Characteristics of HRD, Failures of the National Reform Agenda - Assignment Example

Exam Advice Name Institution Date Question 1 Characteristics of HRD HRD is a multifaceted concept and is subjected to the ongoing activities in a given organization or groups, with much of the complexity. HRD is occasionally put in place to facilitate long-term work related functions as an individual level, group or organizational level. The levels can be either structured or non-structured to develop organizational performance. HRD is developed from three broad areas of organizational theory, economics and psychology. It’s established that psychological views HRD as an organ that promotes motivation, learning and ownership issues, this concerns contracts which attempts to create the employment relationships identifying and embracing the notion of obligation, perception and expectation. The organization theory focuses on the learning process and make changes where required (Ausubel, 2002). The economics of utility theory, agency theory it relates to self-interest on individuals and may lead to undesirable outcomes for the institution. The organization has to pay attention to while the economic dimension emphasize on the investments in the human capital and focuses on resource-based theory. The personality theory is unique and has enduring traits, behaviors and emotional factors in an individual, these traits can hinder or attaining the objectives of individuals or that of the organization. The effect of the personal theory is the drive factor that involving into organization day to day activities; this process is equally important as it accounts to the success of the organization (Daniells, 1993). HRD is associated with many related disciplines; learning organization and performance are the key perspective used in discussing HRD. HRD faces challenges in this business oriented world. Multinational companies who operate on a global scale usually employ people from varying countries, culture and backgrounds. Therefore it needs to very careful not to apply think Global, Act local in the organization. Question 2 Failures of the national reform agenda The national reform agenda are policies meant to foster a country’s prosperity. Reform agendas are mainly meant to raising the people’s living conditions, promote the manpower available and increasing the quality of service delivered. This will add muscle to the National Competition Policy reforms i.e. declining the market burden imposed the three levels of government. The national reform agenda entails competition, improvement on employee capital and regulations reform. Most of them are jurisdictional and are structure to conceive economical and sociological benefits. The reform critically target at making quality training, health and education. The economic and social problems so far faced today calls the need to reform various systems within the government bodies (Hampson, 2002). The reform agenda has so far failed to deliver thus it resulted to partial transformation of the technical education of Australia. Particularly policies that were triggered by the federal Government were not fruitful as predicted. Therefore the plague that hampered technical education is still dominant. Well aware of the perennial issues of inadequate capital funding for learning institutions with intolerable conditions of VET in the society. There are very many issues that are yet to be solved. Lack of enough funding in firms for training, federal state co-operation issues, proper structures that address issues of the common citizen, the rising need to expand part-time educational systems and training is labor sector of the economy and immense shortage in traditional trade (Hampson, 2002). Though there is no reform which is utterly perfect hence success is advocated for at least 90%. When such issues persist it raises eyebrows for the effectiveness of such reforms. It will in this event a matter of national interest and importance. This facilitated the state to embrace defined and recognized training. It is evident that the reform agenda never addressed some very important issues leading to it failure. Question 3 Learning and its domains Learning is the acquisition of knowledge through studying which involves familiarizing on the individual to information. Learning is a process which is only obtained through experience of the individual by gaining existing skills, values and may involve dissemination of different kinds of meaningful data. Individual’s cycle of learning entails his educational process through training and development process. Learning which is a process falls under various categories such as sensitization, classical conditioning, play and habitual amongst others. Learning occurs as a result of very complicated eventualities and it is evident even as early as eight months into gestation. In this event play is the first way of learning especially in children i.e. toddlers. Hence the amazing discoveries made make one be able to make differences by observation. This is highly affected by the environment (Mayer, 2001). Learning has thus been partitioned into domains. This is very vital because distinguishes instructional procedures of one process to another. Besides this employment of different forms of assessment has room. Through this one cannot generalize learning as a whole but see it as fields of various processes. Learning domains include: Psychomotor skills These are potentials that govern orderly use of masculine strength simultaneously with mental performance. This domain requires one to make practice and make it a habit with the aim for perfection. The activities involved in such domain include: swimming, skiing, riding and dancing. Use of physical strength is what differentiates it from other domains. Cognitive This are internally programmed skills and controls the thinking, memory and behavior of an individual. They however require one to practice in order for one to understand and apply it. Verbal information The learner is usually involved in repeated recitation to obtain basic