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IS THE HRD PROFESSIONAL A FROG IN THE WELL?:

Arguing For A Strategic Role For HRD In Society
Rosemary Viswanath, Learning Network

Abstract
This paper attempts to challenge the prevailing idea of Human Resources Development
as primarily applicable to corporates and to business. It argues for a re-visioning or
revisiting of the core values and philosophy of the HRD movement in order to make the
profession more broad based and inclusive thus enabling it to play a more strategic and
influential role in business and in society at large. The author addresses the often
unquestioned impacts of globalization, such as increased informalisation of work,
increased violence & reduced rights pointing to an urgent need to go beyond the
economic and address political, cultural, and social, diversity and freedoms. She also
draws attention to the importance and challenges of application of HRD to non-
corporate systems particularly the government and non-profit sectors. Asking the
question which human resources and whose development the author appeals to
HRD professionals to recommit themselves to the vision of creating more humane
organisations , to take the risks and responsibility of transformative leadership roles
rather than be content with increasing micro innovation.

Introduction : HRD for whom ?
This conference focusing on the Asian transformation in the context of globalization is
indeed a welcome opportunity to reflect on the role of Human Resource Development
professionals, their world view and, the role they believe they should play. It is
illuminating that while its title and theme Emerging Asia - An HR Agenda", focusing
on the human side of the transformation, is broad and potentially inclusive; the
conference
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focuses almost exclusively on the corporate sector and in particular on the
large corporates. Is the underlying belief then that corporates and corporate employees
are the sole actors in transformation and globalization of the Asian region? While
examining the economic, business and cultural trends in the Asian region, is it not
important that accompanying social and political trends are also taken into account?
There is another assumption here too - albeit implicit that economic globalization is a
good thing - and has benefited all. Therefore the HRD professional must back it
unquestioningly and do everything in her or his power to ensure that globalization in its
current form is strengthened and pursued
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.
A third assumption also lurks that the other (non corporate world) has no links and
does not affect and is not affected by our (corporate) world.

While inviting a debate on these assumptions, this paper takes the position that an
increasing and massive share of the transformation (even industrial) comes from the
efforts and labour of a vast and ever growing unorganized sector , from the shaping and
advocacy efforts of a vigilant civil society
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(often in the organized form of nonprofit
organisations and networks), as well as efforts (both positive and negative) of
governments. There are strong links and dependencies between the large unorganized
informal sector and organized work; between social and political and economic
aspirations of wider civil society and the accountability and practices of corporates;
between issues of environmental sustainability / social justice and the bottom line of
world class organisations. Are these issues of concern to the HRD professional and the
HRD profession does it become his or her or its business at all?
Is there room for doubt?
Globalization through the opening up of economies, removal of barriers to free trade
and the closer integration of national economies, has the potential to enrich. East Asias
success (notwithstanding the crisis) is certainly attributable in part to globalization
bringing in opportunities for trade, increased access to markets and technology.
Globalization has brought better health, communication, as well as shaped an active
civil society around the world fighting for greater democracy and greater social justice.
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There is no question again, within the boundaries of the corporation, that globalization
has brought in its wake exciting challenges for the HR professional - the impact of
increased competition, the challenge of leveraging technology with strategy, the need
to inspire a workforce that is competent but often cynical about organisations. This has
resulted in HRD professionals addressing performance management competencies,
workplace facilities, training and capacity building, participation and rewards in varied
and innovative ways.
However it is clear that globalization is not working for the worlds poor. It is not
working for much of the environment. Economic (read corporate) globalization has in no
uncertain terms expanded the reach of corporate power capital, labour, technology
and other resources are increasingly directed toward or away from investment
destinations based mainly on economic factors. Economically powerful actors may
dramatically influence policy whether for good or for ill and thereby impact on the
human rights, livelihood and lives of millions of people
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.
Apart from the successes of transformation which need to be celebrated, the human
resources landscape in the last 10 years in Asia has also seen undeniable negative
trends
Increased distress migration across state and national borders and from rural
to urban areas
A decided shift in employment even in case of the Asian Tigers from the formal
to informal sector. Informal sector growing rapidly, but is even more insecure
Temporary and ephemeral nature of employment: Multiple jobs, part time jobs,
contract based and dispatch jobs
Feminization of the labor force ( more women into the labour force , but also
moving women into low paid low security jobs)
Privatization of social services ( health , education) and public goods ( water ,
power, common property) making them out of reach of the poor
Retreat of the government from social services
Increased militarization
With greater civil society protest, increased intolerance of the state to dissent
and dissident voices
Rising unemployment
Sexual harassment in the workplace
Dismantling of labor laws and the rights of labour including the rights to
organize
Trend towards special economic zones which by law restricts the rights of labour
Increase in trafficking and slavery of women and children
Drugs, armed conflict, HIV Aids
Communal clashes and hatred

