Posted: June 27th, 2015

Human Resource Development Program

Paper Outline

1. Overview of human resource development
2. Chief executive officer, human resource – job description

• How to prepare for the Human resource executive of an organization

1. The exercise needed to prepare one for this job
2. Knowledge and skills needed
3. The functions of a human resource executive

• Learning and the human resource executive job
• References

Human Resource Development Program – portfolio

Overview of human resource development

According to Werner & DeSimone, 2012, human resource development has become an important component of human resource development. It is a tool that is used in preparing employees to take over jobs or assume responsibilities in the labour field. Human resource development helps employees, in identifying and developing their personal as well as organizational based skills, abilities and knowledge. It entails the many opportunities and activities that are related to employees and job development. These are employee identification, training, career development, coaching, employee mentoring, planning on succession, and the general organizational development. The aim of human resource development is developing a superior workforce in the organization. A superior workforce is comprised of employees who easily accomplishes their roles and ensures better service delivery to the customers of the organization. Organizations often present numerous opportunities for human resource development of their employees. These opportunities exist both internally and externally (Sofo, 2000).

Human resource development is enhanced through human resource development programs. Under these programs, potential employees can identify and model themselves to attaining the jobs or careers they intend to pursue. This is done through the development of human resource development portfolios. This paper presents a report of a human resource development portfolio of a job – Chief executive officer in charge of human resource in an organization. It defines and clearly describes all aspects that appertain to the job. These are presented under a human resource development program presented in the human resource development portfolio (Rothwell & Kazanas, 2003).

Chief executive officer, human resource – job description

With human resource management, the description of job positions in the organization is very important. It helps in the grasp of the expected duties to be performed and promotes aspects of responsibility and accountability in the organization. Without a clear description of the duties expected to be performed or discharged by employees holding specific job positions, turbulence is becomes imminent in organizational performance. Human resource development does not advocate for turbulence in organizations where activities and duties are discharged in a haphazard manner. It advocates for orderliness through the streamlined activities; assignment and discharge of roles in the organization. Roles and responsibilities of employees are well defined under human resource development. There are numerous reasons for this. However, the key reasons for these are bringing about responsibility and orderliness in performance or organizational activities. The second major reason is the promotion of accountability in the organization thereby minimizing conflict arising from work performance by organizational employees. Being in charge of human resource management in any organization is a big job requiring a combination of both academic qualifications, personal as well as interpersonal skills. This job also requires a person to have grasped how to perform roles in a contextualized setup. This means that that the person must have a quite deal of experience for him or her to perform in this job (Mathis & Jackson, 2010).

Human resource development portfolios help a person in developing a profile of a person in relation to the job which the person is eyeing in the organization (Kandula, 2009). For the Job of human resource executive of an organization, the person fitting this job must portray a high level of potential in managing people and other resources at different levels (Winterton, 1999).

How to prepare for the Human resource executive of an organization

The exercise needed to prepare one for this job

Deb (2006) notes that there are numerous qualifications and skills that have to be posed by a person aiming to attain such a high rank job in an organization. The qualifications often resonate from the academic achievement of the person who is eyeing the job followed by the other trainings and experience oriented activities that the person will engage in. These skills combine to make a person whole and fully capacitated in discharging the roles that appertains to the job. A poor combination of skills and knowledge may work to disadvantage a person even if the person is offered with the job (Sims, 2006, Kandula, 2007).

Knowledge and skills needed

A human resource executive must portray the potential to manage people in a collective setup and lead these people towards attaining the goals that inform the collectiveness. Therefore, the person must have trained in human resource management with probably a degree in human resource management from the university. Additional qualification like having a master’s degree in the same field would also display the desire of the person to specialize and perform in a job related to that field (Snell & Bohlander, 2013).

According to Heathfield, (2012) the knowledge, skills as well as abilities are embedded in what is referred to as the competencies of a person and the suitability to take over the job. The following are some of the most important competencies for the job of human resource executive in an organization:-

• The person must portray a high level of skills of managing payrolls in an organizational set up since this is one of the most common roles that are performed by human resource departments of organizations.
• The second important competency is the demonstration of experience in human resource management. This includes experience in applying and interpreting of several pieces of legislation utilized in human resource management. The person must show the ability to apply these pieces of human resource legislation in real organizational situations and attained desirable results.
• Team leadership skills and abilities have also to be demonstrated. Team leadership skills are attributed to the ability to lead the organization to reach its goals through effective guidance of organizational employees.
• The other competency is the ability to make, and review effective supply policies as well as procedures for the organization. Creativity and initiative are the desired personal characteristics desired here.
• Customer focus tendencies are argued to help in attaining good customer relations and boosting the performance of an organization. Therefore, for any person to be an effective human resource executive, he or she has to show the ability to foster customer focus activities. All the functions overseen by the human resource executive have to ensure that the customers are given attention. This is often the end product of human resource management.
• Human resource is all about ensuring that the organization has the ‘right’ employees who will be motivated enough to sail the organization towards achieving its goals and objectives. Human resource establishes and manages employee relations. Therefore, the human resource manager must have strong interpersonal skills to aid in the development and management of healthy organizational-employee relations.
• Lastly, human resource management deals with all functions that appertain to organizational learning. The human resource executive is the chief overseer of the training practices in the organization. This implies that the human resource manager is also a trainer of organizational employees and thus must have a grasp of training and presentation skills.

