Human Resource Management: Learning Programme & OD Report

This report comprehensively addresses key aspects of Human Resource Management (HRM). It begins by outlining crucial actions for managing and coordinating learning programs, emphasizing the importance of assessing learning needs, setting objectives, developing comprehensive plans, implementing initiatives, and evaluating program effectiveness. The report then explores the intricate relationship between Organizational Development (OD) and the strategic and tactical contributions of Human Resource Development (HRD), highlighting how HRD practices enhance organizational effectiveness, productivity, and the quality of working life through training and development. Furthermore, the report delves into the concept of a learning organization, discussing its debatable nature and various perspectives, including its role in fostering continuous learning, knowledge sharing, and innovation. The report concludes by underscoring the significance of HRM in today's competitive business environment and the direct correlation between OD and HRD's contributions, emphasizing the use of scoring, formative, and summative assessments for optimal training outcomes.

Running Head: Human Resource Management
Human Resource Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
1. Actions to manage and coordinate the learning programme...........................................2
2. Relationship between the organisational development (OD) and HRDs' strategic and
tactical contribution.........................................................................................................................4
3. Notion of learning organisation.......................................................................................6
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................8
References............................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The report deals with the human resource development (HRD) that is a part of the Human
resource management (HRM). HRD is the process of developing human expertise, through
training and development. HRD is also involved in the performance appraisal, counselling
sessions and promotion of organisational effectiveness. The focus of the paper is a learning
organisation. In this context, the paper discusses the important actions to be taken by the HR
developer to manage and coordinate the learning program. Further, the report discusses the
relationship between the organisational development (OD) and HRDs strategic and tactical
contribution to the organisational effectiveness, productivity and quality of working life. The
notion of the learning organisation is debatable and is highlighted. Lastly, scoring, formative and
summative assessment are discussed.
1. Actions to manage and coordinate the learning programme
To manage and coordinate the learning program the important actions to be taken by the
HR are –
Assess the learning needs- It is the most basic action to be taken by any HR. Upon
assessing the most common learning needs, the HE can design a learning program to solve the
particular problem faced by the employees in meeting the professional goals. Assessing the
needs helps to develop the program that aligns with the organisational objectives and satisfy the
employees’ expectation. Assessment is needed when the learning program is developed from the
scratch without predetermined objectives. By assessing the learning needs, one can assess the
learning objectives for the target group of employees (Armstrong and Taylor 2014).

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Set learning objectives- The learning program must be designed in a manner that the
employees should be able to perform what is expected of them. The organisational learning
objectives must be formed from the gaps identified in employees skill set and prioritised. The
learning program thus aims to mitigate the gap between the current and the expected
performance with the help of the specific learning program. A human resource manager (HRM)
must perform the 360-degree evaluation, to ensure that the learning program matches the areas of
improvement. It will better help manage and coordinate the program (Taylor and Govender
2017)
Comprehensive learning action plan- The learning program must be comprehensive and
involve appropriate learning theories. The HRM must develop the learning materials such as
lectures and presentation along with eye-catching materials, and instructional design and content.
The learning program must reflect the learning style of the target group. Prior to launch of
program, the HRM can collect feedbacks to make the necessary adjustments (Rees and Smith
2017)
Implement the learning and development initiatives- The HR must now decide through
proper coordination if the learning program will be delivered in-house. It can also be externally
coordinated. This phase involves scheduling of the learning activities. HR must organise the
related resources such as equipment, facilities and finally launch the learning program. Further,
action must be taken to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme by monitoring the progress.
In his phase, a transactional change occurs. For instance, if the objective was to increase the
monthly productivity, then new tricks or methods may be taught successfully. In such case,
employees may continue to work in their old fashion with new strategies tried successfully in