The latest UN Human Development Report 2004
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focuses as its theme, Cultural Liberty
in Todays Diverse World, and points to the myths, the challenges, and the dilemmas
we as a society are faced with in understanding these trends and responding to them.
Human Development, as this well respected annual report has argued over the years, is
as much a question of politics as it is of economics. It argues strongly that unless
citizens think feel and act in ways that genuinely accommodate the needs and
aspirations of others real change will not happen.
When as HRD professionals we speak of the people side or "the human side" of the
asian transformation and the role of HR which human resources and whose
development is the question. Do issues like democracy, participation, development of
human capacity, dignity, quality of life, equity, justice, and strong social institutions,
the building of social capital, good governance and peace not touch and concern HRD as
a profession?

The argument here is not that all HR professionals quit corporate jobs and work with
the development sector, but for HRD as a profession to widen its circle of interest and
therefore its circle of influence and circle of responsibility. It will only stagnate and
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become dysfunctional if it remains cloistered within the walls of corporate offices
paying no heed to the trends and realities of wider society and refusing to seeing the
connections between these and the more micro issues that it deals with.

A leadership role
Perhaps an area of possible and productive interface is the area of Corporate Social
Accountability (or Corporate Social Responsibility as many corporates prefer to call
it). For instance the way that the CSR initiative of the HRD network
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is defined is
certainly well intentioned it goes beyond philanthropy and tries to engage individual
with wider social issues and attempts to build capacity of NGOs.

This is indeed laudable, but it does not seem to address a very core issue is CSR a
feel good initiative? Are HR managers able to see that corporate accountability is an
imperative that corporations need to address, not just as part of their strategy but as
an integral way of doing business ? If accountability implies a reduced bottom line,
would the HR professional be arguing in favor of increased social accountability? One
hopes so. As an example, let us take a current issue in debate in India - reservations
for SC/ST in the private sector
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. A Group of Ministers has been constituted by the
government to address this where is the HRD movement in terms of its response, or
serious engagement with the issue? Surely it has implications for each of us in our role
as HRD managers, our policy for recruitment and capacity building, best practices, but
also as HRD professionals and as citizens.

In August 2003, the UN sub commission on the promotion and protection of Human
rights approved the UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and
Other Business Enterprises with regard to Human Rights
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.The UN Human Rights Norms
for Business set forth basic minimal business obligations regarding human rights. These
cover areas such as non-discrimination, protection of civilians and laws of war, use of
security forces, workers rights, corruption, consumer protection, economic social and
cultural rights, rights of indigenous people as well as human rights and the
environment. These are just the broad areas, and the commentary on each of these is
indeed educative and worth the effort of using it to challenge mental models and status
quo within progressive corporations. HR professionals have an important role in
bringing such issues and developments to the centre stage of corporate strategy,
values and governance.

Who learns from whom?

