HRD and Culture Building

HRD and Culture Building

Dr.Gandham Sri Rama Krishna

Lesson published in the edited book, 2009. “HRM for Competitive Advantage” edited by  Prof. K.Ramesh, Prof. B.S.Murthy, Prof. K.Siva Rama Krishna, Prof. G.V.V. Vijaya Kumar, Published by Excel Books, New Delhi. ISBN: 978-81-7446-714-0.

Today, the very survival of HR function appears to be it’s ability to go on changing according to business and social needs. In the contemporary business environment, organizations are in a constant state of competition. As the intensity of competition increase annually, the need for the organizations to continuously improve their performance has never been greater. HRD professionals must focus on continuous innovation by responding positively to new ideas, trends, and constantly keeping track of new trends. Innovation HRD interventions designed to ensure that human resource respond spontaneously to the critical demand of the organizations, have tremendous potential to build healthy and successful organizations. HRD consists of these three Cs: Competencies, Commitment and Culture. All these are needed make an organization function well. Its  utility comes to the force specially when organizations are in trouble.

Ø Competency Building: Without Competencies, many tasks of the organization may not be completed cost-effectively or with optimal efficiency. Competencies may include knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. Competencies may deal with all fields like agriculture, science, technology, management, medicine, law etc. The capabilities may be developed in individuals, may be simple, like learning alphabets, or complex, involving high technology applications to medicine, space, environment etc. The competencies so developed could enable people to act and improve their own lives and those of others. HRD therefore deals with competency building  in human resource. It is creation of a set of capabilities. HRD means enhanced competencies in terms of healthy living, long living, a skill base that contributes productive activities, and enhances the quality of life through the creation of purchasing power. Skills help generate economic activities. Economic activities lead to an enhanced purchasing power by these individuals. The purchasing power acquired through economic activity leads to healthy living and longevity of life. HRD, therefore, has a goal. The primary goal is competence building of its subjects. There are also other goals. These include the creation of a culture, so those competencies can be developed on a continuous basis.       

Commitment Building:

Without commitment, they may not be done at all or are done at such a slow pace that they lose relevance. Commitment is indicated by work effort, zeal, involvement and enjoyment of the work or the job. Commitment building and its management are very much an human resource function. Commitment means employees commitment has been defined as involving both performance and the acceptance of the behaviour appropriate to industrial way of life. A commitment employee is one who stay on the job and who has severed his major connections with land. He is a permanent member of the industrial working force, receiving salaries and being dependent for making a living on enterprise management which offers him work and directs his activities at the work place. Stages in the commitment of the workforce i.e., uncommitted workforce, partially committed, generally committed, specifically committed workforce. Meyer and Allen propose one such conceptualization of commitment comprising three separable components, each of which reflect a unique underlying psychological state. They provide  a description of each of these commitment forms as follows: Affective commitment refers to the employee’s attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization. Employees with a strong affective commitment continue employment with the organization because they want to do so. Continuance commitment refers to an awareness of the costs associated with leaving the organization. Employees whose primary link to the organization is based  on continuous commitment remain because they need to do so. Finally, Normative commitment reflects a feeling of obligation to continue employment. Employees with a high level of normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with the organization. Meyer and Allen suggest that individuals may display each of these three forms of commitment to varying degrees. Thus, the widely held definitions which emphasis commitment to organizational  effectiveness are problematic because according to this definition, people can be committed to an organization for reasons other than a commitment to it’s effectiveness.  The work commitment is the single most important factor in getting work done and achieving higher output. This is the most important differentiating factor between those who are highly successful and those who are mediocre. Management cannot stand behind human resource  every second day to check that they are giving their best. Creatively and innovation cannot flourish in an organization where the boss is always right and the employee is treated as half-wit. This in turn, requires a management styles that has a positive attitude towards it’s human resources and provides a leadership that creates commitment.      