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short time. However, the same may not be expected with the untried methods. It will lead to
transformational change that will occur over a long time (Armstrong and Taylor 2014).
Evaluate and revise the learning- As mentioned the learning programme must be
continuously monitored to identify if it is meeting the learning objectives. HR must collect the
instructor feedback as well as that of employees. The program should be evaluated to identify the
skill acquisition. Weakness in the learning protocol can be identified by analysing the feedback.
In case the objectives are not met the action plan can be revised. The goal of the HR should be to
capitalise on the most profitable outcomes. In case of the resistance to change, different models
can be applied such as Lewin model, Kotter’s change model or any other (Rees and Smith 2017).
2. Relationship between the organisational development (OD) and HRDs' strategic and
tactical contribution
To enhance the speed of the OD process, the practitioners use the strategies and tactics of
the HRD. OD practices are the top-down approach to increase the organisation effectiveness.
There may be many factors contributing to change in the organisation and changing its shape.
However, the HRD and the OD remains same.
According to Creasey et al. (2016), the innovations in technology, employee
development and the different hierarchical level in the organisation depend on the workforce and
related trends. In order to ensure success, the workforce can change the shape of the
organisation. This is the corporate approach that is related with the OD and HRD practices.
Managers with different specialisation seek different opportunities. It is from the organisational
management perspective that the HR managers utilise the employee development opportunity. It
can be attributed to the combined activities of OD and HRD in modern organisational times.

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Every organisation has mission plan and certain objectives. HRD contributes to business
objectives by increasing the productivity by training and developing the employee's skills and
motivation. It contributes to the organisational objectives through technical competence and
strategic innovation. Organisation invests highly in the human resource for the organisational
development. The effects of HRM come into play when the employees stay in the organisation.
HRD involves in strategic and diverse thinking to maintain the organisational standards. HRD
demonstrates competency and competitiveness by using various strategies or rigorous
recruitment and retention and encouraging diversity. OD practice, on the other hand, uses
different strategies and tactics to develop the HR services (Gilley et al. 2015).
Further, the HRD role in improving the quality of the working life in organisation is
reflected in creating professional development opportunities. It is also reflected in developing
and delivering the professional development programs. Training and development help in
organisational development by improving the quality of the working life. It is because training
addresses the employee’s weakness, improving the worker’s performance, worker satisfaction,
reducing cost, and reduction in supervision. Thus the HRD practices of training and development
are associated with the OD directly. Tactics are needed to handle the critical issues during the
annual review, regarding benefits and compensation and adjust the job descriptions to align with
the OD practice and advance technology (Ruck et al. 2017).
HRD works to improve the organisational productivity by setting realistic goals. The OD
practices to maintain service delivery, profitable results and long-term survival involve putting
HR to initiate and develop HR communication. It is the common practice of OD and is put to use
through a proper communication to the employees. HR communication is important for the
change process. If the change is imposed without justification and education, then the resistance

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to change occurs. It is the usual OD practice in most organisations since last two decades. In the
changed liberalised market, organisational effectiveness can be enhanced through HRD. It is
possible through the HR competency and flexibility that improves the organisational
effectiveness. It is also possible through the continuous performance improvement, initiated by
HRD, which is the systematic process of the ongoing, companywide change for OD. Other HRD
practices that are fruitful for OD process are learning the oriented culture and innovation
development. It helps in developing the organisation with workers having common values,
beliefs, and assumptions of organisational members on acquiring, creating, transferring
knowledge and modification of behaviour to reflect new insights and knowledge (Katou and
Budhwar 2015).
3. Notion of learning organisation
In contemporary management, the notion of the learning organisation has been central
point. The real-life examples to the concept have been difficult to identify. It can be argued that
it is too ideal a vision. The notion of the learning organisation does not seem to align with the
dynamics and the requirements of the organisation. Further, the creation of the attractive
commercial template to the consultants leads to under powering of the theoretical framework of
the learning organisation (Li et al. 2014). The concept of the learning organisation is debatable as
some of the theorists believe that the learning organisation is initiated by the senior management
involved in the top-down vision. Some others contradict the argument with the bottom up or
democratic approach. Some assume that any organisation can be the learning system. However,
most organisations tend to focus on the outcomes rather than the process of learning. Another
view that is more positive in this regard is the learning organisation as a process of continuous
learning and sharing of knowledge. It involves learning to reach the goals, provide continuous

