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For Indian companies and corporate entities pressure of competition was a big challenge because the switch from the Inspector Raj to Open Liberal Regime meant sudden dropping of crutches of government patronage and control. The challenge before the Corporate India was [1] to increase returns on resources invested [2] cater to and care for the customer [3] To be continuously innovative.
Indian management gurus also emerged on the scene who studied the peculiarities of the Indian market and came up with new theories and models of business practice. Holistic development patterns and optimization of human resources found acceptance and business companies began to reconsider their time-worn models of personnel functions for integrating them with their organisational objectives. New methodologies of management were introduced that made new and bold departures from the past practices and paid greater attention to conceptualization of employees as resources leading to dovetailing of training with other personnel functions. Achievement of overall synthesis of different personnel functions became a sought after goal within leading Indian enterprises.
These recent and speedy developments on the Indian management scene involving big and fiercely competing Indian organisations defy classification. However, we can tag them together under one head as Human Resource Development (HRD). This term became current in the seventies. George Washington University is generally accepted as the originator of the term “HRD” in 1968, but Japan was perhaps the first country which put into practice the concept of HRD on a large scale. Not merely “Better Technology” but “Better People” became a part of the changing work ethos in the Japanese Corporation. This change brought Japanese industry and society closer as Japanese began to believe that business was not merely earning profits but was helping create a “better society”.
According to Professor Udai Pareek, the State Bank of India used the term HRD for the first time in 1972 and the concept was picked up and put into practice by State Public Undertakings such as BHEL, MUL, SAIL, IA, AI & IOC and in the Private Sector by L&T and TISCO in the seventies and eighties. HRD had wide-ranging scope and included informal learning on the job, exposure to new technology, attempting computer-aided presentations or Power Point presentation, orientation courses of study and training, or company-sponsored diversity training, sexual harassment awareness, career development or outdoor selling assignment, vocational interest inventory, reworking of organisational structure or introduction of norms for developing or changing organisational work culture, setting new targets for efficiency and achievement, redeployment of human resources for a more effective team work, a shift from individual to collective responsibility or vice-versa, and other innovations and experiments for better organisational performance and achievement.
It is now increasingly accepted that an organisation is as good as the people working for it. Any type of organisation, big or small, whether a school, retail store, government agency, restaurant, and manufacturing unit, have a common need to have on their pay rolls competent and highly motivated workers. In the prevailing environment of a fast-paced, ultra dynamic, and globalizing economy, an efficient and competent personnel has become an utmost requirement for effective organisational performance. Therefore, organisations are now willing to spend and invest in employee education, training and development as part of their organisational stra-tegy. Studies have shown that education and training contributed to “as much as 26 per cent of the increase in US production capacity between 1929 and 1982”.
By HRD we understand “systematic and planned activities” an organisation provides to its members for learning and acquiring necessary skills to meet immediate or future job and organisational demands. Learning is the basis of all HRD endeavour. In an organisation that is alive to the demands of a competitive environment, HRD acti-vities start as soon as an employee joins an organisation and continues throughout his or her career, irres-pective of the employee’s status as an executive or assembly line labour. HRD is designed to integrate long-term plans and strategies of the organisation for effective utilization of the available resources.
In spite of objections by some thinkers for calling human beings as “resource”, “Human resource” now has wide acceptance. In fact, increasingly, it is considered as a more important asset than other resources of production such as materials, machines, money etc. It is now believed that an investment on training and development of people will sooner or later bring profitable results. When we measure the development of skill, knowledge and attitude, the process is a slow process but not indefinite. The achievement of an organisation has to be seen as the outcome of cooperation and inputs at all levels of its functioning. Capital investment in developing and running a training institute will at some point start achieving higher productivity and profitability.
As Dayal and others point out, there are two reasons for development of people, namely, [1] competition that compels attention to cost of operations and sensitivity to market demands. [2] unprecedented developments in science, engineering and technology has made new production methods, automation and electronic control systems. These developments have altered the ratio of skilled and unskilled workers. New systems demand new skills, some degree of education, and continuous upgradation of skills. Therefore, decentralizations of decision-making, new management techniques and practices are becoming inevitable for survival in business. HRD delivers on these business imperatives.
The factory system is dehuma-nizing and insensitive to worker’s needs and comforts. By redefining workers’ roles as participants and sharers in advancement and growth of the organisation the workers develop a sense of self-respect, recognition and creativity. Under HRD plans, counselling and monitoring quality of work leads to an integrated life and the conflict between life at work and life at home is likely to get reduced and, even resolved. HRD can usher in systemic transformation. Yet, conventional human resource development methods like training and job-rotation, have a limited scope and cannot be expected to change the entire system of an organisation that HRD ought to aim at. It is common observation that the management is not prone to critically examine and improve itself but is inclined to find faults with the performance of the lower rung employee or worker. HRD, to be effective, has to be all-inclusive, focusing on executives as much as on the worker and all categories of the personnel.
Many Indian companies are restructuring and reducing their management ranks. The old pyramid of seven direct subordinates for each boss has been pruned and the trend is toward flattening of layers, expanding spans and imparting a new look from “tall and narrow to short and wide”. Leaner hierarchy, incentives to creativity and emphasis on receptivity to the customer are the new norms in organisations. The ‘specialist’ is yielding place to the generalist.
There is a shift now in favour of developing core competency and companies are inclined to professionalize their operations. Recent advancement in computerisation and technological services and streamlining of paper work and improvements in quality, service and speed have rendered old types of jobs obsolete. Companies that find themselves inadequate internally now outsource services for adding value to their operations retaining direct control over only the most critical functions. Tele-communications revolution has even created conditions for employees to work from home. This reduces overhead costs, expenses on more office space and saves employees from commuting fatigue and waste of productive time.
Knowledge-oriented economy demands a multi-dimensional development of individual talent and HRD is already moving into areas that were not an organisational concern till recently. Even spiritual Gurus are in much demand for producing “better people for better profits” and more satisfying work and life.
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