Ø Culture Building: Without an appropriate culture, organizations cannot last long. Culture provides the sustaining force and spirit for organizations to live. It provides the oxygen needed for them to survive. A culture that can nurture and value the development of human resource. A set of policies that can develop culture and competencies.  The culture of an organization always goes a long way in deciding how the employees contribute. In fact, it can be determinant of employee quality. What do you mean by a quality workforce? A quality workforce is a loyal workforce. Each organization should develop quality benchmarks in its own context. The companies have to build the right kind of internal work culture. Which is open book(transparent) management, and employee-oriented, greater employee involvement, supervision-less work, empowerment, value-addition, career management and succession policy. Passion and pride in the organization is what includes employees to stay back. Employees leave because they don’t know the company well enough. It is seen that new employees generally leave in the first six months of employment. So in the induction, help the employees to know more about the company and its culture. Therefore, create and maintain a work culture, where employees feel good to work and contribute their best. Without an exciting work culture, it’s difficult to keep employees working for a particular  organization for a long time.      

i). Work Culture: Excellence in intellective work depends upon individual motivation and commitment. Traditional methods of supervisory control will not elicit high standards of intellective effort. A technology strategy that stresses information will require a human resource management philosophy that emphasizes commitment and mutuality as well as work system that support such values at each organizational level.  

Today’s human resource want the work-culture, they  are greater employee involvement, supervision-less work, open book (transparent) management, empowerment and value-addition, career management and succession policy.       

ii). Organizational Culture:  It has been argued by many researchers that the success and effectiveness of an organization are not determined solely by the abilities and competencies of the employees and management. A concept that is associated with the successes is organizational culture, which is the proposition that organizations create legends, have rites and rituals, as well as shared symbols and customs, which govern them.     The  HRD department  handles the training and development processes in an organisation. Culture is perpetuated through a variety of interactive mechanisms during the early stages of employment, due to  their susceptibility to new suggestions and ideas for ways of behaving. Facts could be made more memorable if incorporated into a series of narratives. Which are easy to identify with.  In the case of role-plays, employees are shown the required courses of action expected and the value the organization places on it, so as to strengthen the culture. It has been suggested that training and development are paramount to human resource management to support their overall management philosophies and values, which are obviously synonymous with culture.      

HRD deals with competency building in people. It is the creation of a set of capabilities. HRD, therefore, has a goal. The primary goal is competence building of its subjects. There are also other goals. These include the creation of a culture, so those competencies can be developed on a continuous basis.

Culture should be defined by the organization itself. Building of a culture (values, norms, patterns of behaviour expected to be shown by the all the employees), including the work culture, that is valued by the organization and enables it to have a sustainable impact and continue to achieve its goals and grow. Culture may deal with the values attached to internal and external customers, product quality, quality of services, speed and quality of decision-making, discipline, integrity, punctuality, trustworthiness, cost-consciousness, etc.

HRD deals with competence building, culture building and commitment building. Competence and commitment can be built on a continuous basis in a certain type of culture. If the milieu is good, a number of things can happen. Hence, creating a culture becomes important in any organization. The HRD culture should have the following characteristics:

v It should be a learning culture.

v It should facilitate the identification of new competencies of people (individuals, dyads and teams) on a continuous basis.

v It should facilitate bringing out the hidden potential and new talents of people.

v It should help in developing new competencies.

v It should have built-in motivational value. In other words, it should have a self-sustaining motivational quality. People are committed to what they do, they need not be told to act. They simply act.

v It should enable people to take initiative and experiment. Initiative and experimentation are the corner stones for development. They enable individuals, teams and organizations to discover new potentials in them.

v It should bring joy and satisfying to work. Work should not become a drudgery. It is made enjoyable by a good work culture. Relationships matter and have an enabling capability.

v It should enhance creativity and problem solving capabilities of people.

v It should create team spirit and morale.

v It should enhance action orientation of individuals, dyads and teams.

