Will Human Resource Development Survive?
Darren C. Short, John W. Bing, and Marijke Thamm Kehrhahn
We, the authors, experience human resource development (HRD) as a paradox.
This is a time when HRD appears to be at its strongest in terms of publications
and research outputs and when the environment appears right for HRD to
demonstrate clear value-added to key stakeholders. However, in other ways, HRD
appears inner directed and without substantial impact: publications seem to
preach to the converted; HRD research and, to some degree, practice appear
divorced from real-time problems in organizations; HRD professionals see their
work being completed by those from other professions; there is limited evidence
that HRD has really moved far from the fad-ridden gutters of false short-term
training panaceas; and practitioners are still measuring training person-hours
rather than the relationship between learning and productivity.
Every year, the members of the ASTD Research-to-Practice Committee are given
an opportunity to write an editorial for HRDQ. Two years ago, Dilworth (2001) described the
committee’s work in exploring the future of HRD. Last year, Short, Brandenburg,
May, and Bierema (2002) summarized the main trends identified by that work,
focusing on the implications for HRD of the increasing pressure for
organizations to deliver shareholder value, the trend toward globalization, and
the need for just-in-time products, services, and solutions. Since then the work
has been extended and prepared for publication in a forthcoming issue of
Advances in Developing Human Resources.
From this body of work a number of major challenges have emerged. These are
macro issues that address the question: What challenges must the HRD profession
overcome to ensure the effectiveness and success of the field in the coming
years? Here, we set out challenges to provoke thought and action. Our intention
is to encourage HRD’s multiple stakeholders to join in a spirited discussion on
the future of HRD.
Challenge 1: Responding to Multiple Stakeholders
The ongoing critical debate about whether corporations have a responsibility
to a wider group of stakeholders beyond their focus on shareholders continues to
capture attention (May & Kahnweiler, 2002). HRD practitioners are caught up in
the shareholder-stakeholder debate, in part because they are responsible for the
learning supply chain that supports organizations. HRD cannot blindly focus on shareholder
value alone if it must also respond to learning supply chain stakeholders, including
primary, secondary, postsecondary, and postgraduate education institutions;
continuing education, training, and development entities; just-in-time knowledge
delivery systems; and other learning solutions both inside and outside
corporations. As companies proceed from manufacturing to "mentalfacturing," not
to take a strong position in support of the interests of learning supply chain
stakeholders is as reckless as it would be for a senior supply chain manager to
disregard the various contributors to the manufacturing supply process.
The suggestion that HRD orient itself to multiple stakeholders implies that
HRD professionals should promote corporate accountability beyond shareholders to
communities and societies (Kaufman & Guerra, 2002). Perhaps HRD professionals
will be able to educate the organization on the meaning of social responsibility
and its relationship to corporate performance, while demonstrating effective
strategies for addressing multiple needs and negotiating various stakeholder
interests. No doubt, there is risk in taking a bold position in favor of
stakeholder interests, but the risk is greater in doing nothing.
Challenge 2: Measuring HRD Impact and Utility
To establish themselves as key players in the development of organizational
strategy, HRD practitioners must demonstrate how what they do correlates with
the productivity and welfare of the company (Russ-Eft & Preskill, 2001; Swanson
& Holton, 1999). The future of HRD depends to a great degree on the extent to
which the value it brings can be confidently measured. We believe that a focus
on demonstrating impact and utility will not only lead to greater overall
influence of HRD on the organization but will strengthen HRD’s reputation as a
legitimate profession. Therefore, over the next decade, linking learning and
human process to performance and measuring learning, human process, and the
resulting change in performance are crucial challenges to the field.
Well-designed studies linking learning to productivity will be critical to these
efforts.
HRD professionals must become skilled systems thinkers who can design and
conduct measurement and analysis across the organization and pinpoint the
influences of HRD efforts on employee productivity and organizational
performance, linking past research results to current practice. HRD
professionals must have the skills to identify valid measures of learning and
growth and develop meaningful and accurate interpretations, while being ever
mindful of the myriad of intervening variables that can influence learning and
performance curves in work settings (Preskill & Russ-Eft, 2003). Ethical
engagement in measurement work will maintain integrity around the complexity of
learning and performance processes and will protect against laying shortfalls on
the backs of learners and those who facilitate their learning.
Challenge 3: Orienting Toward the Future
We are concerned about how little time HRD spends focused on the future. Its
research and theories struggle to keep up with the present, let alone anticipate
what may be needed in the coming months and years. The void is filled by the
fads, which falsely offer panacea solutions and lead to the poor reputation of
HRD in delivering real long-term outcome benefits. To put it another way, HRD
contains some products that are "quick-fix, flavor-of-the-month, buzz-worded
remnants of a slick sales job" (Leimbach, 1999, p. 1).
Yet practice desperately needs to benefit from research and theories that
apply to leading-edge issues. The challenge to HRD researchers is to anticipate
what research is needed and how it can contribute to HRD practice in one, two,
or three years, and then to make it available in ways that maximize the
likelihood that research findings influence practitioner behavior. The ability
of our profession to be consistently ahead of the game will elevate the status
of HRD as a key investment in the knowledge economy.
It is just as easy to be critical of HRD practitioners for failing to focus
on the future. Many are running learning activities that are out-of-date
relative to new business strategies and new knowledge about learning, and the
same practitioners are often late to the table when it comes to discussions on
the potential learning implications of likely business decisions. The challenge
to HRD practitioners is to be strategically proactive rather than reactive.
