Human Resource Development Interventions
Human resource development (HRD) is an essential function within a human resources management department (see Table 5-11). The nature of the function and its scope are shaped by the organization's mission and its ability to maintain market share. McLagan defines it as "the integrated use of training and development, organization development, and career development to improve individual, group , and organizational effectiveness." [53] Many studies have identified roles, outputs, and competencies for HRD professionals. [54]
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The purpose of this section is to identify frequently used HRD interventions such as those in Table 5-11.
Employee Selection
Employee selection is choosing the right person for the job. The process begins with a precise description of the skills and/or knowledge, experiences, and personal characteristics needed to accomplish the job tasks . Valuable sources for identification are knowledgeable people and personal observations of competent performers. The selection process differs in complexity among organizations. Some fill positions quickly and inexpensively by perusing resumes and application forms. Other organizations select potential employees by elaborate, and sometimes costly, selection systems involving job- related tests, a series of interviews, and background checks [55] . Decisions regarding selection are crucial for effective organizational performance.
Compensation and Benefits
Compensation programs are monetary and in-kind payments used by organizations. Goals of compensation policies include rewarding employees' past performances, remaining competitive in the labor market, maintaining salary equity among employees, motivating employees' future performances , maintaining the budget, attracting new employees, and reducing unnecessary turnover . [56] Compensation typically includes pay for work and performance, disability income, deferred income, health, accident , and liability protection, loss-of-job-income, and continuation of spousal income when there is a loss due to a employee's relocation.
Benefits are the non-cash portion of the compensation program that are intended to improve the quality of work life for an organization's employees. Benefits include the employer's share of legally required payments (e.g., FICA, unemployment compensation, retirement and savings plan payments, 401k, profit sharing, stock bonuses, medical benefit payments, etc.) [57] Benefits were once viewed as gifts from the employer; they are now considered entitlements .
Motivation (Incentives and Rewards)
Incentives link pay with a standard of performance. They are future-oriented with the objective of inducing desired behavior. They can be short or long term , and they can be tied to individual and/or group performance. There are variations in incentives. Monetary incentives include salary, differential pay, allowances, time off with pay, deferred income, loss-of-job coverage, and other perquisites (product samples, an expense account, tax service, legal service, a company apartment, club membership, free housing, parking privileges, stock bonus, etc.). Nonmonetary incentives include desirable working conditions, training, and adequate equipment and materials. Examples of management incentives are participatory goal setting and decision making, and career opportunities. [58]
Rewards can change and reinforce behavior. Skinner's research showed that rewarded behaviors are more likely to be repeated. Rewards need to be timely , specific, and matched to the preferences of the person and the achievement of goals. [59] Rewards can be formal, such as public recognition, gift certificates, etc., or informal such as field trips. Nelson has catalogued more than 1,000 ways to reward employees. [60] Wilson suggests that rewards should be SMART: specific, meaningful, achievable, reliable, and timely. [61]
Performance Appraisals
Performance appraisals help individuals manage their performance by providing them with feedback. Organizations also have performance appraisal programs that provide criteria for salary decisions, promotion, and improving job performance. Gohrman discusses the many potential benefits of regular performance appraisal: increase in employee self-esteem and motivation to perform effectively, job clarification , communication between employee and rater, clearer organizational goals, and better human resource planning. [62] Morissey suggests that some positive advantages of performance appraisals are increased probability of promotion for good performance, decreased likelihood of receiving undesirable assignments, clear understanding of supervisor's expectations, and greater personal reward and recognition for meeting those expectations. [63] He also sees benefits for the organization in reduced turnover, reduced liability for potential legal action, improved overall productivity, improved organizational results, and greater attractiveness to potential new hires. Research suggests that the performance review should be approximately 60 minutes long and conducted as a mutual discussion. [64]
Examples of performance appraisal methods used by organizations include checklists, weighted checklists, graphic rating scales, mixed scales, forced-choice scales, and critical incidents (written descriptions of a highly effective or highly ineffective performance), and behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS). [65] The HRD literature is filled with positive techniques for conducting effective performance reviews. It also reports stories of anxiety, frustration, uncertainty, and ambiguity when performance appraisals are handled improperly.
Assessment Centers and Competency Testing
An assessment center is "a place where standardized selection procedures are applied, usually to separate management from non-management candidates and executive candidates from middle managers." [66] Candidates are evaluated and selected by testing mechanisms to determine if they are capable of performing predetermined skills. Others see it as a process where trained professional evaluators observe, record, and evaluate how a candidate performs in simulated job situations. [67] In- basket techniques, leaderless group discussions, role playing, and speech making are common practices for testing job candidates.
It is important for an organization to study its jobs to identify and assign weights to the knowledge and skills each one requires. Testing people for current job skills, or for attributes or skills needed for future performance, helps the organization fulfill its strategic goals for human resources. Interviews, psychological profiles, intelligence testing, etc., are sometimes used in competency testing.
