HRD encompasses a humanistic concept and believes that employees who are the pillars of any organisation can do wonders provided they are involved in the job, entrusted with roles and responsibilities, should be made aware of their strength and provided with assistance to overcome their weaknesses.
Employees being part and parcel of any organisation, their needs and aspiration should be aligned with the goals and mission of the organisation and only then the organisation would be successful in all domains and achieve the desired results.
HRD believes in encouraging individuals for generating initiatives and responses by creating a culture comprising of transparency, mutual trust and belief, coordination amongst each other etc. It believes that investment in employees is pivotal and would surely provide substantial benefits to the organisation in the future.
HRD aims at complete development of human resources which would bring the development of employees, organisation and to the society. It is pertinent to mention here that while drawing Balance Sheets, Organisations show employees on the debit side whereas Human Resource Development treats employees as assets and considers them on credit side.
Under holistic approach, HRD helps the employees of an organisation to enrich and refine their job knowledge related to their present role , develop their capabilities as individual , be intuitive and unearth their own latent potential for their own development as well as for the organisation and ultimately develop a culture involving team work , coordination , belongingness and ownership which would lead to wellbeing ,motivation and pride of the employees .
It has been very aptly said By Sir Richard Branson, “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t have to”.
Thus, merely training the employees would ultimately enrich their knowledge and open avenues for other jobs but if the employees are treated well, they would realise their belongingness to the organisation and would excel further for realisation of its goals.
There has been lot of changes in the HRD approach. In the traditional times, the Personnel Function was a service oriented activity which responded to the needs of organisation as and when they arise and was concerned only with the management of the workforce in the organizations and they laid stress upon the payroll, training and other functions .
With the advent of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation era, there has been a paradigm shift in the present Human Resource Development approach in which enablers have been created so that the employees could fulfil their aspirations and utilise their potential to the best.
This shift has come due to the belief that human resources are sources of competitive advantage and not merely employees fulfilling their job responsibilities. In order to compete and create its own position, every organization has to adopt the latest technology, hire the best talent, offer the best quality in terms of product and services at economical prices in order to retain both – the customers as well as the employees.
Thus the role of Human Resource Development has attained heights and dimensions. In order to reap the benefits of the HRD system, it is also the responsibility of the organisation to provide timely and proper management support, improvise the various technologies and other system associated with it, provide distinct structural layout and have a periodic overview on the functioning of HRD.
It has been established that HRD is applicable both at Organizational level (micro) as well as National level (macro). At Macro level , it deals with development of the people taking into consideration their health, capabilities, skills , attitudes etc which are crucial for the development of nation as a whole .At Micro level , it deals with the grass root development of organisation and involves various roles such as manpower planning, selection, training, performance appraisal, compensations, organisational development etc.
At this juncture when the entire world including India is undergoing the coronavirus pandemic, HRD in every organisations has played the critical role of motivating the employees , made them feel that they are not left alone and are a part of the entire family, provided them with mental and financial support, technological aids etc.
With the passage of time, situation would change and return to normalcy overcoming all hardships. The only thing which would remain in the minds of the employees, would be the treatment they had received from their organisation and HRD is bound to play a critical role.
“If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk together”- said by Sri Ratan Tata aptly defines the present situation. Organisation, having long term goals and who want to sustain a long journey would treat the employees as their real assets and would involve them in this long journey.