Page 22 - The Human Resource Development - New Student Orientation Handbook (REVISED)

The Human Resource Development
Orientation Handbook and Research Guide

HRD Distinctions

HRD practitioners are employed in every organization and institution throughout the country. HRD
practitioners are employed by industry, commerce, and all levels of government.

HRD can occur effectively at both formal and informal levels. Typically, HRD investment is seen
in terms of the more formal and traditional training and development activities - courses, workshops,
conferences, development schemes and further education - that usually occur outside the workplace.
However, HRD also operates at a less formal level through strategies including on-the-job training,
career counseling, mentoring, providing feedback, individual development planning, projects,
exchanges and mobility.

Effective HRD strategies are not only aimed at enhancing people's current work performance. They
have a whole-of-career focus, which can prepare people for future career paths and work roles quite
different from what they may be doing now. The strategic significance given to HRD is in the
establishment and maintenance of an effective learning culture in the organization - one that supports
development of individual potential and fosters increased commitment and motivation.

Performance problems are typically addressed through the use of specific HRD interventions (a term
used to describe any activity introduced to replace or to complement existing business or
organizational activities, with the objective of improving or changing the end results). These HRD
interventions could range from performance counseling and the presentation of training courses, to
the implementation of major organization development programs

Human Resource Development practitioners generally assist line management with the
identification and solving of performance problems of individual employees, work groups or
organizational processes. The assistance offered by HRD practitioners is applicable to all
performance problems, regardless of whether this is encountered in industrial, commercial or
government organizations. Practitioners meet regularly with management to analyze and review
performance problems, and the contexts in which they occur, with the explicit objective of
determining the demands (or requirements) of those situations that need corrective action/require
intervention.

Roles of the HRD Practitioner:

• Learning Specialist
• Administrator
• Consultant
• Researcher
• Marketer
• Organization-Change Agent
• Needs Analysis
• Program Designer
• Performance Improvement Specialist
• HRD-Materials Developer

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