Making hr development acceptable

Most managers have partook in hr development programmes early in their managerial careers and consequently believe that they have all the management skills they need. Sadly the older managers get, or the more senior they become, the more uncomfortable they are either in managing recently qualified junior managers with new management skills, or in admitting their need for hr development.

The challenge for the organisation therefore is to introduce a range of new innovative hr development programmes. This new generation of hr development initiatives must have interesting titles, as well as content, they must foster managers self-esteem, they must develop new business skills and they must be linked to organisational change projects or assignments. The better the hr development design the more effective they are. And the key to effective hr development design is first to make them relevant to participants, no benefit - no interest. The next secret to hr development design is to use learning methods that make learning enjoyable and, when linked to experiential learning, effective.

Do not loose sight of the simple fact that the final challenge in making hr development acceptable is to demonstrate to senior management that the organisational benefit far outweighs the cost. Senior management have many potential hr development initiatives to consider and these are in contention with other investment decisions. But with courage to take new hr development initiatives, management will be re-invigorated and the organisations cultural will be transformed and energised - hr development does pay!!