Company vs Community : Shifting
the paradigm of Human Resources Development
In order to apply the NGO experience
to the HRD concept, the Indian business scenario today needs to
be studied from the nearest landmark in business history. I would
take the liberalization policy of 1991as this vital landmark.
Indian companies have had to change their style of work from the
license-raj to a market driven economy. Over the past decade tremendous
changes have had to happen in the Indian businesses.
The market place became more global
than before. Competition came from all across the globe in a Internet
connected world. Leaders who had the drive and will to face the
challenge have led these initiatives and changes. Organisations
had to move faster and quicker to respond to customer needs. Products
& services had to improve their quality by leaps and bounds
to keep up with foreign competitors. All this demanded highly
efficient individuals as well as organisations. Cutting edge challenges
for Human Resources Development departments have been ‘How
can organisations staff themselves with such developed people?
How can they change their in-house staff into developed and efficient
workers?, How to retain developed people?’. After a decade
of such change led by globalisation the scenario can only mature
further.
It is in this context that the experience
and conviction of NGO’s in developing people becomes relevant
to the Human Resources Development department today. In particular
the following ideas have tremendous ramification for building
a competent, well-developed organisation.
· The idea of Company and the community
· Development and World views
· The shifting paradigms of the development process
Company vs. Community
The company and the community seem
to reflect different aspects of the human experience though they
are related. In Peter Senge’s words, the idea of work should
be transformed from ‘the primacy of pieces to the primacy
of the whole, from absolute truths to coherent interpretations,
from self to community, from problem solving to creation’.
By looking at the collective he claims that cognitive and hence
economic enlightenment can happen at the workplace.
Part of the human psyche’s endeavor o become what it can
be, requires to understand what a community is because belonging
can happen only in the collective. Peter Senge in his book, the
“Fifth discipline” speaks of five disciplines required
to practice a ‘learning community’ within a ‘learning
organisation’. They include development of the
· capacity to clarify what is most important to us
· capacity to converse
· capacity to put pieces together and see wholes
· capacity to reflect on internal pictures of the world
to see how they shape our action
· sense of commitment to a group based on what people would
really like to create
For an economy-in-transition, concepts
of the collective such as team-work, change management, conflicts
and power are very real issues which demand a ideal definition
of the community and its relation to the workplace. However such
a perspective of the community-based work place are not fraught
without pitfalls warns Dr. Michael Felding. According to Dr. Felding,
some issues that need to be tackled in such an implementation
are
· the role and distribution of power
· extent to which dialogue and discussion can bring about
such an understanding of work and company
· social and historical continuity
· personal colonization in the name of constructing commitment
· developing a philosophy of work – using organisational
means to achieve communal ends
The role that people are given in the
development process is very vital. This is so because it determines
the responsiveness and hence the results of the development process.
For Jones & Henry raise the question of ‘ How to house
the human spirit’, Dr. Felding questions if we should even
house the human spirit at all .
He says that one approach would be ‘to explore how best
the human spirit can be housed within the functional structures
of work in ways which are expressive rather than repressive of
its vitality. The other possibility is, instead of housing it,
to start with its energy and creativity and enable it to be the
architect rather than the object of human flourishing’.
In the NGO experience both these approaches
have been validated as long as the end was people- development.
Nigel Nicholson in his book on ‘Managing the Human Animal’
argues that the human nature does not fundamentally change though
it evolves and even adapts. The NGO experience shows that such
evolution is always in the direction of development how-much-ever
it maybe stained with dust, mud or blood. Perhaps the agency advocating
development should take the role of facilitator and need not be
the determinant.
A company as an economic institution
is motivated by financial gain under an ethical way. In order
to achieve its aims it has to be efficient. It is in this pursue
that Human Resources Development tries to empower people. This
is the fundamental motivation for Human Resources Development
work at the workplace. It is a positive science - concerned only
with is- statements used to explain the mechanisms of human processes
in an economic activity and having no room for ought-statements.
On the other hand the motivation for development in a NGO rises
from the desire in the deprived to acquire self-capability. When
market failure is compounded by policy failure, the only option
available is collective action based on self-motivation. Such
grass-root participation has consistently been the common thread
of all Human Resources Development movements across various cultures.
Could there be pointers here for the Human Resources Development
department as to what motivates people to develop themselves at
the workplace? Particularly can the motives of self-capability
and economic activity be integrated? And can such integration
be made in the context of today’s changed business scenario?
The NGO experience is that often work
and motivation is spontaneous when working in the village but
not on the floor? Why this dichotomy? The turmoil that the NGO
goes through in becoming a self-sustaining entity is simply a
struggle to interpret this truth. The HR experience is very akin
to the NGO experience.
Human Resources Development professionals
are first exposed to the grassroots issues and problems encountered
by implementing agents. However, being representatives of the
‘management’, they feel helpless and distanced from
the grassroots. They are unable to either assist the implementing
agencies or directly effect a change at the community level.
Intervention begins with the realisation
that there is an urgent need in the work-floor community for professional
developmental inputs and capacity building. Often development
professionals take up the role of a support agency committed to
building capacities of development organisations and communities
at grassroots so as to enhance the capacity of the weak and deprived
sections.
However self-motivation for development is a pre-condition for
participation. The motto of self-reliance evolves just as an NGO
needs to be entirely self-reliant rather than being dependent
on the charity of management for development and productivity.
The catalytic role in stimulating the
process of community based development focuses on promoting the
self-help ethic, which it achieves through capacity building,
training and education and action research to help build awareness
and capacities for self-management among the target community.
A sustainable vision for development
will include "A society where people and communities have
an urge to take initiative for self-growth and development and
be socially responsible in their conduct ".
The process of development is not just
time-scaled and target-oriented. Development is a process, in
which the creation of the conditions for development is more important,
and the resultant development should have added value; i.e., it
must be qualitative, sustainable and equity oriented.
For development to take place in its
entirety, approaches which ensure integration and appreciation
of people's perspectives and concerns, involvement and participation
of women and other marginalized
sections in an effective manner, stimulating capability of the
grassroots people, community-based institutions and organizations,
and enhancing qualitative and holistic aspects of development.
The impact of development is felt at
the target society i.e. work place. Interventions with workers
in ‘under-developed deprived’ circumstances, transforms
the life of many and facilitates the restoration of
their professional experience. Necessary inputs include training,
health and developing holistic outlooks.
Other Human Resources Development processes such as Kaizen focuses
on fostering collective thinking and action by organizing workers
into self-help groups, which provided them with a platform where
they could practice their control over production and experience
decision-making at a group level.
Successful development programmes encourage
and capacitate to mainstream their participation in business issues
through appropriate structures. These have resulted in a better
quality of work-life which could be monetized.
The NGO fraternity has raised important
philosophical questions on a pragmatic and sustainable program
of Human Resources Development. These issues have been answered
but in the process the very aegis and core of the NGO and hence
Human Resource Development have had to change. This is a costly
affair demanding intense personal and professional commitment
but the methodology is sound and the results are worthwhile.
Herbert Roy runs Madrasmarkets,
a management consultancy and services provider based at Chennai,
South India. His forte includes HRD and Information Consulting.
His particular interests are cybersociology, socio-informatics,
and social engineering using information. He can be contacted
at roy@madrasmarkets.com
What
are the business themes faced in the NGO work?
Development vs Charity –
the evolving place for beneficiaries in the development process
Motivation for Development
in an NGO
Funding Fundas and
Ideological Agendas
Human Development –
an input/output perspective
Contribution of NGO work to
Human Resources Development
What should be the focus of Human Resources
Development ?
Shifting
the paradigm of Human Resources Development
Company vs. Community