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learning opportunities, and embrace creative tension as a source of energy. Learning organisation
is also believed to foster inquiry and dialogue or open communication with the people and
interaction with environment (Pedler et al. 2017).
According to Burke and Noumair (2015), it is necessary to become adept at learning.
With the change, it is necessary to not only transform institutions, rather develop organisations
that are the learning systems. There may be no theoretical basis, but there have been significant
improvement in the organisation of the production and services. The function of the productivity
and competitiveness are knowledge and information processing. The network of management,
production, and distribution are formed by the territories and firms. These organisations have the
capacity to work in real time. Otoo et al. (2015) argued that the failure of learning spells disaster
for the organisation.
Employees are scored on the basis of their competence. This scoring process is an
important tool for recruitment of employees, gap analysis for development, and during the
performance appraisal. Formative assessment refers to the tools that are used to identify and
close the learning gaps. It helps offer feedback to the employees whose learning is taking place
to modify the learning plan. It is the way to improve their performance. On the contrary, the
summative assessments mark the arrival of the learner in the specific stage. Summative
assessment can be a grade given for final piece of work. It means this tool is used after the
training and development process is over. An HR must use both summative and formative
assessment to achieve the best results. Most trainers are familiar with the former but not the other
one. All three tools are necessary to accomplish the desired outcomes from the training and
development process (Hughes and Byrd 2015).

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that increase in globalisation has led to increasing business
competition. Consequently, the human resource development has become essential. In small-
scale companies the organised HR practices are evident. In the last decade, a lot of companies
could not perform well due to lack of effective HRD practices. With the increase in the role and
responsibility of the HRD department to perform effectively, the scenario has changed. Various
training and development related initiatives have improved the organisation's productivity,
quality of working life and have contributed to organisational effectiveness. Thus, the OD is
directly related to the tactical and strategic contribution of HRD.

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References
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Burke, W.W. and Noumair, D.A., 2015. Organization development: A process of learning and
changing. FT Press.
Creasey, T., Jamieson, D.W., Rothwell, W.J. and Severini, G., 2016. Exploring the relationship
between organization development and change management. Practicing Organization
Development: Leading Transformation and Change, Fourth Edition, pp.330-337.
Gilley, J.W., Gilley, A.M., Jackson, S.A. and Lawrence, H., 2015. Managerial practices and
organizational conditions that encourage employee growth and development. Performance
Improvement Quarterly, 28(3), pp.71-93.
Hughes, C. and Byrd, M.Y., 2015. The Role of HRD in Organizations. In Managing Human
Resource Development Programs (pp. 31-58). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Katou, A.A. and Budhwar, P., 2015. Human resource management and organisational
productivity: a systems approach based empirical analysis. Journal of Organizational
Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(3), pp.244-266.
Li, Y., Chen, H., Liu, Y. and Peng, M.W., 2014. Managerial ties, organizational learning, and
opportunity capture: A social capital perspective. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 31(1),
pp.271-291.

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Otoo, S., Agapitova, N. and Behrens, J., 2015. A strategic and results-oriented approach to
learning for capacity development.
Pedler, M., Pedler, M., Burgoyne, J.G. and Burgoyne, J.G., 2017. Is the learning organisation
still alive?. The Learning Organization, 24(2), pp.119-126.
Rees, G. and Smith, P. eds., 2017. Strategic human resource management: An international
perspective. Sage.
Ruck, K., Welch, M. and Menara, B., 2017. Employee voice: An antecedent to organisational
engagement?. Public Relations Review.
Taylor, S. and Govender, C.M., 2017. Increasing employability by implementing a Work-
Integrated Learning partnership model in South Africa–A student perspective. Africa Education
Review, pp.1-15.