Human Resource Development

What is human resource development? As a starting point, Richard Swanson has defined it as “a process for developing and unleashing human expertise through train- ing and development and organization development for the purpose of improving performance.”5 Learning is at the core of all HRD efforts. Indeed, a major focus today is on workplace learning and perfor- mance. Jacobs and Park define workplace learning as “the process used by individuals when engaged in training programs, education and development courses, or some type of experiential learning activity for the purpose of acquiring the competence necessary to meet current and future work requirements.”6 For our purposes, then, human resource development (HRD) can be defined as a set of systematic and planned activities designed by an organization to provide its members with the opportunities to learn necessary skills to meet current and future job demands. Focused most broadly, HRD seeks to develop people’s “knowledge, expertise, pro- ductivity, and satisfaction, whether for personal or group/team gain, or for the bene- fit of an organization, community, nation, or, ultimately, the whole of humanity.”7 HRD activities should begin when an employee joins an organization and continue throughout his or her career, regardless of whether that employee is an executive or a worker on an assembly line. HRD programs must respond to job changes and integrate the long-term plans and strategies of the organization to ensure the efficient and effective use of resources. In short, while training and development activities, or “T&D” for short, constitutes a major part of human resource develop- ment, activities such as coaching, career development, team building, and organiza- tion development also are aspects of human resource development.