The above mentioned competencies denote the need for a well trained person to do the specified job. The person must have acquainted him or herself with human resource management from both the theoretical and the practical angle. The practical aspect of competencies shows the ability of the person to apply theory in the real organizational perspective. All these competencies may not be fully possessed by a person. Some of them are developed as a person gains more on-job experience and modalities of working. This comes as a result of continuous application of theory into practice.

The functions of a human resource executive

Human resource managers or executives are bestowed with the discharging of many responsibilities in the organization. Among the functions of the human resource executives include the training of employees of the organization. Thus, this implies that the manager will need to be well equipped with the training environment, training tools and training equipment. They may also need to learn so as to instil learning in the organization (Randhawa, 2007).

The first key function or responsibility of the human resource executive is to manage the payroll. This is a broad function which involves a collection of sets of small functions in the organization. Among these functions are the maintenance of clears employee records, timely preparation of payrolls and ensuring that costs are properly allocated to jobs in the organization. The manager has to oversee the regular release of human resource manual like monthly reports and journals. These carry different information on human resource practices taking place in the organization for instance compensation. The job under this function also entails the provision of cost analysis and information on wags end salaries of employees to the responsible departments in the organization. The manager makes general inquiries concerning the salaries or wages of workers in the organization (Randhawa, 2007).

Thus, the person handling this job must be must be accorded with all the information concerning the payment and the salary and wages of employees in the organization. All these records should be updated to give the manager a humble time to discharge this responsibility. These records will give the manager a basis on which to assess the assessment of the performance of the organization concerning this function. A clear understanding of issues in these records has to be attained so as to sustain the payroll function of the organization. The manager is expected to make improvements to these functions as he or she familiarizes with the operations of the organization (Randhawa, 2007).

The second broad function of the job is human resources. This is a very broad function which is more engaging. Its also includes several other mini-functions all which combine to make the function successful. The human resource executive will need to foster and manage industrial relations. The human resource executive works on ensuring that a good climate is developed and maintained between the organization and its employees. This is a comprehensive function that requires the mastery of the steps of negotiation in settling the conflicts between the employees and the organization. The manager is required to work on balancing the interests of the employees relative to the interests of the organization (Randhawa, 2007).

The other elaborate responsibility of this function is the recruitment and training of employees. This exercise entails the identification of skills and talents in the employees of the organization and working on improving the skills of employees and maintaining preforming employees. The sustainability of the employees as in maintaining the bets skill and talents in the organization is dependent on other functions in the organization which are facilitated by the human resource executive. The manager will need a lot of support from both the employees and the management of the organization and combine it with his or her own personal initiatives. Of the greatest importance will be the resources needed for training and enticing or motivating employees in the organization. The resources used in training are mobilized by the human resource executive. Learning and development have to be carried out in accordance to the objectives and the general strategies of the organization (Heathfield, 2012).

The harmonization of this activity with the general organizational strategies is the responsibility of the human resource manager of the organization. Learning and development is a continuous process in any organization and often involve the structuring and re-structuring of organizational functions in order to meet the objectives of leaning. The expenses of training should be tracked for accountability purposes at the end of the exercise. The human resource manager accounts for all these training and development expenses and expenditure to the finance and accounting department of the organization. In general, organizational training falls under performance management. Training comes as a result of performance review which is prepared and administered by the human resource department. This exposes the gaps in performance which need training. B this training is different from the training that is offered to the new employees in the organization (Heathfield, 2012).

Learning and the human resource executive job

There are two aspects or dimensions of learning that applies to this case. The first dimension of learning applies to the person who will take over the job in an organization. The second dimension of learning concerns how the human resource executive will conduct organizational learning as one of his or her core responsibilities. All these are important to the person assuming the job as success in both will denote the success of the general human resource management function.

• The first aspect of learning is a precursor to the second dimension of learning in the organization. This will be achieved when several pints are looked into to:-
• The first factor of success for this exercise is ensuring that all the relevant information is availed to the human resource executive. All the human resource records should be availed to the manager to enable him or her grasp the organization.
• The second thing that will enable adaptability and learning of the organization will be through offering support and corporation to the new manager in the organization.
• The manager is expected to foster learning in the organization by combining different skills. Personal communicative skills are combined with generative situations to craft a learning environment in the organization. The nature of learning in organizations is dependent on several other factors like appraisal.
• Organizational learning is linked to training. The needs for training have to be identified by the human resource manager after he or she has grasped how the organization works – the strengths and weakness of the organization.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Deb, T. (2006). Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management: Concepts, Tool and Application. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributers.

Heathfield, S. M. (2012). Sample Human Resources Director Job Description. Retrieved on 10 August 2012 from http://humanresources.about.com/od/jobdescriptions/a/HR_Director.htm

Kandula, S. R. (2007). Human resource management in practice: With 300 models, techniques and tools. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India.

Kandula, S. R. (2009). Strategic human resource development. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt Ltd.

Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2010). Human resource management. Mason, Ohio: South-Western.

Werner, J. M., & DeSimone, R. L. (2012). Human resource development. Mason, OH: South-Western.

Randhawa, G. (2007). Human resource management. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors.

Rothwell, W. J., & Kazanas, H. C. (2003). Planning and managing human resources: Strategic planning for human resources management. Amherst, Mass: HRD Press.

Sims, R. R. (2006). Human resource development: Today and tomorrow. Greenwich: Information Age.

Snell, S., & Bohlander, G. W. (2013). Managing human resources. Mason, Ohio: South-Western.

Sofo, F. (2000). Human resource development: Perspectives, roles and practice choices. Warriewood, N.S.W: Business & Professional Publishing.

Winterton, J. (1999). Developing Managerial Competence. New York: Routledge Publishers.