Challenge 4: Focusing on Problems and Outcomes of HRD Practice
Organizations are arenas with real problems that cry out for solutions. Yet
the field of HRD appears to get lost in exploring its own processes. A glance
through published research shows a wide variety of research agendas in HRD, but
how many of them are focused on solving real problems that matter to
stakeholders outside HRD? Chermack and Lynham (2002) listed the top twenty
symposia topics from past conferences of the Academy of Human Resource
Development. Included in the list are such internal process issues as core
directions in HRD, university HRD programs, and advancing the profession through
journals. Absent from the list are the major trends identified by Short,
Brandenburg, May, and Bierema (2002): the increasing pressure for organizations
to deliver shareholder value, the trend toward globalization, and the need for
just-in-time products, services, and solutions.
By focusing on outcome-level problems and determining the HRD contribution to
the solution, HRD is forced to think systemically and deliver a major
contribution. HRD authors need to cease writing for the converted and seek a
significant contribution in the world of those who are yet to be converted and
those who could be labeled as being unaware that HRD could have any role in
finding the solution to their problems.
The challenge to practitioners is to move beyond a silo mentality in which
solutions can be found only within HRD and to embrace a perspective that
organizational problems are systemic and require systemic solutions. This
requires that HRD practitioners work in problem-focused, solution-driven,
multidiscipline teams within organizations.
Challenge 5: Achieving Professional Recognition
HRD is a relatively young field. Few outside HRD consider it a profession.
Chalofsky (1998) argued that HRD had yet to reach the level of a mature
profession because practice is based on guesswork and not on theories tested by
research, practice is based on research and thinking that are at least ten years
out of date, and practice is based on what the client wants rather than on what
works.
As long as HRD is seen as fad driven and reactive and those who lack a sound
understanding of core HRD theory and practice fill HRD jobs, then HRD will be
viewed as secondary to other professions in organizations. Although it will mean
painful effort, either further professional development of practitioners or the
loss of existing people, HRD as a profession needs to take specific steps to
increase its credibility in organizations and its recognition as a discrete
field of research and practice.
Efforts to build professional recognition will require HRD to construct a
sound theory base and apply those theories in practice. As Swanson (2001)
stated, "HRD practice does not come close to what we know from sound theory" (p.
309). The efforts will also require a sound education for HRD professionals with
accompanying professional recognition and continuing professional development,
and ethical standards that are understood and applied by professionals and
overseen by professional bodies. More important, as we promote awareness and
recognition of HRD as a profession, we must keep our focus on values, ethics,
the quality of practice, and a set of competencies through which both research
and practice can be undertaken, and avoid investing energy in the building of
bureaucratic processes of credentialing and standardization.
Conclusions
HRD is a relatively young field, and there are significant challenges to its
future. Failing to acknowledge these challenges will increasingly marginalize
HRD within organizations. The tasks seen as central to the HRD profession will
be taken on by others who work in professions more focused on delivering and
measuring outcomes, thinking and working systemically, with a sounder
theoretical base, with clear standards and ethical codes, with stronger
professional bodies and competent practitioners. HRD will be left on the
sidelines: a gradually shrinking number of people who write for themselves,
focus on internal process issues, and react ineffectively to demands long after
they have been formulated.
We invite all those with a stake in the future of HRD to join together to
grapple with the critical challenges that face our field, engage in deep mean-ingful
dialogue about the challenges, and construct workable, effective, and immediate
approaches to addressing the challenges to secure the future of HRD. Our goal is
to banish complacency and to encourage dialogue. HRD’s human resources are
impressive; they must now be focused.
References
Chalofsky, N. E. (1998). Professionalization comes from theory and research:
The "why" instead of the "how-to." In R. Torraco (Ed.),
Proceedings of the Academy of Human Resource Development. Baton
Rouge, LA: Academy of Human Resource Development.
Chermack, T. J., & Lynham, S. A. (2002). Assessing institutional sources of
scholarly productivity in Human Resource Development from 1995 to 2001.Human Resource Development Quarterly, 13 (3), 341–346.
Dilworth, R. L. (2001). Shaping HRD for the new millennium.
Human Resource Development Quarterly, 12 (2), 103–104.
Kaufman, R., & Guerra, I. (2002). A perspective adjustment to add value to
external clients, including society. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 13 (1), 109–115.
Leimbach, M. (1999). Certification of HRD professionals, products and
academic programs. In K. P. Kuchinke (Ed.), Proceedings of the Academy of Human Resource Development.
Baton Rouge, LA: Academy of Human Resource Development.
May, G., & Kahnweiler, W. (2002, July). Shareholder value: Is there common
ground? T+D, 56, 44–52.
Preskill, H., & Russ-Eft, D. (2003). A framework for reframing HRD
evaluation, practice, and research. In A. M. Gilley, J. L. Callahan, & L. L. Bierema (Eds.),
Critical issues in HRD: A new agenda for the twenty-first century. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Press.
Russ-Eft, D., & Preskill, H. (2001). Evaluation in organizations: A
systematic approach to enhancing learning, performance, and change. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Press.
Short, D. C., Brandenburg, D. C., May, G. L., & Bierema, L. L. (2002). HRD: A
voice to integrate the demands of system changes, people, learning, and performance.
Human Resource Development Quarterly, 13 (3), 237–241.
Swanson, R. A. (2001). HRD and its underlying theory. Human Resource Development
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Swanson, R. A., & Holton, E. F., III. (1999). Results: How to assess performance,
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This Editorial originally appeared in the Fall 2003 Human Resource Development Quarterly, 14 (3), pp 239-243.
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