09 February 2004	Monday	17 Zilhaj 1424

Technological, economic, and social changes of the present century are creating a pressure on organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, to redevelop their human resources in order to accomplish complex technological functions.

Three features are dominating today's world: (i) The developing countries are becoming a centre of manufacturing, while the developed countries are turning into service-based; (ii) knowledge and information-intense products are taking the place of other commodities; and (iii) there has been a substitution of knowledge and information workers for manual production within the goods sector.

This predominance of human resources over non-human resources changes the socio-technical system in organizations. A developed base of human resource is required to reinvent and re-engineer corporations. Most importantly, a sustainable economic development necessitates a developed human resources base.

According to the World Bank, a faster economic growth requires three fundamental factors: human capital, physical capital, and natural capital. Interestingly, human capital has a major share (64 per cent), and it is a fact that economic growth and development is possible to the extent to which human capital is able to transform non-human capital in commodities. Thus, human resources require that they are properly managed and effectively developed to gain a competitive edge and to exploit strategic opportunities.

However, it is worthwhile to precisely define what the HRD is, because, apart from its wide use, it has ambiguous connotations. It may refer to an increase in human capacities, rights, and entitlements from a business and economic perspective, or as an instrument of human development, which enables social and personal development towards economic progress and democratic self-development.

However, at the national level the HRD can be defined as a "process of increasing the knowledge, the skills, and the capacities of all the people" in a society. In economic terms, it can be described as "the accumulation of human capacities and its effective investment" in the development of the economy.

In political terms, human resource development prepares people for "adult participation" in the political process, particularly as citizens in a democratic process. From the social and cultural point of view, the development of human resources helps people to lead fuller, richer lives.... (Harrison and Myers, 1964, cited in deSilva 1997).

In the organization or corporation perspective, HRD has different motives, boundaries, and environmental and institutional factors. The International Labour Organization (ILO) explained it as "(HRD) is directed to identifying and developing human capabilities for a productive and satisfying working life in conjunction with different forms of education (training) to improve the ability of individuals to understand and individually or collectively, to influence working conditions and social environment."

In particular, HRD emphasises the need for an employee orientation and corporate citizenship:

"...designed to help ensure all new employees develop a firm foundation in the company's value-culture, tradition and philosophy of consumer service as well as bond with the company and its quality vision.... The purpose of training in corporate citizenship is to have workers who are knowledgeable about the history, culture, tradition and values of the company. The aim is to engender strong feelings of belonging to the company (ILO 1996, PII).

It is evident from the above definitions that human resources development has a vide jurisdiction and incorporates not only human capital formation but also social capital building.

At this stage a question arises: What is our national and organizational situation in the context of HRD? The adult literacy rate of 36 per cent is 33 percentage point below the average (69 per cent). Net enrolment in basic education is around 50 per cent, compared with 100 per cent in China and Sri Lanka, 97 per cent in Malaysia and 68 per cent in India. On the Human Development Index, Pakistan ranks 132, as against Sri Lanka (90) and China (94).

A social gap has also been persisting in Pakistan despite some economic growth. While various health indicators have shown improvement since the beginning of the decade, most indicators will compare inadequately with countries having similar level of income (IMF, 2002).

HRD does not feature much in government organizations. However, private organizations are on the right path and keeping pace with needs of the time. The government has established training institutions and is providing training to its officials under the civil service reforms. But because of conventional operating procedures, unimaginative bureaucracy and orthodox working environment, training is inefficiently transformed without a strategic transition. There is no evidence that the government does better - or even as well as - than the private sector in training people for private sector jobs. Thus, in some cases the marginal benefit of training is negligible or even negative.

The private sector organizations are relatively better because of their strategic transition, divisioned bureaucracy and relatively conducive environment. However, they also require reshaping to achieve the HRD goal.

This situation, at both national and organizational levels, is not encouraging. Nevertheless, the fundamental question is why this situation arises and persists.

According to the IMF country report 2002, the following can explain low HRD outcomes at national level: Lack of availability of schooling facilities - ten per cent of GNP is required to fulfil education and basic health requirements, whereas at present the country is spending about three per cent of its GNP on these sectors. Even the allotted money is not properly utilized and misappropriation and mismanagement is prevalent. Cross-country comparisons indicate that the social sector spending still remained low as compared to infrastructure spending.

