  Critically analyze the impact of an organization’s environment on human resource development

There are two kinds of environment like internal environment and external environment and both of them have impact on human resource development and the impact is different than each other. Internal driving forces like events, situation and other things occur inside the organization and organization has control over those. Internal driving forces are employee morale, financial management, management systems, organizational culture and organizational of equipment and machinery. 

If organizational environment is good means there is good condition of work, all the equipments are new and performing, all the people are technologically sound, and good management system, good relation among all employees and managers, employees are satisfied about their jobs and salary and all the employees have good moral then human resource development work properly otherwise it doesn’t. If the company has good organizational internal environment, it has good human resource development system otherwise it doesn’t.

4.3  Critically analyze the impact of organization strategy on human resource development.

HRD is attached to the performance management system and it contributes to achieve organizational goals. Organizational strategy has impact on human resource development; similarly human resource development has impact on organizational strategy. Organizational strategy decides how human resource development will work, what they will do, when they execute the programs and with whom it will work and so on. First of all, according to the present and future market condition, top managers prepare business strategies, after that they decide the activities of HRD according to the various situation and condition. For increasing organizational and personal efficiency and performance, HRD must provide systematic learning and development programs regularly. HRD is an inseparable part of the organizational development. Modern business environment is very dynamic and organization will prepare business strategy according to the business mobility, flexibility, customer needs and survival and HRD will help to implement those strategies effectively and successfully.      

5.      Know how to develop an effective performance management program.

5.1  Analyze the nature of a performance management program and assess the links with learning and development

Performance management program is organized to promote employees through purposeful action, continuous learning and cooperative endeavours to give more effort in meeting customer demands and needs. This program has three parts: performance appraisal, progress review and performance plan. Most of the programs are designed according to the organizational mission, vision, goals and objectives. Those programs help employees to motivate to fulfil organization goals. Performance management program classified employees according to their performance, employment status, position and so on. It is the main factor to determine whether an enterprise can manage its human resources or talents efficiently? It gives information regarding who should be trained, what should be trained, who will be rewarded, what are the lacking, opportunities, strengths, threats at the organization or unit level. It also informs which employees should be hired and so on. When the programs become successful employees become skilled and effective and organization becomes a profitable organization.

5.2  Apply effective performance measures in two different practical situations from organizations

Program name- Animal and Plant Health Monitoring

Outcome of performance measure- Percentage of known pest introductions (those that cause severe economic and ecological damage) detected before they spread from the original area of colonization

Explanation- The purpose of the USDA monitoring programs is to locate infestations before they become widespread. If infestations were to become widespread, there could be significant damage to plant and animal resources, with a potential effect on local and regional agriculture and related industry, as well as exports. Eradication and control (if possible) could become costly to the Federal government as well as State and local governments, producers and industry. Therefore this measure reflects the overall portion of the need that is addressed, and describes the effectiveness of the program. The measure also reflects the overall mission of USDA, which is to safeguard the nation’s productive resources.

Program name: Forest Service: Forest

Outcome of performance measure- Environmentally important acres of forest protected

Explanation: The purpose of the program is to protect forests from conversion to non-forest uses through the purchase of conservation easements or fee simple titles that maintain the working landscape. The key indicator of program effectiveness is the amount of priority forest lands at risk of conversion to non-forest uses that are maintained in contiguous forest. Acquisitions occur only in focused areas of private forest, known as Forest Legacy Areas, that are determined through natural resource analysis and public input to be the most important forest areas and the ones most threatened. Projects are selected annually through a national competition that best address priority criteria. Data are verifiable both locally and nationally through geospatially-based forest inventory data and through reviews of legal titles. [10]

5.3  Critically evaluate a range of motivation theories

Two Factor theory (Herzberg)

According to Herzberg, two kinds of factors affect motivation, and they do it in different ways:

• hygiene factors. These are factors whose absence motivates, but whose presence has no perceived effect. They are things that when you take them away, people become dissatisfied and act to get them back. Examples include decent working conditions, security, pay, benefits (like health insurance), company policies, interpersonal relationships. In general, these are extrinsic items low in the Maslow/Alderfer hierarchy.
• motivators. These are factors whose presence motivates. Their absence does not cause any particular dissatisfaction, it just fails to motivate. Examples are all the things at the top of the Maslow hierarchy, and the intrinsic motivators.

So hygiene factors determine dissatisfaction, and motivators determine satisfaction. The two scales are independent, and you can be high on both.

Power involved a threat to reduce your well-being, causing dissatisfaction. Hence, power basically works by threatening to withhold hygiene factors. Influence was said to fundamentally be about promising improvements in well-being -- when you are influenced to do something, it is because you want to, not because you were threatened. Influence basically works by offering to provide motivators (in Herzberg's terms). 

Equity Theory

People's motivation results from a ratio of ratios:  a person compares the ratio of reward to effort with the comparable ratio of reward to effort that they think others are getting. Of course, in terms of actually predicting how a person will react to a given motivator, this will get pretty complicated:

1. People do not have complete information about how others are rewarded. So they are going on perceptions, rumors, inferences. 
2. Some people are more sensitive to equity issues than others
3. Some people are willing to ignore short-term inequities as long as they expect things to work out in the long-term. [11]

6.      Understand the importance of Human Resource Development

6.1  Evaluate the growing recognition of the importance of human resource development in enhancing organization performance.

