Some Thoughts on the New HRD Missionary

Some Thoughts on the New HRD Missionary

T. V. Rao

·         The New HRD Missionary is not entirely new. It is the HRD Missionary (HRD-M) or HRD Facilitator (HRD-F) put in the new format to suit the 21^st Century generation, personality and requirements.

·         Purpose and Tasks: The primary purpose of this HRD-M is to facilitate the 3 Cs at the individual, dyadic, team, organizational and societal or community levels. The HRD-M may choose to work at one or more of these levels – with individuals as individuals to recognise, utilise and develop their talent; with individuals in relation to their current or future required roles - to create opportunities for role enrichment, create new roles for themselves and enhance their role effectiveness; with dyads (boss-subordinate or senior-junior, employee-customer, manager-direct report, colleague to colleague, etc. pairs) to restore, enhance and  strengthen their bonds through mutual empowerment, mutual help, problem solving and capacity utilisation and enhancement; with teams (formal or informal, departments or cross-functional, task forces, project tams and all other forms of teams temporary or long term) to enhance their contributions, morale, motivation, synergy, decision making and problem solving skills and make team work happen and become a source of empowerment and continuous learning and contribution; with organizations to enhance organisational health, employee commitment, self diagnostic capabilities and make it a happy, healthy and empowering place to work; and at societal level with individuals and groups and societal or community institutions  to create a healthy and happy society which respects people and their competencies irrespective of the caste, creed, religion and other sources of identity.

·         Methods: The HRD-M may acquire and utilise various methods including dialogues, coaching, formal teaching or lectures, discourses, writings, films and videos, internet and YouTube, face book and other social media and methods, questionnaires, games and exercises, stories, case studies, and various other interventions and skill building, value clarification, attitude development, and knowledge accumulating interventions.

·         Values: The HRD-M follows the OCTAPACE (Openness, Collaboration and team work, Trust, Authenticity, Proactivity, Autonomy, Confrontation and Experimentation) and other values like Integrity and Character outlines in the book HRD Missionary. The HRD- M has to be value driven and attempt constantly to practice these values and seek periodic feedback on the perceptions of people and use it for renewal and rejuvenation.

·         Affiliation:  The new HRD-M should preferably be an independent role holder without any departmental affiliation and should stand out as an independent employee with entrepreneurial dispositions. Each HRD-M may work closely with around 50 employees in a corporation or organization (or around 50 families in a community) and his transaction time with every individual works out to be around 40 hours per individual for various inputs and interventions. The HRD-M could be a part of the current organizational structure of the HR or any other allied department if it provides sufficient autonomy to the person  to carry out the above mentioned tasks and does not involve the Missionary in outsource able and routine administrative tasks which can be done by anyone with little skill. The HRD- M should not be involved in incentive schemes, performance appraisals, training administration and such other tasks that put the HRD-M into interface issues and has chance of denting his/her credibility as coach and facilitator. In case the HRD-M is already a part of the existing structure with administrative roles and responsibilities, she/he should be in a position to negotiate or re-negotiate his roles and responsibilities and task structure so as to relieve her from day to day routine administrative tasks and devote entirely to the 3Cs.

·         Power:  The HRD-M derives his/her power from the people she/he works with and on the basis of the nature of work and help she/he provides. In other words the source of power of the HRD-M is expert power and the power as a coach and facilitator. The HRD-M has to work constantly to establish and re-establish his credibility. Continuous learning, dissemination, communication, persuasion and coaching skills are very critical for the person set out to develop into this role. A thorough understanding of how people learn and how to make learning enjoyable is an integral part of the skills etc. of the HRD-M.

·         Time Management: The HRD-M should be constantly aware of the value of time and be sensitive to the time and talent of other people. He/she should maintain his/her time logs and review constantly to enhance her/his value addition in terms of the 3 Cs or in terms of Talent utilization and development. Hurconomics book by the author provides some insights into the time and talent management issues.

·         Salaries: The rationale for salaries of the HRD-M is around 2% to 5% of the CTC of the 50 persons he is serving.

These are some thoughts and in tune with what are stated in the book HRD Missionary. You are most welcome to add more points and or raise issues to enable us to evolve a much refined role for the new HRD-M.