There is also perhaps the underlying assumption about corporates being leading edge
and sophisticated forms of organisation and non profits and other sectors having to
learn from them. This warrants a re-look.
Non-profits have basically built on the spirit of service and participation, and privileged
civil societys role in building just and sustainable societies. It is true that many small
non profits operate with structures and systems that are basic and capacity that is
limited. But many dont. With globalization, the landscape of non-profits has also
changed and while they may grapple with local issues, they recognize that the impacts
are often because of changes in global spaces. Many have been forced to or chosen to
shift from the traditional geographically bounded project or implementation mode to
engage with and create new forms of organizations networks, campaigns, clusters,
and alignments oftentimes trans-regional, transcontinental, and mostly virtual.
Managing these new forms of organization itself is a significant challenge in terms of
leadership, managerial and organizational skills. The management of finances becomes
a new challenge as well, because many of the earlier assumptions about inflows and
outflows and sharing of resources simply do not hold. Added to this is managing the
increasing number of hurdles in the legal, statutory, political and policy space ( as a
means to discourage dissent and critique) as well as increasingly tight donor
requirements.
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In order to survive and remain effective, non-profits are increasingly focusing on the
inside-outside simultaneously. This implies serious and concerted work on HRD and OD
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in areas of:
l The organizations vision (and its percolation to the rest of the organization) &
practiced values as well as consistent and focused work on aligning strategies, work
culture , structures, processes and systems to the vision & values
l Ability & skill to operate in a truly public space
l Financial management , accountability & transparency
l Efficiency and deliverables in a complex macro-environment
l Leadership not just at the top , but a building a culture of leadership at all levels in
the organisation.
l Professional and management skills in a resource deficit space

Max DePree
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Chairman of Herman Miller one of the most admired US companies says -
One of the great problems of the capitalist system during its first couple of hundred
years is that it has been primarily an exclusive system. It has been built primarily
around contractual relationships and it has excluded too many people from both its
process and a generally equitable distribution of results. The issue here is much more
than financial reward: Most people never get the opportunity to be meaningfully
involved in the working of the system.
Participatory processes and participatory management as a basic value emerged in the
nonprofit sector. It is now fast gaining currency in the corporate world both for strategic
reasons (a key tool for enrolling people into the mission of the organisation) and even
in terms of being a desirable value. Advocacy and lobby networks
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have effectively
used synergy and collaboration as effective strategic weapons to meet their goals.
Interestingly, it is the for profits that are now turning to population ecology and game
theory concepts to understand why cooperation is an important corollary to competition
in understanding industry dynamics.

Non profits and development organisations have also worked far more seriously on the
issue of gender, diversity and representational power than most corporates. It is quite
demoralizing for instance, so see the rather dismal ratio of women to men in the
composition of advisory council members, executive committee members and invited
speakers to this conference does HRD not concern itself with the development of
womens leadership within the profession and in corporations? Peter Drucker talking of
American Nonprofit organisations believes that in two areas - strategy and effectiveness
of the Board, non-profits practice what most American businesses only preach
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. We
must also not forget that NGOs are the largest employer of a volunteer work force
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.
Given the huge challenge that most HRD professionals in corporate systems face about
motivating and retaining people who are paid considerably more there is much to
learn and think about.

But before we begin to romanticize non profits , let us recognize that while many are
opposed to the capitalist model and assumptions, they struggle with the same
dilemmas - how to make their working and systems more inclusive yet effective.
Should their OD efforts focus more on techniques and skills and less on the spirit? The
willingness to include normal human problems into the system may not go along with
increased pressures on efficiency. Being committed to the diversity of human gifts,
being hospitable to the unusual person, being covenantal as against contractual in
relationships, incessant almost obsessive communication, and believing that leadership
is a condition of indebtedness are goals that are easier talked about but take a lifetime
to achieve . Given that the non-profits are extremely resource short (people, skills,
money, and time) these are not easy tasks and there are no easy answers. A challenge
indeed for the HRD professional.

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Widening the canvas : a return to core values and philosophy of the HRD
movement
There is the strong arguing for the emergence of 21st century HR as a meta profession
that can accommodate multiple fields under its umbrella
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. The lines for instance
between HRM, HRD and OD have blurred, and organizational structures are beginning
to reflect the realization that turf wars around these highly interconnected specialties
make very little sense. Given the wide canvas of social action and the challenges of
human development , the more fundamental question to us as HRD professionals is
what are the roots of our vision and what is the corner stone of our philosophy.

