Human Resource Development (HRD) is a relatively new subject among

academic and professional circles. In the past, managers fulfilled the functions of
HRD within the workplace. HRD was not viewed as a central part of an organisation's
success. But in the last ten years, the roles and benefits of HRD have received wider
recognition. In the following, this paper will describe the current roles of HRD
practitioners and how they differ from the roles from the recent past. Furthermore,
this essay will also explain the expectations of senior management of the HRD
function as well as how these roles contribute to an organisation's success.

HRD is a loosely defined term, which is becoming a vital part of

organisations. Nadler (1984) suggests that HRD is the notion of Developing Human
Resources. He also expands on this by defining it as “organised learning, over a given
period of time, to provide the possibility of performance change” ( Nadler 1984,
p.xxviii). It is also said, that “…HRD is about the combined use of learning and
interpersonal strategies and practices within an organisation to accomplish high levels
of individual and organisational effectiveness” (Sofo 1999, p.xxvi). In the late
eighties, the field of HRD began to move from the focus of individual learning to
organisational learning. The constant changing environments of organisations are
resulting in new roles emerging within the practice of HRD (Sofo 1999).

The main role of HRD practitioners is to train and develop workers, enabling
them to achieve an organisation’s strategic goals. According to McLagan, HRD
practitioners will create ways to aid managers, teams and individuals to fulfill the
function of Human resources; rather than just responding to the organisational needs.
This will result in the decentralisation of the traditional Human Resource functions,
giving managers more responsibilities. McLagan has also outlined nine roles HRD
practitioners fulfill. These are:
• HR Strategic Advisor – In this role, the HRD practitioner’s address’s
the issues that affect people outside and inside an organisation, by showing
how these influences affect an organisations strategic goals.
• HR Systems Designer and Developer – HRD practitioners design and
implement HR systems to help support and reinforce management’s
decisions within an organisation. The goal of this activity is to maximise
organisational performance, development and adaptability.
 • Organisation Change Agent – This HRD role involves facilitating
change within an organisation by designing and implementing strategies.
• Organisation Design Consultant – HRD practitioners in this role
identify the work that is required to fulfill organisations strategic goals.
This role also involves designing jobs so that an organisation can achieve
greater efficiency.
• Learning Program Specialist – HRD practitioners in this role identify
learning needs within an organisation. They design learning programs and
determine the best forms of media to delivery the learning programs.
• Instructor/Facilitator – This role is the traditional function that HRD
practitioners play. It involves presenting information and organising
groups to allow structural learning.
• Individual Development and career Consultant – In this role, HRD
practitioners help people determine their values and goals as well as their
skills, knowledge and attitudes. This result's in helping people identify,
plan and implement their learning and development activities (e.g. Tertiary
education).
• Performance Consultant – HRD practitioners assist individuals and
groups to increase their working performance. It involves coaching and
consulting.
• Researcher – This role involves evaluating HRD practices and
programs and their effects. This also involves communicating results of
findings so that the organisation can determine their strategies (Visser
2001, para.2-4).

Ulrich also describe the roles of HRD practitioners. They are as follows:
• Administrative Expert – this role aims to build efficient systems by
ensuring efficient performance of organisational processes.
• Employee Champion – this role aims to increase employee
commitment and competency by listening and responding to employee
opinions.
• Change Agent – HRD practitioners aim to develop and train
organisations by managing change.
 • Strategic Business Partner – in this role HRD practitioners aim to
support and achieve organisational strategy by aligning HRD activities
such as training and development with an organisations strategic goals
(De Cieri and Kramar 2003).

The above roles have been quite different to the ones in the past. This is
evident with Nadler (1984) who gave examples of HRD functions in the eighties.
These roles are more traditional and have been determined, “… researched, tested and
found useful” (Nadler 1984, p.1.28). The main roles HRD practitioners have played
in the past are:
• Facilitator of Learning – The facilitator uses a variety of approaches
to create learning and generally uses the lesson plans provided by the
designer of programs.
• Designer of Learning Programs – in this role, HRD practitioners
identify learning needs and organisational problems and apply learning
theories to design a learning program.
• Developer of Instructional Strategies – HRD practitioners in this role
identified methods, material and techniques that would be useful to
specific training and development programs.

