Functions of HRD, introduction, Theoretical aspects, important function of HRD, brief explanation are given and examples are given.

1. Function of HRD

2. Introduction :-
HRD is the framework for helping
employees develop their personal and
organizational skills, knowledge and ablities.
A set of systematic and planned activities
designed by an organization or HR department
to provide its members with the necessary skills
to meet current and future job demands.

3. Theoretical Aspects :-
The Human Resources (HR) concept has undergone
significant changes in how it is viewed as a capability in
modern industry. The study of HR is fraught with
disagreement regarding its origin as well as laden with
discourse on the implications for contemporary management.
Drucker (1954) created the term “human resources” in his
seminal work The Practice of Management and focused on its
use as a function in managing operations, managing
managers, and directing people in their work. Academicians
and practitioners alike herald the common mantra that people
are the most irreplaceable asset of any organization inasmuch
as human persons are responsible for the decision making
that occurs at all levels of the organization, including
“managing cash flow, making business transactions,
communicating through all forms of media, and dealing with
customers”

4. The organization is a constitution of all the talent, time,
energy, creativity, expertise, potential, and intelligence of its
members. Developing a solid understanding of human
resources can facilitate innovation and flexibility as the
organization negotiates factors of the external environment
such as government regulation, technology, economic
transition, customer perceptions, news media, and supplier
relationships.
For the majority of the 20th century, HR was principally
a functional area within the organization, performing the
necessary tasks to manage the human capital in order to
maintain staffing levels and ensure the continuous
operations of the firm. In the traditional, authority- and
productivity- driven organizations of the recent past, this HR
role served the somewhat singular purpose of sustaining the
workforce in order to meet production goals of the firm.

5. As organizations have evolved from less production-
driven to more employee-centric, the role of HR in modern
organizations has shifted in terms of its utility and influence to
the firm overall. As such, the purpose of HR has subsequently
changed from the predominately functional role of human
capital management to the more strategic role of developing
and maintaining a dynamic, knowledgeable, and progressive
career-oriented staff. This latter role can be operationalized, for
the purposes of this discussion, as Human Resource
Development (HRD). Nadler (1970) defined HRD as “a series of
organized activities conducted within a specified time and
designated to produce behavioral change” and Desimone,
Werner, and Harris (2002) reflect the contemporary application of
HRD as “a set of systemic and planned activities designed by an
organization to provide its members with the opportunities to learn
necessary skills to meet current and future job demands”

6. No longer singularly concerned with production output as
the chief operating metric, contemporary businesses have
learned that the growth and development of the people
which comprise their workforces is integral to success.
Beginning with work reform and regulation starting in the
1970s, HR has become responsible for more important
aspects of the growth of the organization, such as
manager development and assistance with strategic
planning (Jacoby, 2004). As stated by Kaufman (1993),
“Whereas human relations had led managers to emphasize
the improvement of interpersonal relations and social
conditions in the plant through techniques such as
sensitivity training, human resource management
encouraged firms to focus on practices and techniques
that promoted employee development, such as job
enrichment and pay for knowledge” . This growth from
that of managing personnel to managing the development
of human capital is the essence of the evolution of HRD.

7. The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review
which describes the evolution of HR from its inception as
the personnel administration utility of the company to its
current HRD role as a partner that helps to develop
employees as strategic assets and grow firms into dynamic,
high-performance organizations. The discussion that
follows will highlight the current literature which provides a
description of how this evolution has occurred over time,
as well as how it mirrors the overall progression of the
organizational paradigm from traditional to developmental.
Next, critical issues with respect to the current state of HRD
will be addressed, further illuminating both the current
facts and details as well as the future areas of interest
surrounding this topic. This paper will then conclude with a
summary examination of the literature regarding how HRD
can be leveraged by the modern high-performance
organization to meet the strategic challenges of the current
competitive business landscape.

8. • Human Resource Development (HRD) – Functions
• The important functions of human resource
development (HRD) are as follows:
1. Performance Appraisal
2. Employee Training
3. Executive Development
4. Career Planning and Development
5. Organisational Change and Development
6. Involvement in Social and Religious Organisations
7. Involvement in Quality Circles
8. Involvement in Worker’s Participation in
Management.

9. • The following is the brief explanation of the above cited functions:
1. Performance Appraisal:
Employees’ performance appraisal or merit-rating is an
important function of the HRD. This is necessary for the HRD to
assess the relative efficiency of various workers as reflected in their
performance of their jobs. While job evaluation is concerned with
the rating of the job to be performed, performance appraisal or
merit-rating is concerned with the rating of the workers on their
jobs. HRD has to perform this function to analyse and classify the
differences amongst the workers vis-a-vis job standards.
2. Employee Training:
The next function of the HRD is to provide proper training to its
employees or workers. Training is the act of increasing the
knowledge and skills of an employee for doing a particular job.
Training is considered to be the corner-stone of sound personnel
administration. The employees could be systematically and
scientifically trained, if they are to do their jobs effectively and
efficiently.

10. 3. Executive Development:
Another important functions of the HRD is to provide for
executive development in the organization. Executive development
is the programme by which executive capacities to achieve desired
objectives are increased. Programme must be related to
development of various inter-related matters, factors and
needs.Executive capacities involve different individual abilities of
present and prospective managers at different levels of
management. The desired objectives include objectives of the
concern, its executives and the persons to be managed.
4. Career Planning and Development:
The next function of HRD is career planning and development.
Career planning is a systematic process by which an individual
selects his career goals and the path to these goals. From the
organisation’s point of view, career planning means helping the
employees to plan their career in terms of their capacities within
the context of the organisation’s requirements. Career planning and
development involve formulation of an organizational system of
career improvement and growth opportunities for employees from
the time of their appointment in the organization to their
retirement time.

11. 5. Successful Planning and Development:
The HRD is also required to perform the function of
planning and development of the business of the
organization in successful manner. For this purpose, it has
to plan every aspect of its organization and develop the
same successfully.
6. Organisational Change and Development:
Another main function of the HRD is the
organizational change and development. It involves
organizational diagnosis, team building, task force and
other structural and process interventions such as role
development, job enrichment, job re-designing etc.
7. Involvement is Social and Religious Organisation:
The HRD manager should arrange for social and
religious programmes and enable the employees to learn
from each other. Such programmes enable the employees
to interact closely with each other, open up their
cognitions, share the strengths etc.

12. 8. Involvement in Quality Circles:
Quality Circle is a self-governing group of workers with
or without the supervisors who voluntarily meet regularly
in order to identify, analyse and solve problems of their
work field. This process of solving problems voluntarily
enables the workers to learn decision-making and
problem-solving skills from each other.
9. Involvement in Workers’ Participation in Management:
The participation of workers in management enables
the representatives of both the management and the
workers to share and exchange their ideas and view-points
in the process of joint decision-making in the organization.
The joint decision-making process creates a plat-form for
mutual learning and development. Therefore the HRD
managers should encourage the workers to participate in
the management of the organisation.

13. Examples
• A supervisor retuning a packet of work to the
incorrect employee, assuming he knows who the
work is form.
• Suppose you want to train your department in a new
skill. You could just lecture them but you know there
must a better way.
• Best developers in our own company to improve
performance.
• Specific- I will learn how to use micro of excel specific
goal will be completed by my side
Measurable- I want to increase my sallary by 20%
extra.