Week 5: 29th May - 4th June (Activities: 3.1 & Video: 3.2)
Figure 3.1 provides a useful overview of the difference between ‘outer’ (or external) and ‘inner’ (or internal) contexts (this returns to previous considerations of HR strategy within B864).
If this diagram looks deceptively simple – it is! For an HRD practitioner embarking on any strategy undertaking there are difficult questions to be asked of this diagram:
- Where is the boundary between internal and external in my organisation?
- How permeable are these boundaries?
- How do I draw a line around the external context so that I only consider those issues of relevance to me and my organisation?
- What time periods will be relevant to consider in relation to context? How far back and how far forward do I need to go?
For any HRD (or HR) practitioner, using this as a tool to map organisational-specific contexts can be a difficult but insightful process, particularly if others are enrolled in debating which issues or characteristics need to be considered. Within an HR department or among those working on different aspects of HRD strategy, it is also important to understand the relationships between the different elements. In this way the diagram might be redrawn (Figure 3.2):
Activity 3.1: Analysing context (40 minutes)
Key trends impacting HR strategy include a need to accommodate flexible working of all kinds, to combine and recombine teams from across the globe on a regular basis, and to manage at a distance (these were introduced in B864). Environments may be volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (summarised in the acronym VUCA). There are challenges in dealing with these trends in contemporary organisations. If you would like to review these ideas further, you might read Horney et al. (2010) – see Suggested additional resources.
One particular aspect that is of concern to HR and HRD practitioners is the increasingly wide range of types of employment contract that might be in place within one organisation. This can impact the ways in which different employees are regarded within the context of HRD strategy. For example, Kalleberg (2009) suggests it is useful to compare the idea of the ‘standard’ employee who works full-time at the employer’s site on an open-ended employment contract, with all other forms of ‘non-standard’ employment. Non-standard employment contracts would then include all part-time and temporary arrangements. It would also include what are regarded as ‘precarious work’ arrangements, for example zero-hours contracts (Berg et al., 2014).
All of these various forms of employment are now common in many contemporary organisations, to the extent that in some cases ‘standard’ contracts become the exception rather than the rule (Lambert, 2008). The 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study (WERS) (van Wanrooy et al., 2011) notes significant increases within the UK in shift working, annual hours and zero-hours contracts, particularly in the hospitality and education sectors. HRD professionals therefore need to be aware of the implications for HRD strategy of the variety of employment forms that are present or will be used in the future.
External context: STEEPLE for HRD strategy
This section uses ‘STEEPLE’ analysis to critically explore issues of external context that are exerting a pressure on the HRD strategy of contemporary organisations. An explanation of each of the STEEPLE elements is set out in Table 3.1.
Now we take each of these factors in turn and review potential implications for HRD strategy before then considering the political imperatives in more detail. The aim here is to introduce key trends rather than to provide a comprehensive examination of each aspect. That would require a module in its own right!
Socio-cultural
Changing demographics are regarded as one of the key organisational challenges of the present day, although specific direction and speed of demographic changes vary hugely across the globe. (If you are interested, you can review population data via the World Bank data portal.) For HRD practitioners responding to demographic change, this involves recasting understandings of working lives, their length and composition. Whereas, historically, training and development activities were often targeted as the first stages of a career with a focus on the young, this may now need to be reviewed to account for more flexible and longer working lives. Moreover, assumptions about age-based (or other diversity) preferences for learning need to be reviewed in light of emerging research evidence (Canduela et al., 2012), which questions ideas that older employees are less motivated or able to develop new skills.
Technological
The theme of HR in the digital age runs across the MSc in Human Resource Management. For HRD practitioners this is a complex area since it requires consideration of the changing nature of work, the ways in which information about work might be technologically mediated and the potential for digital modes of learning and development (Li, 2013). More broadly, both optimistic and pessimistic futures are predicted for the democratising potential of the internet (Lievrouw, 2012), which could see a (further) move away from organisationally focused HRD activity. More discussion about technologically enabled learning will follow in Unit 4.
Economic
The changing economic fortunes of different industries and different regions of the world is one of the emergent themes of contemporary HR. Whether it is the challenging conditions of the Eurozone, the seeds of economic growth or fears of future recession, each of these will have implications for HRD strategy. Perhaps of most concern is a perception that in the era which is now termed ‘post-global financial crisis’, investment in HRD is returning to the ‘dark era’ of low investment and low strategic priority (Gold and Bratton, 2014). This will undoubtedly create a challenging climate for HRD practitioners in many organisations. Later in the module we will discuss the importance of developing a convincing business case for HRD initiatives.
Environmental
Debates within HRD (and HR more broadly) are extending to consider the potential impact beyond the economic and social – and on to the natural world. Emphasis here is placed on the potential of sustainable or environmentally friendly HRD (Sheehan et al., 2014) but also on applying the notion of sustainability to HRD strategy itself. These themes are particularly developed later in the module when we explore coaching and mentoring.
Political
The political context for HRD is both complex and rapidly evolving. Furthermore, the range of political actors involved may be many and varied depending on both the geography and sector of the organisation for which an HRD strategy is being developed. Political factors are often most keenly felt in public sector and public service or third sector organisations, but are increasingly prevalent across most organisational contexts. Often HRD practitioners need both an appreciation of past political direction and an understanding of the potential future scenarios that will affect the local organisational context. The various HR professional bodies (such as the CIPD in the UK and SHRM in the USA) play a pivotal role both in interpreting political policy for practitioners and in campaigning on issues of concern to the profession.
Legal
Legal and political influences are often closely entwined. Legal frameworks impacting HRD include those relating to issues of diversity, which again will vary depending on the particular legislative jurisdiction of your organisation. For example, under the UK Equality Act 2010, the protected characteristic of age relates to any age or age group. In contrast, the US Age Discrimination in Employment Act is concerned only with people who are aged 40 or older, although some states have additional legislation to protect younger workers from age discrimination. This example highlights just one area of consideration amongst many of concern for the HRD practitioner for whom an understanding of diversity is an essential aspect of developing effective strategy.
Ethical
There is increasing emphasis in the literature on the need for ethical HRD, though perhaps it is not always easy to understand what this might involve or how it might be achieved. This is in part because issues of ethics are themselves conceptually complex. However, it is often the case that HRD strategy is held to be the solution to a particular ethical problem. In the USA, for example, organisations are both legally and politically encouraged to demonstrate via the delivery of training programmes that they are striving to implement and maintain a positive ethical culture (Warren et al., 2014). You will return to issues of ethics (and its relationship with other factors on this list) later in the module.
This last example of the push for ethical HRD highlights the complex relationships between the different STEEPLE facets, relationships that become ever more complex as they interact with a particular set of (often unstable and unpredictable) organisational circumstances. There are also debates about the extent to which HRD practitioners should be considering their role in addressing broader societal or planetary needs rather than focusing on the particular organisational demands when developing HRD strategy in pursuit of competitive advantage. You will return to this issue later in the module, but in the next section we review a related topic in considering whether governments or organisations should take responsibility for skills development.
First, watch Video 3.2 in which a range of expert HRD practitioners, consultants, coaches and academics discuss how external factors may impact HRD over the coming years.
Video 3.2: Emerging issues for HRD