The following roles suggested by Nadler are the roles HRD Unit Managers play. The
term HRD Unit managers, refers to the manager of the HRD department within an
organisation.

• Developer of HRD policy – In this role the HRD manager would

produce the policies which help the HRD unit of practitioners design
training and development programs that would aid workers in achieving an
organisations strategic goals.
• Supervisor of Programs – HRD managers in this role would be
responsible for assigning the appropriate HRD staff to develop and
implement a training program.
• Maintainers of Relations – HRD managers in this role communicate
and collaborate with an organisation's internal and external partners. The
 aim of this role is to help others in the organisation to understand the
contribution of the HRD unit.
• Developers of HRD Personnel – HRD managers in this function
evaluate the HRD personnel and determine developmental plans for their
staff to grow in the expertise of HRD.
• Arranger of Facilities and Finance – the HRD manager in this role
arrangers and determines the use of facilities for the benefit of the
organisation. Facilities including training and conference rooms. HRD
managers also manage the budget given to the HRD unit by the
organisation to maximise the “Return on Investment”.

Nijhof (2004) states that there has been a change of roles within the field of HRD in
the Netherlands. In his study, the role of trainers has risen from 11.4% to 25% within
the field of HRD from 1993 – 1999. But still, “67 per cent of the roles were covered
by the traditional roles of managing, planning, co-ordination and execution of
training”(Nijhof 2004, para.35) But between the period of 1993 and 1999, new roles
have emerged such as competence managers, knowledge managers, quality managers
and purchaser of training.

The general expectation of HRD practitioners from senior management has

been that they should be assisting in the implementation of strategic goals. HRD
practitioners should also address any learning and developmental issues of staff. Sofo
(1999) argued that senior management’s expectations of HRD personnel are that:

They must understand the internal and external factors that

impel the need for organisational transformation…. assist in
the setting the overall strategic direction in relation to HRD….
establish appropriate and support structures that communicate,
reinforce and institutionalise the new behaviours, values and
attitudes, and ensure the success and sustainability of the
change effort (Sofo 1999, p.103).

HRD practitioners are also expected to provide the “Return on Investment” (ROI)
from their training and development activities. This concept refers to the training’s
monetary benefits (e.g. greater efficiency) which should outweigh the cost of the
actual training program. (De Cieri and Kramar 2003). Ulrich also suggested that
senior management expected HRD practitioners to help a company to be competitive
by developing behaviours, attitudes and values that would create a culture that would
increase an organisation's capacity for change. HRD practitioners are also expected
to be flexible and to be able to adopt multiple roles (i.e. a researcher being able to
facilitate a training and development activity). Senior management also expects HRD
practitioners to develop the intellectual assets of an organisation to enable their staff
to adapt and change successfully in a constant changing business environment. In
order to achieve this, HRD practitioners need to continually evaluate, design and
implement strategies to improve the various skills within an organisation’s employee
base. HRD practitioners are also expected to provide programs that will enable
employees to retrain themselves. This would create a learning environment within
the workplace where employees are constantly learning. (Sofo 1999).
Besides the above expectations, managers also expect HRD practitioners to
fulfill the roles and responsibilities within their job descriptions. A Training Officers
roles and responsibilities can include:
• Developing Training modules
• Keep a record of staff competency levels
• Develop a team of employee trainers and assessors that meet national
standards
• Design a training program for management teams with the advice of
the HR manager (http://www.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?
Sequence=25&PageNumber=1&ChannelID=1&SiteID=1&tracking=Job
Mail&JobId=4885758 2005, para.4).

