Human Resources Development Assignment 1 Essay:

 Introduction:

Human Resource Development (HRD) is a concept that refers to how organisations help develop and grow the employees working for them. Surbi (2017) states that HRD’s main purpose is to develop workers ‘ skills, knowledge and competency when performing their duties’. Due to the rapid advancement of technology, most people have had to change the way that they live and work. In addition to this, it has also presented new opportunities and challenges for the HRD industry as well.

This report will address the impact, opportunities, and challenges that technology has had on HRD professionals and will also provide recommendations to assist them to utilise the technology advancements and overcoming these issues.

How Technology has impacted Human Resource Development (HRD):

Due to the fast-growing advancement of technology, people working in the HRD department have had to change the way they work but have also used technology to improve and develop their working methods as well. Profile Asia Pacific (2017) explains that HRD employees will have a ‘huge impact on the HR department of an organization’ as it allows them to ‘improve their internal processes, core competencies, relevant markets and organisational structure as a whole’.

Technology such as Online learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been implemented into HRD to help them improve certain processes such as the training of employees. As a result, this will allow the HRD industry to collect data on things such as past employee performance to forecast what will occur in the future and make better decisions. However, Adam (2022) explains that in certain industries such as manufacturing, the advancement of technology has harmed workers who are working in industries such as Travel websites such as Expedia and Kayak ‘which have eliminated the need for human travel agents’ as well as booksellers ‘such as Amazon who have forced booksellers to close their doors permanently’.

As a result, employees working in these industries will need to come up with countermeasures to keep up with these advancements. However, Alison (2022) emphasises that while it is important to utilise technology in HRD, it is also important for them to develop their skills as well such as emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence and problem solving as it will help employees become ‘more reliable, meet their deadlines and complete tasks’.

As a result, the impact that technology has had on HRD has had the following opportunities and challenges:

Opportunities for HRD:

As previously shown, Ashley (2019) has shown that due to unprecedented factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the implementation of online learning for HRD has been on the rise to help train employees through the use of things such as ‘online training and courses’ and that this will teach them ‘how to use the tools that are available for them in a way that they can reap all the benefits of the tool itself’.

Furthermore, Ashley (2019) also explains that the use of technology will also allow HRD to allow the business to find their ‘balance between using humans to complete a task and using technology to improve the organisation’s system and processes’ (Lipman 2019). As a result, Ashley (2019) states that this will help HRD professionals to conquer certain organisational challenges such as ‘helping cultivate a company culture and helping the employees to learn to leave their comfort zones and interact more positively with their colleagues’.

In addition to this, since innovative technology is started to be used more frequently by organisations, it has become ‘an integral part of improving communication in the workplace’ (Park Point University Online 2019). Research has shown that ‘one in three members of the American workforce are millennials’ and this age group ‘grew up adapting to new forms of technology for communication and normally welcomes it into the workplace’ (Park Point University Online 2019). This communication technology will also be crucial for the current HRD industry as most employees are currently maintaining a balance of working from home and working from the office so a universal communication platform will be crucial for them to use.