2.
Future of HRD
- Dr. T V
Rao
Author
Dr. T.V. Rao needs no introduction to HR professionals. He is
the founder of National HRD Network. He has pioneered the HRD
movement in India and is also the spirit behind it. He was a
professor in IIM, Ahmedabad as well as XLRI, Jamshedpur. Dr. T.V.
Rao is now the Chairman of T.V. Rao Learning Systems, Ahmedabad.
Presentation
Dr. T.V. Rao made a presentation on the ‘Future of HRD’ on May 7th,
2003 in Chennai under the auspices of Madras Chapter of National
HRD Network. It was a pleasure meeting him after so many years
and to listen to him.
I summarize below few of the key points from his presentation
(In other words discredit for inaccuracies, if any, goes to me).
Four categories of HRD Managers
HRD Managers can be divided into following four categories:
1.
Future CEOs
2.
HRD Specialists
3.
Personnel Specialists
4.
Sub-system Managers
1. Future CEOs
In this category are HR professionals who have aspirations and
rise as future CEOs from HR profession. Dr. Rao cited the
examples of Mr. M.R.R. Nair (SAIL) , Mr.Anil Sachdev (Eicher
Consultancy) and Mr.Arvind Agarwal (RPG Group), who have become
CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) from HR route.
2. HRD Specialists
They are talented HRD Chiefs or HRD managers of excellence. They
have graduated to become HRD specialists coming up from /
working in following three areas:
i.
Industrial Relations (dealing with Unions, Welfare, etc.)
ii.
Personnel Administration / Human Resource Management (dealing
with recruitment, Salary & Perks, Performance Appraisals, etc.)
iii.
HRD (Training, Feedback & Counseling etc.)
They are excellent in systems and their
implementation. They have good HRD facilitation skills & process
skills. They are specialists in the sense that that they do not
want to take on the role of CEOs.
3. Personnel Specialists
These HR Professionals are basically HR Department Managers.
They deal with day-to-day personnel, IR, & administration
activities, which gives them lot of power and fulfills their
immediate needs. They enjoy personnel administration and prefer
to delegate the development part of interventions to others
(since they are not fully equipped with training & OD skills).
They also fulfill the immediate needs of CEOs for a person who
can take on day-to-day work on dealing with personnel matters
and can be the right-hand of the CEOs.
They enjoy more powers than the HRD specialists because HRD
specialist is a change agent and he operates through media of
influence and not by command. They are good personnel managers
but may lack professional preparation in HRD. Hence they are not
HRD Specialists.
4. Sub-System Managers
These are the HR professionals are either fresh trainees or
little more senior people who are specialize exclusively in one
area. The one area may be Recruitment, or Compensation &
Benefits or Training etc. They may not be immediately able to
grow into higher level of HRD roles. They are at best support
staff for the HRD Chief.
Some Suggestions by Dr. TV Rao
The important thing for HR professional is that she / he should
graduate from being a Sub-System Manager to Personnel Specialist
to HRD specialist. Finally, if possible, to CEOs.
In the days to come, the activities done by category 4 & 3
managers (Sub-System Managers & Personnel Specialists) will get
outsourced and therefore it is essential that the HR
professionals grow into category 2 & 1 managers (HRD Specialists
& CEOs).
If you are Personnel Specialists or Sub-system Managers, then
possibly you should open an outsourcing company. Otherwise you
may have to become HRD specialist, person who gives time to be a
Change Agent.
Pointers to HR Professionals in Corporate Sector
The HR professionals need to review where they spend their time
today. Are they investing the time solely in administrative
activity? Or are they spending time in activities, which will
make them strategic business partners, change agents, & develop
themselves?
Time spent in meeting directors & CEO, attending business plan &
review meetings, meeting peers, visiting production facilities
moves them towards becoming strategic business partners. Time
spent on visioning business needs & developing HRD linkages,
collecting direct feedback from internal customers,
conceptualizing & developing new programs can move them to
become change agents.
Some of the activities, which can be taken up in the role of the
change agent are:
i.
OD activities like Performance Consultancy for CEO,
Organizational climate and Employee satisfaction survey
ii.
Assessment and Development Centers
iii.
Research oriented activities
iv.
Introduction of 360º appraisal in the organization.
HRD Managers are also to focus whether
we are developing systems but not implementing, whether they are
implementing systems but not giving time to them for
stabilizing.
HRD Managers have to play the roles of entrepreneur.
It must be remembered that today’s CEOs were not born as great
people. They all started like you and me from humble beginning
but they had a dream.
SWOT of HRD Movement in India
Strengths
The above classification of HR Professionals & suggestions apply
to all Asian countries and may be even the developed countries.
Coming to the HRD movement in India, it has many strengths
including the following:
·
Good Body of Knowledge on HRD has been created.
·
We have professional bodies like NHRD, NIPM, ISTD.
·
We also have good educational institutions like XLRI, SCMHRD and
Madras School of Social Work in Chennai
·
There is a 28 years of history of HRD in India because the first
HRD Department was created in Larsen & Toubro in India.
·
India also has a distinction of having first Ministry of HRD
(Dr. Rao said “let us not discuss merits of the role it has
played.”)
Weaknesses
There are several weaknesses also in the HRD movement in India:
·
There are not enough role models of future CEOs from HR. Because
of this weakness, not enough HRD professionals aspire to become
future CEOs.
·
CEOs do not identify and use the HRD Managers as properly change
agents and HRD Manager is also lacking their courage to educate
them and make a difference.
·
The Academic Institutions have also failed on one count of
encouraging enough research scholars in the areas of HRD.
·
The practice of HRD in India lags behind the theoretical
knowledge by about 20 years. For instance, Assessment Centers
were proposed in 23 years back in an organization and it is only
now the concept has been implemented.
·
Professional bodies have to increase their umbrella. When Dr.Rao
attended ASTD conference in USA, the conference had 15,000
participants whereas the best of conferences in India, though
well organized, may have at the most 1500 participants.
Opportunities
There is no need to restrict our thinking to HRD’s Role in the
Corporate Sector alone. HRD has a Role in many other sectors.
There are unlimited opportunities for HRD professionals.
For example, can you create a cadre of HRD Managers in NGOs
(Non-Government Organization). 20 years back there were no HRD
managers in the corporate sector in India. However, with the
growth of HRD movement, now a cadre of HRD manager is created in
the corporate sector.
Similarly HRD is relevant to the education sector. There are 222
Universities, 10,000 colleges, and 8,00,000 schools in India.
There is an urgent need to create HRD Manager in this sector
also.
There is a need for Change Agents ( = HRD Managers) in
Government system also to improve efficiency & effectiveness.
The HR professionals need to understand the changing scenario,
changing roles they can play and almost unlimited opportunities
available to them.
Dr. Rao’s Latest Book
Interested members are welcome to buy Dr. T. V. Rao’s book
“Future of HRD.” It is published by Macmillan India Limited and
costs Rs. 195/=. Please do not miss the following in the book:
Pareek & Rao’s Framework of HRD (page 43)
HRD Systems (pages 155-157).
These sections talk about the Integrated HRD Framework of Dr. Pareek & Dr. Rao – till date the most lucid answer to ‘What does
HRD mean?”