meaningful data, which highly requires basic memory. It is very important in the academic process. The domain usually involves the repetition of word lists. However, its presentation largely affects the learning process. Intellectual skills This is the act of learning differences and similarities between different phenomenon. It takes advantage of the verbal information by using it to solve the presented problem. Intellectual skills hence cannot be improved by practice. This domain is very important in learning process of individuals. Attitudes This category is very different from other domains and in this event not learned through repeated actions. An individual’s attitude can only be affected by vicarious reinforcement. This process makes it distinct from the rest (Carey, 1990). (i) Learning in behavioral terms Learning in behavioral terms is the way in which a student behaves to indicate that learning has actually occurred. This mainly aims at observing the alteration in behavior that occurs as result of learning. Using this strategy it is very easy to have litmus of the impact of information targeted towards one. The main objective of this gives focus to the learner and indicates what the learner is capable to do at the end of the activity. The learner hence changes his behavior relative to the environment. Therefore behavioral learning goals are easy to group, write and evaluate by domain. For instance when a student is studying English he will be able to use and create a distinction between Australian slang terms and Phrases. Thus basic evaluation is easily created in a more holistic manner, making it more advantageous (Wilson, 2005). The design of learning in most institutions is becoming more of outcome-led but it is obscure as to what causes this results. Most of it is however, immensely contributed by behaviorism and its implementation. Behaviorism is very helpful as it translates the student’s outcome in the actual evaluation of his comprehension. Learning clearly affects our behavior and alters how we actually perceive our environment i.e. the way we socialize and behave. A student’s mood and thoughts play a critical role towards his behavior. Behavior is the external stimuli of learning however both internal and external stimulus affects someone’s behavior. The behavior we relay while being influenced by other variables is controlled by the learning processes we experience. Learning results depict what analyzed and accredited to them and are hence used as a framework of our behavior. The knowledge we feed our mind is what is evident in our behavior (Joanna, 2011). Question 3 Organizational problems versus HRD HRD is an organizational skeletal structure that uplifts stakeholders performance i.e. employees through knowledge, skill shaping and enhancing ability. Its thus develops the careers and training the employee for betterment of skills. Various firms vary greatly in terms of problems they face and what they usually encounter. However, organization can never be problem-free areas. Most problems encountered within organization are minor and can therefore be easily solved through internal association. Though some problems require an external source most of them are usually solved with the assistance of the HRD department. This occurs only when the problem require personnel with experience who has not steeped into such culture. Such problems are those that the organization has so far not faced. Some of the problems include: unconfident members of the board, outdated organizational policies, obscure management framework, unstable payment facilities and unclear job description, disabled financial control and lack of standard ethics. Most of the issues are internal and hence be solved internally with the HRD department (Khan, 2004). The HRD is mainly the backbone of economic development. It is evident that HRD has become of great concern for the state and the firm. HRD has radically changed the face of many organizations by improving the performance of the man power involved in running the firm. By acting as a mediator between the employer and the employee it has created promoted a healthy working condition for both. The activities of the department are of great significance. Motivation is recommended in the processes of a firm hence HRD actually does this. For example a firm needs to maximize its profits which are major goals of a firm. The department aligns the strategies for their implementation (Rama, 2010). Humans are the neuron of development similarly HRD. Improved skills, knowledge and competent employees ensure prosperity for the firm. HRD in this way eradicates social and ethical yesterday by provision of education disseminated to the employees. Entrepreneurial skills are inclined to a reasonable standard to flourish the organization. Social revolutions are also reduced to a great extend because of the good socio economic life of the employees (Rama, 2010). Data gathering techniques (HRD) This is the process of making required preparations and collecting data from an organization. The data collected is usually first hand since it is not sourced from any secondary sources. The main purpose of collecting data in an organization is keep track of the current affairs affecting the organization and record keeping. This is advantageous to the firm as it helps in the future planning of the firm and decision making. It is wise to have first hand data as it is usually the original data, to a large extend unbiased, it is direct from the population and it is basic. However, the data first-hand data is expensive, time consuming and require much expertise. HRD can apply various methods in collecting data in a firm such as questionnaire, direct observation and interviews (Swan, 2008). The methodology used depends on its cost and field of application. Furthermore use of more than one method is effective and mostly reliable. Questionnaires: - It is the use of closed or open ended questions usually typed in a paper to e filled in by the respondent i.e. employee. It is rather less costly method however the