At the organizational level, training is seldom planned and systematic; no need analysis, no impact assessment, and no follow-up are conducted. Training lacks strategic focus to harmonies it with organizational plan and other functions.

HRD is still in infancy in organizations, the basic concepts of the development-oriented system such as job analysis, objective and result-based performance appraisal, performance-based rewards do not exist or improperly implemented. The absence of a development-oriented management and organizational system created the problem of relevancy and of transferability of learning to work place. (Jadoon, 1995).

One of the overriding features is the lack of indigenous research-based training material. All the conceptual framework, management models, and role models for understanding the dynamics of leadership in formal organizations are drawn from organizations in the Western or North American countries. And above all, training institutions, especially those run by the government, lack competent and motivated trainers.

The situation, both at national and organizational levels, is not hopeful but still manageable. Indigenous, cohesive and well-planned policies can fill this void. Since the problem has both macro and micro foundation, therefore, necessary steps are required at both levels.

However, policies at both levels should not be mutually exclusive, rather they have complementary effects and a strong bi-directional causation. The following action plan is recommended as a general guideline. Leadership is lacking in the HRD area, therefore, a committed and effective leadership is a compulsory requirement to accomplish goals.

A clear-headed, clear-visioned, far-looking and integrated leadership should equip itself to face the following challenges:

* Leading organizations in an environment of dwindling resources and increased demand for quality services, sustainable development and retention of skills for organizational community;

* Cultivating a performance management culture with emphasis on results;

* Upholding good governance despite a hostile and ever-changing environment; and

* Keeping pace with advances in information technology and work force renewal.

The leadership can take the following steps:

* Improvement in the accountability and incentive mechanism of public service delivery should be made one of the primary objectives of the comprehensive devotion plan.

* The national policy on HRD should be reformulated to address ground realities and to support strategic transition in the working environment.

* A greater attention should be given to qualitative change because in the modern competitive environment 'quality' is the catchword. At organizational level the following steps could be taken:

* Re-education should be the policy word because experience has shown that reinvention and re-engineering require substantial re-education rather than simply acquiring and strengthening of skills. This is especially so for training aimed at improving accountability, efficiency and responsiveness in government;

* The evaluation and assessment of training is helped by having clear objectives, though the setting of objective is best seen as an interactive process in which the experience of training leads to modified objectives and changed priorities. Familiar objectives include institutional development, organizational development and capacity building;

* Training should be viewed as investment in human capital, which has strong positive externalities. The organizations should prefer tailor-made programmes to meet their own development needs instead of relying on general programmes offered by training institutions;

* Economic and behavioural theories significantly improve national understanding of HRD issues. Therefore, HRD policies should include political, social, cultural and economic aspects;

The classical organizational learning models should be replaced with flexible and more relevant models. Learning as a way of being (LWB) by Peter. B. Vailll is a significant improvement on earlier models.

The LWB models have seven pillars: Self-directed learning, creative learning, expressive learning, feeling learning, on-line learning, continual learning, and reflexive learning. The LWB probably encompasses a somewhat different set of attitudes/behaviour for each person considering difference in experience, beliefs and values (including cultural norms and taboos), kinds and levels of intelligence and learning style; and

* Learning activities should support openness. This scenario assumes the externalization of all or part of the training courses. In particular, the division between universities, responsible for providing academic education, and training centres, which are more oriented towards vocational training, should be minimized.

A second form of openness is collaborated research. This openness could be seen more as a tranversal approach than a beach approach. Professionals in civil services and private sector have to work together to share the experiences of different cultures and same cultures.

Thus HRD is a multidimensional issue and requires a multidisciplinary approach to achieve goals and even to set objectives. Policy makers, at all levels, should conduct research, share experience and enhance collaboration. The topology proposed in this piece takes a broader perspective of strategic human resource management.

It defines some boundaries of the concepts and presents a set of prerequisite that needs further holistic and reductionistic exploration.

It suggests exploitation of new avenues of research that would create a greater awareness about inter-organization and intra-organization interactions while considering the macroeconomic and macro-social conditions.