Introduction
Globalization of Indian economy is compelling organizations to rethink their future strategies. It’s now widely recognized that transformation is a pre-requisite to their survival and growth. Business organizations in India especially public enterprises are experiencing winds of change. For the HR function, there could not be a more existing and challenging opportunity than managing the complexities of change and transformation. HR today is playing a lead role along with business functions in creating the necessary momentum and internal capabilities.
This project seeks to capture the value of “Synergizing HRD Interventions for Growth� covering the ideas and experiences like Changing Business Scenario and HRD Challenges, Organizational Transformation and Restructuring, Managing Performance and Productivity Enhancement, Managing Diversity, Developing Learning and Training Capabilities and Aligning HRD to Business.
HRD Interventions in Developing Global Competitiveness
Today all are aware that it is the era of globalization and competitiveness. Right now the issue is not only of global competitiveness but local competitiveness. Till now, Indian industries have been so protected that it is not concerned about the emerging competition. These organizations today need to ask themselves where they are and where they need to go. Today’s passwords should be competition for both survival and growth. To meet the new challenges, however, some of the organizations are planning well. As far as organizational planning is concerned Indian organizations are capable of planning well but regarding training and HRD interventions they are not performing too well and don’t even give much importance to it.
Normally everyone in the organization undergoes training. But to meet the emerging challenges and issues, organizations need to upgrade or modify their HRD interventions, or more specifically training interventions. NTPC is one of the few PSUs where attempts are being made to plan training interventions and a serious thought has been given it to make training a systematic method.
Benchmarking HRD Practices
Benchmarking is a method of establishing goals based on industry’s best practices. It’s appositive and proactive process change practices and procedures in a structured fashion to achieve superior performance. Today when there is competition not only within India but the world over, and when one can get all information about product, processes and all management styles in minimum time, there is a need to have better or even international benchmarks. Benchmarking HRD practices may help organizations to develop action plans better manpower planning and developing human resources in amore effective manner to meet the challenges of the new millennium.
In order to make the kind of progress that is need to be competitive, HRD and quality professionals have to work in consonance with each other. It is one of the problems faced by many organizations. Why are things the way they are and what could be done to achieve a positive change?
The 2 approaches to this problem have been followed since the early part of the century. One is the Human Resource approach, which promotes the ideas of freedom to act and freedom for creativity. The other is the Tailor’s approach in terms of scientific management and in terms of standardization of method. In the early 20th century, mass manufacturing came into being. When a large number of people made the same kind of product of service, then a degree of standardization was necessary to obtain. A degree of consistency was needed to provide to the customers. This led to a situation where standardization became everything.
Human Resource approach talked about creativity. The conviction was that standardization kills creativity. If one prevents a person from thinking of a better way, and he is asked to do what he is supposed is inhuman. Unfortunately for several years these were considered to be mutually exclusively perspectives. Each one promoted and propagated their respective points of view and there were no meeting points.
In the early 60s, the situation started changing. And in 1960-62, professor Ichikawa started the use of Quality Circles. What did he really do? He empowered the work force to develop the standards to develop themselves. Earlier the standards were often developed by industrial engineers sitting in the corporate office, and/or a handful of specialists in a company. But if the people who are in the job, whether they are at the operator/manager lever can be trained and empowered to develop their own standards. Ichikawa’s QC is the collective creativity of a group of people doing diverse things who come together to develop their own methods working which is efficient. This is then standardized so that there is consistency till the end. He, thus, brought creativity and consistency through this approach.
It is important to train the manpower to use the data that’s generated at the workplace. The basic steps in this exercise would be to understand the data, to use it analytically, and to find a better method. Automation in this perspective means that the worker or the manager should be able to stop his work process if it’s proving to be inactive. A new standard may be created. If more than more 1 person is involved in this creative exercise, then the improvement may be of a higher magnitude than it would have been only one person developing it on his own. Each individual contributes and the group is able to bring their contributions together.
For effective benchmarking of this kind, the 2 main factors are rich data and facts. Management looks at this data and decides the process as to how to do an analysis. The best known analytical tools are statistical tools. So statistical tools have to be used to involve people to create a better a method than the present one. Without creativity this form of benchmarking is not possible. Peter Drucker only recognized what the Japanese did. Basically it was the idea of Ichikawa who gave HRD this system of benchmarking.
Assessing and Evaluating the Impact of HRD interventions
A learning organization acquires knowledge, creates and transfers new knowledge and learns to perform better. Ultimately and organization has to perform and if the learning of the organization does not get transferred into performance then it is a waste. There are several roles of HRD, but the success of HRD can be judged by the performance of the organization. If it does not perform and if HRD personnel do not contribute to the organization in providing them the right environment and the right people, then the organization’s HRD policy can be considered a failure.
