Describe The Human Resource Development (Hrd) Process And Critically Examine How Hrd Programmes Can Help Organisations And Its Employees To Remain Competitive In Their Business.

Free trade agreement among countries and the aid of advance technology made economic globalization becoming threats and opportunites for some organizations. Moreover, rapid changes and improvement in the products and services is inevitable in the competitive and demanding business arena. Many organizations know the recipe to stay competitive. However, only some succeeded and a few excel from the others. One of the key factors to become a successful organization is to attracting talents and investment in human capital. In a speech by Lee, Y.S (2007) he mentioned that an Economist’s article survey showed that attracting and retaining talent is the number one priority.

Many organizations having realized that, in order to be ahead of their competitors, they have to constantly learning how to maximize out from the employees to achieve the organization strategic business objectivities. With the realization of the importance of the employees, it has made a significant impact on the human resource management.

The objectivities of human resource management in a organization is to help the company to meet their strategic goals, recruiting and retaining talents and have an effective management on the employees. According to Stone (2005, p.10), to achieve the objectivities, there are a few activities, which need to be undertaken. One of the activities is human resource development.

Human resource development can explain as a framework to enhance the employee skill, knowledge, behaviour, and abilities that are in line with the organization business strategic objectives. Stone (2005, p.12) stated that the activity is to focus on five objectivities. Firstly, is the attitude of the employees. It is crucial, as their attitude will influence their behavior towards their work, which will affect their work performance. Secondly are the employees’ skill, knowledge, and ability. The organization must always ensure that their employees are equipped with the correct skill, knowledge, and ability to perform their task. Thirdly is the performance and improvement in their work. The ideal of this objective is to enhance and improve the company productivity. The fourth objective is to prepare them for senior position. Through expansion in operation or acquisition of other company, new positions are created. To fill up the slots from internal source, they must have capable people. Lastly, is their ability to adapt changes. This is because when an organization makes changes to cater the environment needs, it will have to make adjustment in the operation. Employees might have new responsibility or need to work in a new environment. The faster the employees adapt the better they will go in line with the operation requirement.

The need of human resource development is much driven by the competitiveness among the competitors. Therefore, the organization has been constantly producing the market demands, not only in productivity but also in the services. Recently, many organizations had invested a lot in technologies and skills development due to the demand of quality products and services by the clients. Stone (2005, p.329) highlighted that the demand of the human resource developed mainly because of four main changes: Business and economy change, Technological change, Organizational change and Social, Legal other changes. To satisfy the changes, Werner, J.M and DeSimone, R.L (2006, p.23) also defined five types of challengers that the human resource professionals are currently facing. The challengers are increasing work diversity, competing in a global market, eliminating skill gap, meeting the need for lifelong individual learning, and facilitating organization learning.

Describe the Human Resource Development (HRD) process

The human resource development served the needs of organizations to provide the employees with up-to-date expertise (Richard, J.T. and Richard, A.S., 1995); therefore, process to develop the program is vital. The logic of process development can be described as building a high-rise infrastructure. If any steps disrupted during the process, the foundation will affected and the outcome can be catastrophe. Rao, T.V (1996, p.25) defined the process deals with competency development in people and creation of condition to help people apply these competencies for their own and for that of others.

To have the desire result from the training and development, management has to design suitable programs that fit the organization business strategic objectivities. The human resource professional must have a systematic approach to the training and development, (Stone 2005, p.337). The four phase of process approach mention by Werner, J.M and DeSimone, R.L. (2006, p.27) in human resource development are: Assessment, Design, Implementation, and Evaluation.

Assessment

Assessment is important when comes to human resource development process. It helps to achieve the organization goals effectively and equip the employees with the necessary skill to perform the task. Werner, J.M and DeSimone, R.L (2006, p.28) pointed out that to identify the requirement, it involved examining the organization, the environment, job task, and employee performance. Examining the culture will help the human resource professionals identify what are the organization business objectives. The environment assessment allows them to spot what are the internal and external influences that will have impact on the business goals. The assessment can be determined through the internal and external environment factors. According to Steward, J. (1996, p.155), the methods for internal analysis and external analysis to be used is call step analysis and swot analysis. Job task analysis will help the professionals to design the program require to close up the skill gap. Performance appraisal is an option to analyze the employee performance. From the analysis, a program can be design to enhance the productivity of the employee.

Design

The intention in designing phase is to come out with programs to close up the require skill gap. When designing the programs, a few factors have to be taken into consideration. Werner, J.M and DeSimone, R.L (2006, p.28) suggested the factors are selecting the specific objective for the program, develop appropriate lesson plan, appropriate study material for the lesson, determine who will deliver the program, and the most appropriate method to conduct and scheduling.

The professionals have to be very careful when designing the program. It is because any improper designing will loss