Such a culture has been termed as OCTAPACE culture is the past. OCTAPACE is an acronym for Openness, Collaboration, Trust, Authenticity, Proactive, Autonomy, Confrontation and Experimentation. 

·        Openness: is where people (individuals, dyads, teams and everyone in the organization) feel free to express their ideas, views, opinions and feelings to each other, irrespective of their level, designation, etc. There are no barriers to such expression. People are encouraged to express and are heard when expressed. Their views are taken seriously. Such an expression provides an opportunity for individuals to explore their own talents. The organization handles these expressions for discovering new ways of doing things, for discovering new potential and for taking actions that are based on the best talent of the organization. There are only some views that can finally be accepted and tested or put to action. That does not disappoint those whose views do not find their way to action. They continue to contribute, as such, contribution is a way of life.

·        Collaboration: is the culture where people (individual, dyads, teams and the organization as a whole) are eager to help each other. There is a spirit of sacrifice for each other’s and sake for larger goals. Personal power is played down and people are governed by larger goals like the goals of the organization, country and  humanity at large. People are willing to go to any extent to help each other make sure that larger organizational goals do not suffer. Organizational goals particularly govern decision-making and people do not have narrow departmental or team loyalties.   Fewer overheads are needed to resolve inter-departmental conflicts. The we feeling is of the highest order. Team spirit is high, intra departmental loyalties don’t come in the way of inter-departmental collaboration. Cohesiveness of small groups has an enabling and empowering effect on building cohesiveness and the larger organizational identity.

·        Trust and Trustworthiness: deals with a culture of people believing each other and acting on the basis of verbal messages and instructions, without having to wait for written instructions or explanations. When people say they will do something or promise to do something, it is simply relied upon. There is no need for extra monitoring and control. There are no overheads to check whether people are mean what they say. The word given by individuals, dyads or teams is relied upon. In such a culture both trust and trustworthiness are of the highest order. In order to create a culture of trusting one another, a culture of trustworthiness is essential. If every individual becomes trustworthy, trust automatically follows. Trust puts the onus on the person who is the recipient of the promise or the word given. Trustworthiness puts the onus on the person who makes the promise or gives his word. Both are equally important and they are two sides of the same coin. One is required to build the other.

·        Authenticity: is speaking the truth fearlessly and keeping promises once they are made. It is indicated by the extent to which people say what they mean and do what they say. In a way, it is the higher order than trust and trustworthiness. Individuals,  dyads and teams can be counted upon not to make false promises. They never say, promise or commit things to please others. Whenever people speak they speak from their heart and are sincere in what they say. They also make full efforts to implement what they say and keep their promises. They do not need any follow-up  and if they fail to do so, it is understood that it is because of extraordinary circumstances beyond their control.

·        Proactive: culture is one that promotes initiative and explorations on the part of all individuals, dyads, teams and all employees. A pro-active culture encourages everyone to take initiative and make things happen. New activities and new ways of doing things are encouraged. Such pro-action may be in any area, including role-making (giving new interpretations to one’s role in order to achieve organizational or team goals), role-taking(taking new initiatives, initiating new activities, changing old methods of work), work methodology, cost reduction, quality improvements, culture building, human resource management, etc. a proactive culture encourages people to undertake new activities. 

·        Autonomy: is present if every role holder in the organization, irrespective of the level has some scope in his or her job to use some discretion. The discretion may be in terms of work methods, decision-making, communication or any such area. Every employee should feel that he/she has the scope for some discretion in his job. There should be scope to choose  one’s activities and the role to some extent. It may be 10 percent of the time or it may be 20 percent. The higher the freedom to choose what one wants to do, or the way he/she wants to do things the higher the autonomy. This has been the highest in quite a few educational and research organizations.

