Eda Talushllari

HRD 5343

Definition of HRD

HRD or Human Resource Development is a pretty young educational discipline, but in

regards to the field of practice, it is pretty longstanding (Swanson & Holton III, 2009). It is

important to note that Human Resource Development and Human Resource Management (HRM)

are two very different things, but usually get placed together as Human Resources in various

organizations. As Bohlander and Snell (2010) point out, Human Resource Management is “the

process of managing human talent to achieve an organization’s effectiveness” (p. 4). HRM is a

pretty big scale in itself, and under it fall various departments like recruiting, employee relations,

benefits and compensations, and training and development. HRD is a branch inside HRM.

Unlike HRM, HRD has been a pretty difficult task to define and scholars have always debated on

the best definition of HRD. The purpose of this paper is to examine which definition of HRD I

prefer and why. In addition I will define what my personal definition of HRD is, and what the

strengths and weaknesses of that definition are.

The topic of defining what HRD really means has been extensively researched by

Weinberger (1998) in an article where she discusses what the most common definitions of HRD

are according to HRD professionals. Weinberger (1998) also discusses some of the most

common theories related to HRD and they are: learning, performance improvement, systems

theory, economic theory and finally psychological theory. Weinberger (1998) claims that each

definition of HRD has been established by a combination from one or more of these theories.

This is a very accurate statement since Swanson and Holton III (2009) also claim that HRD is a

combination of three theories: economic, systems, and psychological. Whenever I was thinking

about these core beliefs of HRD, I knew that two core theories, learning and performance needed

to be included in the definition for HRD since these are the two primary paradigms (Swanson &

Holton III, 2009).

I wanted to get more information other than the book and the article by Weinberger, so I

started looking at how other people had defined HRD. What I found was not the definition from

other people, but other schools’ definition of HRD. There are a lot of schools that teach Human

Resource Development, including our very own University of Texas at Tyler. UT Tyler defines

HRD as being a method to bring out human knowledge through the use of organizational

development and training and development for the purpose of performance improvement

(“Human Resource Development,” n.d., para. 1). The other schools I realized, also had a

combination of both learning and performance in their definitions of HRD. Finally after all this

research, the best definition of HRD that I found that touches both learning and performance was

one of Chalofsky in 1992 in where he stated: “HRD is the study and practice of increasing the

learning capacity of individuals, groups, collectives, and organizations through the development

and application of learning-based interventions for the purpose of optimizing human and

organization growth and effectiveness” (Swanson & Holton III, 2009, p. 7).

I believe that this is the best definition of HRD since first of all it focuses on increasing

the learning capacity not only in individuals, but also in groups and organizations. I felt like a lot

of the other definitions strictly focused on the individual and would forget about groups and

organizations. In fact, there is another definition of HRD by McLean and Mclean in 2000 that

said that HRD can even benefit the entire world and I really wished that Chalofsky could have

incorporated that into his definition as well. HRD is also a combination of Organizational

Development (OD) and Training and Development (TD) which all contribute to the learning

capacity that Chalofsky was saying (Swanson & Holton III, 2009, p. 5). In addition, the

definition by Chalofsky also talks about improving humans and organizations through growth

and effectiveness. I am a huge advocate of learning for the sake of learning, but I also recently

found out about how important performance is in the HRD spectrum. First of all, people are

inclined to improve and perform better. This is why even though we may be doing something fun

and exciting like playing a sport, we also want to win in that sport; hence to “embrace

performance is also to embrace enhancing human existence” (Swanson & Holton III, 2009, p.

144).

When it comes to discussing my own personal definition of HRD, I found it very

difficult. HRD is such a broad term that even many HRD professionals have a challenging time

defining it. I tried to focus on the aspect of learning and performance and include not only

individuals and groups, but also think about it in a global sense. I also know that HRD is a

combination of TD and OD, like I stated above, so I knew that I wanted to include those in the

definition as well. I tried to word it similar to how other professionals had it, because I wanted it

to sound articulate and concise and not all over the place. After careful consideration and much

scratch outs, my personal definition of HRD is this: HRD is a combination of Training and

Development and Organizational Development that seeks to improve the life of individuals,

groups, organizations and even humankind, through the use of long term or short term activities.

Whenever I think about the strengths about my definition, I would say that I think it is

pretty strong since it covers the two major paradigms of HRD which are learning and

performance. Also the definition tells you what exactly falls under Human Resource

Development which is a combination of TD and also OD. In addition, I made sure to include

more than one audience so that is why you will see in the definition, the mentions of groups,

organizations and humanity in general. Learning has to do with TD and OD so that is why that is

included. In the aspect of performance I covered that by including the words “improve the life

of” to signify that the purpose of the definition is for performance improvement. Finally HRD

can be a long term or short term practice depending on what is being learned and who is being

improved, so I think that is also a strength of this definition.

Whenever it comes to weakness, I think my definition probably falls under the

humanistic and has adult learning as a key component, which means that it is not as strong as I

would have liked. The thing with this definition is that it is difficult to prove and make it

measurable. I am not a fan of mechanical thinking, so that is why I shied away from that

mentality, but I think not being able to prove a definition might make it seem unreliable. The

definition states that it wishes to improve the life of different audiences, and it classifies that it

will do this through the use of TD and OD. This is again, difficult to establish since TD and OD

are challenging to define as well. TD can be anything from adult learning, to behavior change

while OD can be anything from organizational effectiveness to performance improvement. Since

some people may not know exactly what TD and OD mean, my definition of HRD can seem

pointless. In my instance, it is assumed that the person reading the definition of HRD will know

what TD and OD means.

Finally, the purpose of this paper has been to establish what I thought the best definition

of HRD was and why. In addition, I have also provided you with my own personal creation of

the HRD definition and have included the many strengths and weakness in this definition. HRD

will always change because people, groups, organizations, and theories will always change. It is

important to come back to the two main themes of HRD and those are learning and performance

improvement. As long as we incorporate those to our definition of HRD, then HRD will succeed

for years to come.

References

Bohlander, G., & Snell, S. (2010). Managing Human Resources (15th ed.). Mason, OH: South-

Western Cengage Learning

Bartlett, J. (2001). HRD as a professional field of practice. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from

https://blackboard.uttyler.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?

course_id=_42707_1&content_id=_939743_1

Human Resource Development: UT Tyler Department of Human Resource Development. (n.d.).

Retrieved from https://www.uttyler.edu/cbt/hrd/human_resource_development/

Swanson, R. A., & Holton III, E. F. (2009). Foundations of human resource development. San

Francisco, CA: Barrett-Kohler Publishers, Inc.

Weinberger, L. A. (1998). Commonly held theories of human resource development. Human

Resource Development International, 1(1), 75-93.

DOI: 10.1080/1367886980000000