Succession Planning and Career "Pathing"
Succession planning is a systematic identification of employees for senior management positions. It involves long-term planning and is often developmentally oriented. Succession planning is likely to involve input from several managers and recommendations for experiential assignments to ensure the ability of the candidates to fill positions as they open . [68]
A career path is a sequence of jobs, usually involving related tasks and experiences, that employees move through over time. [69] For example, a career path in a school setting may include the positions of teacher, counselor, department head, principal, central office administrator, and superintendent. Career paths are generally vertical lines of progression; however, they can include horizontal assignments as well. This is increasingly the case as management positions disappear.
Leadership and Executive Development
Leadership development is necessary at all levels of an organization. High-potential employees receive special training and experience that translate into personal and professional growth. Leadership development includes coping with changes that occur during the life cycle of an organization, from growth to decline. It is about changes in the external environment, specifically about rearranging priorities and overturning assumptions about how the business operates and the role of leadership. [70]
Executive development deals with the organization's vision, values, and business strategies, and the goal is to develop leaders who can ensure the strategic development of the organization. [71] Leadership and executive development are successful when the process is embedded in the organization's HRD efforts.
Management and Supervisory Development
Management development is "the education, training, knowledge transfer, and, ultimately, skills demonstration of those individuals who are defined as managers by their respective organizations." [72] It is about coping with complexity. Effective management development supports the organization's mission, strategy, goals, objectives, and market position. Supervisory development is designed for front-line managers who work with and through non-management employees to meet the objectives of the company and the needs of its employees. [73] It is broader than management and executive development. Bittel and Newstrom state the unique roles the HRD and PT personnel play in supervisory development as follows :
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Recognition of the innate qualifications, limitations, and aspirations of supervisors
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Genuine knowledge of specific competencies required to complete work assignments
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Sensitivity to the roles and relationships imposed on the supervisors by the company
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Realization of the continuing evolution of the supervisor's role [74]
Literacy
Literacy is a person's knowledge, especially one's reading and writing abilities , which enables the person to function in society. Literacy programs are efforts by businesses to improve workplace communication, job understanding, and job skill development.
Literacy rates are often directly connected to quality of work and job performance. Raising the literacy skills of workers is likely to increase productivity and lower production costs.
Retirement Planning
To have positive experiences in retirement, people must plan ahead. No longer is retirement looked at as withdrawal, retreat, and solitude . Current gerontological thinking suggests new words for retirement: reorientation, recommitment, reinvention, reinvolvement, regeneration, renewal, renovation, redirection, reinvestigation, replenishment, reexploration, and more. Retirement planning is usually part of a benefits package. People want to know about finding part-time employment (should they want it), legal issues, housing arrangements, health and wellness, etc. [75]
Health and Wellness
Health and wellness programs are commonly offered by organizations and can serve to enhance employee morale and productivity and to reduce absentee rates and health care costs. According to the National Centers for Disease Control, more than 60 percent of all disease is caused by lifestyle risks. The most powerful lifestyle risks are smoking, inattention to diet, lack of exercise, substance abuse, back problems, mental distress, failure to use safety belts, and excessive stress. Employees who participate in workplace wellness programs tend to have better attitudes and behavior, exhibiting more loyalty, enthusiasm , motivation, and energy. [76]
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Aetna Life and Casualty is one of the world's leading providers of insurance and financial services to corporations, public and private institutions, and individuals. Aetna ranks as the nation's largest stockholder-owned insurance and financial services organization. The company employs about 47,000 people in the U.S.
Situation
The environment for insurance and financial services was becoming increasingly competitive and, some would say, even hostile . For that reason, it was especially important that Aetna retain superior managers, with even stronger skills in areas such as problem solving and decisionmaking, leadership, and building teams .
For the top 10 positions of the company, the longest tenure of any executive had been six and a half years . This turnover rate had resulted in a diminished talent pool at lower levels. The company realized that many positions could not be easily filled from inside because of a lack of internal breadth or depth of skill. As competition in the industry grew, strong managerial skills became more critical.
"Additional experience in the current job" was sometimes the extent of a manager's developmental plan. Job descriptions did not always focus on the specific skills, knowledge, and behaviors required for success in a position. Development plans did not always focus on clear measurement criteria as required to determine progress or success.
Without the identification of specific competencies and measurable development plans required for a job, Aetna realized filling management positions would continue to be a problem. Additionally, the company realized that even those managers with good skills were not necessarily adequately prepared for the future. Aetna also knew that it needed to ensure that people were participating in training to develop their skills and to decrease performance gaps.