There is no ‘magic ingredient’ in the recipe for developing high performance organizations of this kind, but there is a need to develop some basic principles. At the heart of such organizations lies a belief in the importance and potential contribution that employees can make. As a result there is the belief in and, more to the point, the practice of human resource development strategies. From these a series of practices follow which reinforce the message and enable sometimes ‘extraordinary efforts from ordinary people’ (Joynson, 1994). One of the basic human needs is for security and, in an uncertain world, providing some measure of employment security is a powerful way of signalling the value placed on human resources. Of course this is not something that can be guaranteed, and there is a risk of ‘feather-bedding’ employees – but providing some form of contract that shares the risks and the benefits is strongly correlated with success.

6.2  Demonstrate an understanding of processes relating to human resource development

HRD efforts should use the following four phases (or stages):

n  Needs assessment

n  Design

n  Implementation

n  Evaluation

Need Assessment Phase:

n  Establishing HRD priorities

n  Defining specific training and objectives

n  Establishing evaluation criteria

Design Phase:

n  Selecting who delivers program

n  Selecting and developing program content

n  Scheduling the training program

Implementation Phase:

n  Implementing or delivering the program

Evaluation phase:

·         Determining program effectiveness – e.g.,

n  Keep or change providers?

n  Offer it again?

n  What are the true costs?

n  Can we do it another way?

7.      Understand the purposes, relevance and value of specific management development initiatives and programs.

7.1                        Assess the importance of management development to organization performance

We all know that, within a company, having the right management is one of the most important factors. The management team directly effects all business decisions, recruitment, customer relations and the overall feeling of a business. However, no matter how good a management team is, if they are not constantly developing and training, and then there is a chance that a business may fall behind times. A good company will often have high staff retention rates, meaning that often the management team has been there for years and years. Whilst this is a good thing, it can also mean that without the appropriate training courses no fresh air is ever brought into the business.

Management training can teach new skills in order to help your business keep up to date with the latest products, technology and market trends. Management development may be what it takes to keep your business running well, and attracting new customers.
Product development and gaining new customers relies heavily on research, and also needs the management teams to understand what is relevant and attractive right now. Which is where management training can come in? By producing the best management skills and showing them how to get the most out of their employees, management development can create a great place to work, with staffs who know exactly what the company is doing and where it is going. If the top of the chain know the most they can possibly know about the company, the market and how to treat their employees and customers then the rest of the staff usually follow suit, meaning a great working environment is created. And when the staffs are happy, the customers usually are too, meaning your company will be providing a great service for all. A fun, engaging course may be all it takes to totally revitalize your management team. [9]

8.      Conclusion:

Human resources are the main element and core capability within firms so every organization and firms give importance on human resource management and development and nurture and develop this sector regularly as it is a key asset. At the beginning every company take some initiative to develop its human resource but later most of the company do not continue the programs for various reasons. One of the major reasons is regular management change. Human resource development has progressed in three major eras. Most of the companies are too much concerned about mass production and don’t bother about human resource development. Mass production is appropriate for its time but in modern era organization has to concern about employee development and skill development. For generating new ideas and innovation, increasing efficiency and predictability, building brand loyalty there is no other option except employee development.   

Reference:

1.      Swanson R. A., Holton E.F., Holton Ed, Foundations of human resource development, 2001, page-4

2.      Gaurav Akrani, Human Resource Development HRD- Definition Features, (28 April, 2011), Retrieve on: 15/05/12, Available at: http://kalyan-city.blogspot.com/2011/04/human-resource-development-hrd.html

3.      Bruce B. Learning for challenge: principles and practices of learning organization (May 2002).

4.       Kolb, David (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-295261-0.

5.      Honey, P & Mumford, A (2006). The Learning Styles Questionnaire, 80-item version. Maidenhead, UK, Peter Honey Publications

6.      Iliev R. What is organizational development and how it can help your business, July 2011, Retrieve on: 15/05/12, Available at: http://www.divinecaroline.com/22276/115897-organizational-development-help-business

7.      Brakke M., International Tourism, Demand, and GDP Implications: A Background and Empirical Analysis, 2004, Retrieve on: 15/05/12, Available at: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=uer

8.      Phan Tai, Tourist motivation and activities: a case study of Nha Trang, Vietnam, May 2010, Retrieve on: 15/05/12, Available at:  http://munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/2586/thesis.pdf?sequence=2

9.      Savour R. The importance of management development, Retrieve on: 15/05/12, Available at: http://www.articledashboard.net/Article/The-Importance-of-Management-Development/481508

10.  Example of performance measure, Retrieve on: 15/05/12, Available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/part/performance_measure_examples.pdf

11.  Theories of motivation, Retrieve on: 15/05/12, Available at: http://www.analytictech.com/mb021/motivation.htm