A Korean Woman laborer
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poignantly described the struggle to organize for women
workers rights :We must win , because this is a societal problem . Isnt the fact that
a woman cannot have a job a societal problem?
How many HRD professionals today feel as strongly, as passionately, about the issues
of our times? By shrinking the broader vision of humanizing organisations and systems
to mean only the corporate world have we not shirked our own responsibility and
shrunk our potential? We need the courage to ask ourselves personally and demand
from our work organisations authentic statements about their vision for the world and
for our societies. We must remember that organisations exist for people and for
enhancing their potential and to better the quality of life and not vice versa. We must
also remember that each of our organisations, whatever its business, is embedded in a
wider social context that it receives from and has a responsibility towards. We must
therefore be leaders and not just implementers to bring into action the core values of
human development into the systems we work with.. As HR professionals we must have
the courage to emerge from the safe and insular cocoons we have wrapped ourselves in
and be prepared to architect transformative change in the way corporations even define
success and purpose.

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References

1
A look at the objectives, invited speakers, advisory council members and executive council
we see a preponderance of those from industry and perhaps academia. There is almost no
mention of the non-corporate arena
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The brochure of this conference has as one of it aims: Bring in international perspectives on
various aspects of Human Resources Management that will facilitate the sustaining pace in the
continuing march towards industrial progress in the region.
3
David C Korten The Post-corporate World: Life after capitalism Berret Koehler 1999
4
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, Penguin 2002
5
UN Human Development Report 2004, United Nations Development Programme
http://hdr.undp.org
6
Beyond Business Initiative HRD Network New Delhi
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7
Gail Omvedt The Dronacharya Mindset: Private sector Quotas to Improve Efficiency
Times of India Bangalore Edition 3 Sept 04

8
Commentary on the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other
Business Enterprises with Regard to Human rights UN DOC E/CN 4/Sub.2/2003/38/Rev 2 (
2003)

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The author would like to acknowledge the white water space that many nonprofits groups
and networks have given her to grapple with the complexities of human resource development
both within the system alongside broader context and contradictions of development.
Experiments, discussions, passionate debates and frustrations have been the fertile ground in
which many of these ideas were nurtured. EQUATIONS Bangalore, Dappu , Andhra Pradesh,
National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights, Committee for Asian Women, Bangkok , Friends
of the Earth International , CHCP Bangladesh are a few such organisations where the author
had opportunities to work along with creative colleagues on long term change and
development efforts
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DePree Max Leadership Jazz Dell Publishing 1992
11
Martha Nunez and Ricardo Wilson Grau :Towards a Conceptual frame work for evaluating
international social change networks April 2003

12
P Drucker What Business can learn from Non-profits Harvard Business Review July 1989
13
Invisible yet widespread: The Non-Profit Sector in India
National Report on PRIA's study on the Non Profit sector in India, conducted as part of a
global comparative study of the John Hopkins University, USA, 2001
14
Wendy E A Ruona and Saharon K Gibson The Making of Twenty First Century HR : an
analysis of convergence of HRM, HRD and OD Human Resource Management Spring 2004
15
Uniting Voices : Asian Women Workers Search for Recognition in the Global Market place.
A complilation of research studies on women workers in Asia - an 8 country research
Committee for Asian Women (CAW ) Thailand 2000
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Rosemary Viswanath has a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Indian Institute of
Management, Bangalore (1982-84)
She heads Learning Network, which offers services in the area of organisation development,
working on authority, leadership and management of oneself in role, strategic thinking and
developing appropriate systems, capacities and processes that are aligned to the organisations
core purpose and values. Learning Network privileges work with non-profit and government
organisations ( in India and internationally) that influence society and macro social processes
through their work on human rights, development and its impacts, justice, equity, womens
rights and empowerment, and governance.

This paper was published in Emerging Asia An HR Agenda. Eds R Padaki, NM Agrawal, C
Balaji, GP Mahapatra Tata McGraw_hill Publishing Company Limited 2005, National HRD
Network