Are you interested in human resources development? Or are you looking for a human resource development job for your career? Don’t get surprised. Employment of human resources specialists is projected to grow 8% from 2021 to 2031, higher than average for all professions.
But if you’re not here searching for work, you should be looking for a way to manage your HR department. Whether you are looking for a job or HR development strategies, it is critical to know what human resource development is.
What is Human Resource Development?
Then what is the meaning of human resource development? It first comes from Leonard Nadler, professor emeritus of the School of Education and Human Resources Development. He defined HRD as learning experiences organized for a specific time to create the potential for behavior change. (Human Resource Development, n.d.)
Simply put, HRD is the part of human resources management that specifically addresses the training and development of employees within the organization. Functions include:
- Train someone once they are hired
- Offer opportunities to acquire new skills
- Distribute useful resources to support the employee’s duties
- Give further development activities
In practice, human resource development can be formal as well as informal. Formally, it includes classroom training and a college class. Informally, it allows an employee to be mentored by industry experts or management. Healthy organizations should ensure that their human resources development covers all of that.
HR Development in an Evolving Business Environment
We might wonder why human resources development is important. As the company continues to strive to be dynamic and growth-oriented, HR development is essential.
Unlike other resources, HR has rather limitless potential capacity. As it nourishes and utilizes people’s abilities, HR must continuously identify and create sustainable strategies to stay ahead of the business climate.
Whether you are now responsible for a role in the HR division, leading the HR team, or holding this division within your business., it’s not enough to just understand the human resource development job description. Today, HR development is a different story. Let’s learn from these data:
- Three in five HR leaders are worried about being irrelevant in the future if the HR function does not embrace modernization, according to the KPMG survey.
- Currently, HR professionals require an established framework to align culture with ongoing learning and development. 61% of leaders reported that they are now shifting their culture.
- 56% of managers put training and human resource development in place to address AI challenges.
To keep employees showing their full potential, HR needs to pay attention to those critical aspects of human resources development. Strategies to improve the culture and create an enabling work environment for skills development and personal development should also be addressed by HR Development.
Also, as modernization takes place, a data-driven mindset could be put in place. It will help to provide HR with the ability to measure learning performance and update performance benchmarks.
Time to Roll out an Agile Human Resource Development
Agility is an ideal solution for a shifting world. HR Agility is an approach that prioritizes rapid responsiveness and adaptability within the HR function.
More than a different approach to different HR processes, agile methodology means that HR professionals have to adopt these different mentalities:
Human-centric value
Organizations should learn to adapt to change and be agile by putting people first. Let’s begin with the bare bones of HR, humans.
People are our greatest assets. So, this is about people, not workers. Our people have their motivations, experiences, and struggles. Leaders’ job is about understanding their needs and what they are experiencing.
Switch from clusters to collaboration
Typically, HR has recruitment and talent management operations run with no effort to work together.
On the other hand, an agile HR approach requires teams to be multi-purpose. Collaboration would produce more effective solutions than a traditional approach, which would be managed by HR alone. This change in mindset will lead to co-creation, which has proven to offer much more innovative solutions.
Become digitally minded
Agility is no longer the concept of software development and IT organizations. According to the Harvard Business Review, agility is more than tech. It alters the way organizations recruit, develop and manage people.
With numerous apps, tools, and platforms in support of the digital workforce, HR development can easily make a big digital leap.
We’re not saying the traditional approaches aren’t relevant right now. But isn’t it better to move forward with a new Human Resource Development mindset and practice? Being part of the evolution and adapting to change will allow our business to run smoothly and stay above weather disruptions.