Globalization of Indian economy is compelling organizations to rethink their future strategies. It’s now widely recognized that transformation is a pre-requisite to their survival and growth. Business organizations in India especially public enterprises are experiencing winds of change. For the HR function, there could not be a more existing and challenging opportunity than managing the complexities of change and transformation. HR today is playing a lead role along with business functions in creating the necessary momentum and internal capabilities.
This project seeks to capture the value of “Synergizing HRD Interventions for Growth� covering the ideas and experiences like Changing Business Scenario and HRD Challenges, Organizational Transformation and Restructuring, Managing Performance and Productivity Enhancement, Managing Diversity, Developing Learning and Training Capabilities and Aligning HRD to Business.
HRD Interventions in Developing Global Competitiveness
Today all are aware that it is the era of globalization and competitiveness. Right now the issue is not only of global competitiveness but local competitiveness. Till now, Indian industries have been so protected that it is not concerned about the emerging competition. These organizations today need to ask themselves where they are and where they need to go. Today’s passwords should be competition for both survival and growth. To meet the new challenges, however, some of the organizations are planning well. As far as organizational planning is concerned Indian organizations are capable of planning well but regarding training and HRD interventions they are not performing too well and don’t even give much importance to it.
Normally everyone in the organization undergoes training. But to meet the emerging challenges and issues, organizations need to upgrade or modify their HRD interventions, or more specifically training interventions. NTPC is one of the few PSUs where attempts are being made to plan training interventions and a serious thought has been given it to make training a systematic method.
Benchmarking HRD Practices
Benchmarking is a method of establishing goals based on industry’s best practices. It’s appositive and proactive process change practices and procedures in a structured fashion to achieve superior performance. Today when there is competition not only within India but the world over, and when one can get all information about product, processes and all management styles in minimum time, there is a need to have better or even international benchmarks. Benchmarking HRD practices may help organizations to develop action plans better manpower planning and developing human resources in amore effective manner to meet the challenges of the new millennium.
In order to make the kind of progress that is need to be competitive, HRD and quality professionals have to work in consonance with each other. It is one of the problems faced by many organizations. Why are things the way they are and what could be done to achieve a positive change?
The 2 approaches to this problem have been followed since the early part of the century. One is the Human Resource approach, which promotes the ideas of freedom to act and freedom for creativity. The other is the Tailor’s approach in terms of scientific management and in terms of standardization of method. In the early 20th century, mass manufacturing came into being. When a large number of people made the same kind of product of service, then a degree of standardization was necessary to obtain. A degree of consistency was needed to provide to the customers. This led to a situation where standardization became everything.
Human Resource approach talked about creativity. The conviction was that standardization kills creativity. If one prevents a person from thinking of a better way, and he is asked to do what he is supposed is inhuman. Unfortunately for several years these were considered to be mutually exclusively perspectives. Each one promoted and propagated their respective points of view and there were no meeting points.
In the early 60s, the situation started changing. And in 1960-62, professor Ichikawa started the use of Quality Circles. What did he really do? He empowered the work force to develop the standards to develop themselves. Earlier the standards were often developed by industrial engineers sitting in the corporate office, and/or a handful of specialists in a company. But if the people who are in the job, whether they are at the operator/manager lever can be trained and empowered to develop their own standards. Ichikawa’s QC is the collective creativity of a group of people doing diverse things who come together to develop their own methods working which is efficient. This is then standardized so that there is consistency till the end. He, thus, brought creativity and consistency through this approach.
It is important to train the manpower to use the data that’s generated at the workplace. The basic steps in this exercise would be to understand the data, to use it analytically, and to find a better method. Automation in this perspective means that the worker or the manager should be able to stop his work process if it’s proving to be inactive. A new standard may be created. If more than more 1 person is involved in this creative exercise, then the improvement may be of a higher magnitude than it would have been only one person developing it on his own. Each individual contributes and the group is able to bring their contributions together.
For effective benchmarking of this kind, the 2 main factors are rich data and facts. Management looks at this data and decides the process as to how to do an analysis. The best known analytical tools are statistical tools. So statistical tools have to be used to involve people to create a better a method than the present one. Without creativity this form of benchmarking is not possible. Peter Drucker only recognized what the Japanese did. Basically it was the idea of Ichikawa who gave HRD this system of benchmarking.
Assessing and Evaluating the Impact of HRD interventions
A learning organization acquires knowledge, creates and transfers new knowledge and learns to perform better. Ultimately and organization has to perform and if the learning of the organization does not get transferred into performance then it is a waste. There are several roles of HRD, but the success of HRD can be judged by the performance of the organization. If it does not perform and if HRD personnel do not contribute to the organization in providing them the right environment and the right people, then the organization’s HRD policy can be considered a failure.