HRD CLIMATE

HRD climate is the perception of employees about the prevailing HRD culture in the organization.
It refers to perception of employees about the policies, procedures,practices and conditions which exist in the work environment.

Mapping HRD climate helps the organization in the following ways:

• To know the existing climate 

• To take necessary steps to modify or change certain practices ( If they feel there remains a gap between what they want and what is prevalent)  

 

To understand the HRD climate, organization often institute a survey with a structured questionnaire covering the entire or a sample of employees. Some of the elements of questionnaire can be listed as follows:

• Does the organization consider employees as the most important resource?
• Are the personnel policies supportive in nature?
• To what extent the organization is transparent in communication? 
• Are the employees encouraged to take risks?
• To what extent HRD activities are development oriented? 

 

 

The HRD climate can be created by using appropriate 

• HRD system and 
• Leadership style of top management

 

HRD climate of an organization plays a very important role in ensuring the competency, motivation and development of its employees.

The elements of HRD climate was developed by T.V. Rao which are as follows:

GENERAL CLIMATE

The general climate deals with the importance given to the HRD in general by the top management and general managers.

OCTAPACE CULTURE

The culture pertaining to how the employees are encouraged to develop and take initiative is brought out through the following practices collectively called as OCTAPACE culture of an organization which is described as:

 

 

 

 

Openness:

It means the extent of willingness to share and receive information, ideas and suggestions with the employees.Existance of suggestion scheme and effective two-way communication system etc., is its indicators.

Confrontation:

It means the willingness to face and solve problems. Willingness of executives to solve problems at the shop-floor level and to encourage workers to form Quality Circles and problem-solving groups are indicators of this value.

Trust:

It means the extent of faith which people have for one another. Less supervision and organization's trust in employees indicate the presence of this value.

Autonomy:

It means the degree of freedom enjoyed by the workers. Existence of quality circles, self-managed teams and flexible working time etc., are the indicators of this value.

Pro-Activity:

It means the tendency to think ahead of the problem. An organization plan and policies to face the future challenges are indicators of this characteristic.

Authenticity:

It means the quality of being genuine or true. If the management wants cost reduction through improvement in quality but awards business on the basis of price tag only then they lack authenticity.

Collaboration:

It means people's tendency to live and work together. Existence of project organization, quality circles and team-building etc. are indicators of this value.

Experimentation:

It means the existence of supporting environment to take risks and innovate.

HRD MECHANISM

Training, performance appraisal, potential appraisal, feedback and counseling, career planning, succession planning, employee welfare and job rotation are some of the HRD mechanisms.