Pathways HRD Program: Design, Methods, and Evaluation

Introduction to the Pathways HRD Program

Pathways is a Human Resource Development (HRD) program that will be evaluated in this paper. The program is structured to help employees develop their personal and organizational skills, understanding, and abilities. Human Resource Development encompasses employee training, career advancement, performance management, key employee identification, succession planning, tuition assistance, coaching, mentoring, and organizational development. HRD activities can be formal — such as classroom training, college courses, or planned organizational change efforts — or as informal as one-on-one coaching by a manager. Many organizations believe strongly in HRD and work to build programs that cover all the necessary bases (Heathfield, 2010).

A comprehensive development plan should include training and development activities in at least three different areas. The first is job-specific or technical training, designed to improve an employee's technical or professional knowledge relevant to their specific role. The second is general professional development, which highlights the expansion of skills that play a key role in how one performs a job — including teamwork, customer focus, commitment to diversity, leadership, and effective communication. The third area consists of professional development activities that improve professional expertise and promote an environment of continued learning and improvement. Examples include participation in annual regional or national organizations, university service, and continuing education or university courses that contribute to certification requirements or otherwise enhance professional development in a specific area (Development Plans for Administrative Positions, 2008).

The center of all aspects of Human Resource Development should be developing the most capable workforce possible so that the organization and its individual employees can achieve their work goals in service to customers (Heathfield, 2010). A good HRD plan should include a written philosophy that clearly states that effective human resource development can improve performance — for example, by changing behavior, producing measurable results, or increasing productivity.

Program Objectives and HRD Philosophy

The components of an HRD philosophy should include: an assessment of employees and an explanation of what each employee needs to contribute to their own growth; a comprehensive statement of the importance of HRD to the organization and its future growth; a position statement outlining the HRD staff's view of the training-learning process and the instructional strategies the department will use; and a statement on the relationship of the HRD program to the overall organization and its key decision makers and supporters (Strategies for Designing an HRD Program, n.d.).

Performing an effective training program requires using a variety of techniques. The objectives of this program include: assessing the need for training and career or organizational development; designing training and development programs that meet identified needs; evaluating the effectiveness of training programs; and using computer systems and other tools effectively. Additional objectives include describing the human life cycle in the context of career development, discussing how adults learn, describing the personal and social meanings of work, explaining the principles of diversity, describing the principles of group behavior and teamwork, explaining the principles of effective interpersonal communication, and describing methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis as well as the principles of organizational development and change (Human Resource Development, n.d.).

Human resource development efforts produce multiple effects, including alterations to work settings, improvements in attitudes, changes in behavior, and financial benefits. HRD programs often concentrate on individuals and their work environments. Resources may be allocated to produce structural changes in the nature of employees' jobs, work assignments, and supervision, thereby creating a more challenging and stimulating work environment. The effects of an HRD program can be assessed using traditional psychological and social indicators, and improvements in the working environment can be measured through job observations or attitude questionnaires (Mirvis and Macy, n.d.).

Benefits of HRD Programs

HRD can also produce significant financial results. Employee behavior may be understood as a decision-making process: employees make choices about attendance and about how much effort to invest in their work. Research indicates that employees are more likely to come to work — rather than be absent or quit — when they obtain satisfaction from their jobs. They are also more likely to give greater effort and better utilize new working methods when they expect to be rewarded for those efforts. As HRD programs alter working environments and influence employees' perceptions of job satisfaction, they also affect employees' decisions regarding job-related behavior. Resulting changes in absenteeism, turnover, accidents, and performance will in turn affect the overall operating effectiveness of the organization (Mirvis and Macy, n.d.).

Two disciplines have notably influenced the theory and practice of HRD: economics and psychology. In economics, employees are often seen as human capital and are valued on the basis of their qualifications, abilities, and skills. The value of human capital is typically measured through psychological tests, competency ratings, and appraisals grounded in theories of psychological intelligence. The human capital framework assumes that the qualifications, skills, and abilities of employees establish the worth of human capital, and that increases in this value contribute to productivity gains and return on investment (ROI) for the organization (Kandalgaonkar, n.d.).

Another assumption of the human capital view of HRD is that wage differentials, placement, promotion, and rewards are distributed on the basis of perfect competition. This model measures the value of added output from human resources in terms of HRD investment, such as on-the-job training. However, the human capital model does not fully address why some employees develop certain job-related competencies through on-the-job training while others do not. It is also largely silent on how employees actually learn on the job and develop work-related aptitudes. While very useful for measuring knowledge, skills, and abilities, this model fails to fully explain employee development in the context of real workplace dynamics (Kandalgaonkar, n.d.).

Conclusion

HRD goes beyond the traditional concepts of training and development through coursework. It must also consider the methods most appropriate for achieving desired outcomes, encompassing on-the-job training, placements, rotations, research, seminars, mentoring, coaching, and study. Without this broader framework, most training ends up as wasted expenditure. A traditional training course is not always the most appropriate method of learning, and the potential learning a staff member is supposed to have gained is often quickly lost due to a lack of follow-up or opportunity to practice and cement the knowledge transfer.