There are many views of what roles HRD practitioners play within an organisation.
In the last few years, there has been a wider recognition of the impacts and
contributions of HRD practitioners in organisations. HRD practitioners contribute to
the organisation by equipping workers to achieve an organisation’s strategic, long-
terms goals in the midst of a changing business environment. HRD activities such as
“…knowledge management, management development, cultural change and strategic
redirection…. create long term capability and adaptability for the firm” (Di Cieri and
Kramar 2003, p.565). According to Watson (1986), HRD practitioners contribute to
the success of management by providing management training programs. These
programs assist in broadening managers understanding of the latest business theory
and practice as well as stimulating creative and innovative approaches to decision
making and problem solving. These programs also aid in the communication process
within management circles and also allow managers to assess their career and
personal development plans. HRD practitioners contribute by encouraging workplace
learning. HRD practitioners conduct programs in an effective manner so that
important issues (e.g. changes in legislative requirements) can be easily addressed
and resolved in the quickest and most effective way to give an organisation a
competitive advantage over its rivals (Phillips 1984). Sofo (1999) confirms this by
stating that HRD practitioners contribute to the success of an organisation by
encouraging organisational learning. Organisational Learning is critical to an
organisation’s survival because of the many different environmental factors that
affect it. The current changes in organisational infrastructure from a hierarchical
orientation a to flatter, teams-based orientation requires the re-skilling of workers.
Other factors include skill shortages within the next generation of workers and also
global competition from the world’s most powerful organisations. Breakthroughs in
new and advanced technologies as well as an increasing need for changes are also
demonstrating the importance of Organisational Learning.

The effectiveness of HRD practitioners can be measured in a number of

ways. Fitz-Enz and Davison (2002) suggest that quantitative measurements (e.g.
sales figures) are one of the best ways to evaluate the contributions of HRD
practitioners. They state that if a learner can display a new skill without any
improvements in productivity, service or quality; then HRD practitioners have failed
in contributing to the success of an organisation. Di Cieri and Kramar (2003)
suggested two approaches to measuring the contributions of HRD practitioners. They
are the Audit Approach and the Analytical Approach. The Audit Approach is a
qualitative measurement, which focuses on reviewing the results of HRD activities.
In this measurement, internal customer (staff) satisfaction measures are used (e.g.
surveys and questionnaires). They also suggested that surveys from senior
management would be a successful way in evaluating the contribution of HRD
practitioners. This is because management can see how HRD activities are affecting
individuals as well as how it contributes to the effectiveness of the organisation in
meeting its strategic goals. The analytical approach is a quantitative approach to
evaluating the contributions to HRD practitioners. This evaluation determines if the
training program has reached its intended effect and also estimates the “Return on
Investment” of the program. A “Cost-benefit” analysis can be used to determine the
economic benefits of HRD practitioners. This analysis involves measuring the cost of
a training and development program with the economic benefits of the results of a
program.

In Conclusion, Human Resource Development is a term, which is not

exclusively defined. The reason for this is that this industry is a relatively new field
of work. In the last ten years, the roles of HRD practitioners have changed quite
substantially in order to provide organisations with the ability to adapt to the
changing business environments. This paper has also highlighted that senior
management expects HRD practitioners to aid in the development of staff to achieve
organisational strategic goals. The contributions of HRD practitioners within
organisations are evident in the ability of an organisation to meet its goals and its
adaptability to change
 References

• De Cieri, H. & Kramar, R. 2003, Human Resource Management in Australia:

Strategy people performance, McGraw Hill, Macquarie Park.

• Fitz-Enz, J. & Davison, B. 2002, How to Measure Human Resource Management,

3rd edn, McGraw Hill, Macquarie Park.

• Nadler, L. (ed.) 1984, The Handbook of Human Resource Development, John

Wiley & Sons, Canada.

• Nijhof, W.J. 2004, “Is the HRD profession in the Netherlands changing?”, Human
Resource Development International, vol.7, no.1, pp.57-72.

• Seek 2005, Arnotts Training Officer, Arnotts Biscutts Ltd., viewed 22 March
2005, <http://www.seek.com.au/users/apply/index.ascx?
Sequence=25&PageNumber=1&ChannelID=1&SiteID=1&tracking=JobMail&Jo
bId=4885758>.

• Sofo, F. 1999, Human resource Development, Business and Professional

Publishing, Warriewood.

• Visser, G. 2001, What is HRD? Evolution of the Field, Gerrit Visser, viewed 13
April 2005, <http://www.gervis.net/pages/whatishrd.htm>.

• Watson, C.E. 1986, Management Development through Training, Addison-

Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Canada.
The importance of personnel management is being increasingly realized in
industrial and non-industrial organization both in India and abroad. The
realization has come about because of increasing complexity of the task of
managers and administrators. In most organizations the problems of getting the
competent and relevant people, retaining them, keeping up their motivation and
morale, and helping them to both continuously grow and contribute their best to
the organizations, are now viewed as the most critical problems