·        Confrontation: is  the culture of facing issues squarely. Issues are talked about and discussed. There is very little or no fear of hurting one another. Even if one has to hurt each other, the issue is faced up to and not brushed under the carpet. People can be relied upon to treat issues as issues and not take them as a personal assault or get hurt. This culture enhances the problem-solving ability.

·        Experimentation: is the orientation on the part of employees to try out new ways of doing things and experiment with new decisions. It characterizes a risk-taking culture in the organization. Without  risks, there is no growth. Without experimentation, there is very little scope for renewal, rejuvenation and simplification of life.    

          Openness and confrontation go together. Autonomy and collaboration go together. Trust and authenticity go together. Pro-action and experimentation go together. These four pairs are the four corners stones of a HRD culture.

          When these values are practiced in an organization, they become a part of life and are likely to get the best out of people. Human potential is likely to be developed to the maximum extent and the people’s competencies are also likely to be utilized to the maximum extent.

Importance of Top Management Styles:

          Such an OCTAPACE culture can be built only by an enlightened top management. By top management here is meant that all those who are decision-makers and event makers in the organization. These include the owners, board, directors, unit heads, heads of departments and even sectional heads. It also includes office bearers of unions and associations. All heads of formal and informal organizations that have the capability, influence the course of action of the organization; its unit, sub-systems or functions, may be considered a top level manager. It is such influential people who set the tone for creating an OCTAPACE culture. They do it through the roles they perform or do not perform and the styles with which they  perform the roles that they do. Their style of functioning has a larger impact on the creation of culture.

                  

The challenge for the HRD professional lies in the field of creating innovation in the area of organization structure and in the participation system. In the organization structure because the motivating factors for the employees have to be found in new models  in which they are able to participate and involve themselves in the business of the enterprise more deeply in a progressive manner. Therefore, HRD has to play a major role in the field of organization building. 

          Successful organizations pay adequate attention to their HRD functions. If the full benefits of HRD are to be experienced, it must be introduced as a total system within the organization. In addition, the commitment of the top management to the HRD systems and its willingness to invest time and other resources  is crucial: top management must make it obvious that the human resources of the organization are its most important resources. The values of openness, trust, mutually, collaboration, and enthusiasm within the system should be recognized by every member of the organization. If implemented properly, integrated HRD systems can contribute significantly to positive cultural changes, increased productivity, and excellence in organization.  

          Although HRD systems are designed to suit the organizational culture, the role of HRD may be to modify that culture to increase the effectiveness of the organization. There always has been a controversy between those who believe that HRD should be designed to suit the culture and those who believe that HRD should be able to change the culture. Both positions seem to be extreme. HRD should take the organization forward, and this can be done only if its design anticipates change and evolution in the future. 

          The unique work culture-“work is worship”: Indian  philosophy considers work as Sadhana (training-learning) or duty. Most of our Smrities (sastras) start with narrating duties which are infact, social responsibilities of today.

          There is no one other than the HRD manager who pays attention to the values and cultural aspects of the organization. If one thing can be learnt from successful companies and organizations, it is the attention they pay to the values and culture of the organization. HRD managers should get themselves trained in understanding the cultural dimensions of organizational life. They should prepare themselves professionally by going through appropriate professional development programmes.

         

HRD is competence-building, commitment-building and culture-building. Every human being is born with tremendous potential. The grand vision of HRD is to enable every individual to recognize, utilize and multiply his potential as much as possible. Organizations and nations should create conditions that enable individuals, groups and communities to recognize, utilize and multiply their potential. The direction of this capacity utilization or culture-building is to make human lives happier and healthier.       

          HRD is a continuous process, thus, the role of that HRD interventions is becoming crucial for the organizations. With the accomplishment of certain effectiveness, there is  a need to re-examine organizational HRD needs, priorities, instruments and strategies HRD can transform the organization into a human system by developing their commitment, integrating the individual employees with the organizational culture and through processes achieving performance.   

Reference

• T.V.Rao(2000), Readings in HRD, Oxfor & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.