HR Training, Career Development, and Employee Creativity

Introduction: Career Management and HRM

"Career management, unlike other phases, is a continuous process that occurs throughout one's career and not just at discrete times… it is a philosophy and set of habits that will enable you to achieve career goals and develop career resiliency…" (Berkeley HR).

The value of effective human resource management (HRM) practices within any organization is well-known and wide-ranging. According to a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Computer Information Systems, competent and consistently applied HRM strategies include offering "training programs, incentive systems, employee participation, clearly defined jobs, internal career opportunities, and selectivity practices" (Lee, et al., 2009). Employee participation, when HRM professionals fully utilize this model, can be viewed as the degree to which a company "values the inputs and voices of the employees" (Lee, 84).

HR Training and Employees' Careers

The value that HRM professionals place on employee participation should be significant, albeit not every company encourages it to the degree that it should. This paper presents scholarship relating to HR training and career development as they evolve through HR practice.

When scholars and researchers discuss how HR managers and executives can improve an organization through quality employee training, they do not necessarily refer to an employee's career beyond the specific company where that employee is currently working. However, any training received through HR programs is actually giving that employee a significant career boost. Any position with any company places an employee on a career path; and although the next position that employee might accept with another company — whether in the same field or not — may not be similar, what was learned through training at the previous company should be seen as beneficial knowledge and experience.

Theresa Welbourne was exactly and succinctly correct when she wrote that the field of human resource management is not only at "the core" of any business organization, but also has validity because its objective is about "optimizing people's contributions" to their company and to their own futures — that is, their careers (Welbourne, 2012). Those contributions should come from all executives, managers, and individual employees, Welbourne asserts. Moreover, every employee, regardless of level, should be receiving training from human resources.

The reason Welbourne gives for the importance of training and attending to valid employee contributions is that "ultimately, the individual employee is responsible for his/her own career, talent development, work relations, and non-work experiences" (Welbourne, 309). People and relationships are as important as anything else in a business environment, Welbourne continues. But since HRM is so vitally important, why, she asks, is it one of the "least popular functions" in any organization?

Welbourne suggests there is a need for HR to speed up its processes and improve organizational performance. This is not a new notion, but she claims that through the use of "agile and extreme" computer programming and IT tools, HRM researchers can learn "what is not working" in HR and make changes that push HR practitioners to the next level (Welbourne, 310).

HRM and Information Technology: Improving Management Training

She insists that HR practitioners are in a perfect position to develop new tools for HR efficiency and effectiveness because HR professionals are nearly always the ones who lead "change management efforts" (Welbourne, 310). The bottom line, in this editorial published in Human Resource Management as she stepped down as editor-in-chief, is that research should focus on what is not working, not only on what is working.

Chei Sian Lee and colleagues take a position similar to Welbourne's: information technologies can and should be embraced by HR managers in order to positively impact the skills and behaviors of the workforce. Lee points out that HRM practices influence the "innovation and adoption" of information technologies, yet few HRM strategies in companies focus on the relationship between IT and employee empowerment and training (Lee, 83). Because HRM practices have a direct impact on the attitudes and behaviors of employees, it is important for HR departments to get up to speed with IT applications in relation to employee training.

Why is IT important in terms of employee training and, ultimately, employee careers? Lee explains that IT allows employees to "perform tasks at a higher level" and to assume duties and responsibilities they had not previously been involved with (83). Moreover, companies that use internal IT resources are more likely to "enhance the effect of clear job definition" because everyday employees share the same organizational culture as managers and executives, and are therefore far more likely to be aligned with HRM practices and strategies (Lee, 85).

Conclusion

Effective HRM practices — spanning training design, IT integration, creative workforce development, and structured onboarding — play a central role in shaping both organizational performance and the long-term career trajectories of individual employees. As the scholarship reviewed here demonstrates, strategic human resource management is not merely an administrative function but a driver of innovation, competitive advantage, and employee growth across diverse organizational and cultural contexts.