respondent should be literate. They are cost effective compared to other methods i.e. interview. This occurs when we are dealing with a large population. They also easy to analyze as data entry is easily done because most of the questions are well known. This method hence reduces biasness and information gathered is standardized (Milne, 1999). Interview is a question and answer techniques which involves the interviewee and the respondent in this case the employee. The interviewee uses structured questions to get information from the employee which is either face to face of through connected terminals e.g. telephone line. Interview method though tiresome enables one to learn about events which could otherwise not be observed. It is also an advantage to the illiterate respondent as it can be employed perfectly. Furthermore HRD can be able to know the genuineness of the respondent and hence obtain valid answer for a conclusive result (Milne, 1999). Direct observation is another mechanism that the HRD can use to get information from the employees. It involves the act of using the sense of sight to draw certain conclusions. The technique also can use equipments that are used to quantify certain things such as time. Observation unlike any other methodology does not affect the respondent’s activity that is they are not aware of it. The researcher in this event has true information and results unless tempered with (Milne, 1999). Conditions of learning Feedback concept is the signal relayed following a learning process. It hence provides the learner with correctness of the event that follows after learning. There are various kinds of feed \back in a learning environment that is delayed and direct/ immediate feedback. Delayed feedback depicts lack of understanding of the involved converse to direct/ immediate feedback. Delayed feedback affects the accuracy of the response and distorts the information to be relayed. The shortage in accuracy of delayed feedback was as a result of ruled based strategies to allow smooth integration of information. Learners who expect feedback used the appropriate strategies in executing their tasks. Immediate feedback makes the learner to absorb greater knowledge over fewer trails than the latter. Therefore feedback is a very meaningful method of acquiring information (Gagne, 1992). For proper comprehension of information one has to be in a supportive environment. Learning like any other activity requires a high percentage of mental skill to obtain what is required. Learning conditions require both internal and external factors. For instance for cognitive domain to be vital there should be room for practice to have new ideas to formulate a solution while in attitude domain one needs to be exposed to influential factors for persuasion. Instructional events that provide all necessary conditions for learning are attention gaining, recalling of events, guide learning, identify goals, present stimulus, provision of appropriate feedback, analyze and eliciting individual performance and promoting retention and transfer (Gagne, 1992). Through illustration the guide shows the learner a variety of generated shapes from a computer i.e. circle. He then poses a question to the leaner to define a circle. The learner then recalls the definition. Afterwards the guide illustrates how to create a circle and asks the learners to create a few examples. He then checks if the examples are right and provide necessary scores and remediation. He eventually shows the student different shapes and then asks them to identify a circle. Through these processes it gives a clear condition for learning to take place (Gagne, 1992). How adults learn and implication on HRD In comparison to children adults learn differently and also require special needs. Learning helps us to develop from being novice to experts. Adult learning is usually characterized with self direction: - They need to decide for themselves and need to know how it will help them; life experience: - The process involves work related chores and the previous educational activities. The learner therefore connects the previous thing with the recent ones; practical and goal oriented. Besides being students adults have responsibilities which they are obliged to balance. They hence maintain the old skills in order to learn new ones to adapt to the new changes. Then adults have barriers to learning which mainly their roles which they play are. Hindrances to proper learning include: money, inadequate time, lack of confidence and information and the “red tape”. These posses a great disadvantage to the adults while the teens more privileged (Lieb, 1991). Conclusion Organization have an uphill task in educating the adults this mostly affects the HRD. Managing adults is very hectic especially in matters that concern their weaknesses therefore one has to have the technical knowhow in managing them. Designing the HRD will hence require qualified personnel to uncover and have a goal oriented process. Reference Allan, J. (2011). Studies in Higher Education. Learning outcomes in higher education , 93-108. Ausubel, D. (2002). Educational psychology: A cognitive view. New York: Holt, Rinhert and Winston. Carey, L. (1990). The systematic design of instruction. Glenview: Foresman and Company. Daniells, L. (1993). Business Information Sources. California: University of California Press. Gagne, R. (1965). conditions for learning. Texas: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Hampson Osler Fen, D. M. (2002). From reaction to Conflict Prevention. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Khan, A. (2004). Problems in Managing Organisations. Governing and Managing Organisations , Toronto. Mayer, R. (2001). Multimedia Learning. New York: Cambridge University. Milne, J. (1999). Evaluation Cookbook. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University. Rao, R. (2010), August 16). HRD and its Advantage. CiteMan . Swan, W. (2008, September 14). Basic Data Collection Methods. Scienceray . Wilson, L. O. (2005). Behavioral Objectives. Wilson's Curriculum . Read More