Intervention
Because Aetna already had a planning and direction-setting tool called the Aetna Management Process (AMP), it was applied to the development planning process. AMP is a systematic, seven-stage planning and assessment process that clarifies the organization's critical success factors, scans and describes the environment, recognizes gaps between current and desirable performance, sets objectives, develops and implements action steps, and monitors performance.
Aetna executives decided to use performance technology to develop a comprehensive human resource response plan based on identified competencies that would be needed in the future. Included in this systematic response were:
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Identification of management competencies.
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Development of processes to identify performance and competency gaps.
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Creation of development plans and identification of education programs.
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Design and publication of a development planning guide that would tie the process together for the entire organization.
This comprehensive program was also integrated into Aetna's interviewing and selection process, succession planning, and the rewards systems. The resulting program enabled employees and management to identify work elements critical to success and to define the required competencies. After determining the gap between current practices and desired proficiency, specific development and training plans were designed, implemented, and monitored . Companywide implementation of this process is now under way.
Results
This initiative was first introduced only a few years ago, but preliminary results indicated that:
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There were more focused and specific development plans for employees.
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There was increased understanding by employees and their managers of how to implement and monitor these development plans.
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More people were selecting training and education programs based on identified skill or knowledge gaps relative to specific competencies.
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Corporatewide bench strength was improving and performance gaps were more clearly understood and actively worked on.
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Focus on a person's competencies and development was now treated as serious business throughout Aetna. Additionally, the company began a complete reorganization process. The new processes enabled the company to successfully redesign all of its jobs and redeploy people to those jobs in less than one year.
Lessons Learned
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Performance technology is used to develop a comprehensive human resource response.
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A common language is now in use companywide.
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The focus is clearly on the mastery of competencies and development planning.
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All employees of an organization need to be trained, including those in leadership, managerial supervisory, and executive positions.
Deterline, W.A. and Rosenberg, M.J. Eds., (1992). Workplace productivity: Performance technology success stories. Washington, D.C.: NSPI, pp. 5-6. Used with permission of the International Society for Performance Improvement .
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Directions: Assets and fill in the present and future skills-set necessary for an organization's personnel to maintain competitive strength.
ISPI 2000 Permission granted for unlimited duplication for noncommercial use.
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Directions: Complete the following worksheet. Discuss the results with a financial advisor.
ISPI 2000 Permission granted for unlimited duplication for noncommercial use.
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Directions: Complete the following worksheet. Discuss the results with a financial advisor.
| Expenses | Now | At Retirement |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage or rent | $____________ | $____________ |
| Utilities (phone, electric, gas, water) | ____________ | ____________ |
| Food (meals at home and out) | ____________ | ____________ |
| Clothing | ____________ | ____________ |
| Transportation (gas, parking, bus fare) | ____________ | ____________ |
| Medical/Dental Care | ____________ | ____________ |
| Insurance Premiums | ||
| ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| Taxes | ||
| ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| Entertainment/Recreation | ____________ | ____________ |
| Charities | ____________ | ____________ |
| Furnishings and Equipment for Home | ____________ | ____________ |
| Personal/Miscellaneous | ||
| ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| Total Expenses | $ ____________ | $ ____________ |
| Income | Now | At Retirement |
|---|---|---|
| Salary (less taxes) | $ ____________ | $ ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| Commissions | ____________ | ____________ |
| Bonuses | ||
| Interest | ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ |
| Dividends | ____________ | ____________ |
| Rental Property | ____________ | ____________ |
| Social Security | ____________ | ____________ |
| Pension Benefit | ____________ | ____________ |
| Annuities | ____________ | ____________ |
| Life Insurance | ____________ | ____________ |
| Others | ____________ | ____________ |
| Total Income | $ ____________ | $ ____________ |
| Total Expenses | - ____________ | - ____________ |
| Difference | $ ____________ | $ ____________ |
ISPI 2000 Permission granted for unlimited duplication for noncommercial use.
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[53] McLagan, 1989, p. 53
[54] McLagan, 1989, p. 77
[55] Leibler and Parkman, 1992
[56] Sherman, Bohlander, and Snell, 1996
[57] Sherman, Bohlander, and Snell, 1996
[58] Kemmerer and Thiagarajan, 1992
[59] Nelson, 1994
[60] Nelson, 1994
[61] Wilson, 1995
[62] Gohrman, 1989
[63] Morrissey, 1983
[64] Kirkpatrick, 1986
[65] Anthony, Perrewe, and Kacmar, 1996
[66] Leibler and Parkman, 1992, p. 270
[67] HR Measurements , 1993
[68] Harris, 1997
[69] Walker, 1976
[70] Conover, 1996
[71] Wertz, 1996
[72] Brewington, 1996, p. 638
[73] Prokopenko and Bittel, 1981
[74] Bittel and Newstrom, 1996, p. 676
[75] Riekse and Holstege, 1996
[76] Harris and DeSimone, 1998, pp. 323 “330
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 98
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