HUMAN RESOURCES’ DEVELOPMENT NEEDS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Osoian Codruţa, Senior Lecturer PhD Babeş-Bolyai University
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Management Department [email protected]
Zaharie Monica, PhD Student Babeş-Bolyai University
Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Sociology Department [email protected]
An individual level approach of the human resource management requires the focus upon the employees’ individual development within the organization. This process includes the identification of the human resources’
development needs, the establishment of the methods and strategies necessary for developing the employees, the implementation of the training program, and the evaluation of the outcomes. The success of a development program strongly depends on the first stage, which aims at analyzing the training needs. But, identifying employees’ development needs within organization implies as well analyzing the organizational requirements and strategic objectives. The present study focuses on the faculty development needs identification stage, which includes: the identification of the professional objectives set by the academic staff, the establishment of the activities and strategies necessary for accomplishing the goals, and their comparison with the teaching dimensions assessed as deficient at the students’ rating of instruction.
Key words: human resources development, faculty development needs, development management
Guided by the principles of a learning society, the European area increasingly values the development of its human resources. The awareness of the importance of human resources development upon the economic growth generated the design and implementation of several strategies at international level, in order to challenge the quality of the development programmes (Price, 2000).
At European level, there are a number of organizations with actions focused on the problematic of human resources improvement, which is thus rendered recognition as a catalytic element for the economic and social development. Since 1995, The CEI Working Group of Human Resources Development and Training has acknowledged the need of establishing a long- term collaborative programme with view to professional training (CEI, 2007). In this way, the Human Resources Development is recognized as a fundamental element of the economic and social development. Furthermore, the Action Plan for 2007-2009 is strongly focused on promoting lifelong learning and adult education.
At the level of the OECD membership, the 21stcentury has revealed a series of new aspects connected with the Human Resources Management. The aging of masses phenomenon, along with further consequences of previous reforms, have triggered new initiatives of the OECD government with respect to the recruitment and maintenance of the highly qualified staff, to the human resources development programmes for meeting the needs within the work force, as well as to the development of the knowledge management (Shim, 2001). The growth of an organization is proportional to the development of the human resources working in it (Freeman, 1993).
Tightly connected to the manner in which the management looks into the analysis of the immediate needs of the organization as well as into the long- term necessities in order to reach the established goals, the management of the human resources envisages a planning of the personnel, of its development and development needs. The performance-centered training focuses on both the individual and the organization (Brethower, Smelley, 1998): it develops the individual performance as well as it renders value to the whole organization.
Therefore, the service of the training programmes is not anymore acknowledged only at micro level, but also at the macro level of the social economic organizations.
In the case of Romania, the meager finances for the human resources training programmes within public institutions led to an increase of the professional development needs. At present, there is an attempt to encourage such initiatives, by compelling employees in the medical and educational fields to accumulate credits by participating in these programmes. There frequently meet questions such as “Which of the employees should be trained?”, “What type of training do they need?”, and these can be answered by conducting development needs assessments. Consequently, the institutions that already offer
or intend to implement training programmes need an assessment methodology for the human resources professional development needs.
The present study aims to put forward a diagnosis methodology for the training needs of teaching staff from higher education institutions, along as well as to present the conclusions drawn from the investigation of human resources development needs carried out within 4 universities.
The literature suggests several models designed for identifying the development needs assessment. Starting from the traditional pattern proposed by McGehee and Thayer (1961), most of the available patterns in the field which have approached assessment of the training needs have taken into consideration 3 levels of analysis: the organizational, job analysis and personnel evaluation (Moore and Dutton, 1978). The unwinding of the training needs assessment process calls for gathering information (especially from reference persons within the institution), with respect to the optimum performance, real performance level, problem generating factors, solutions that reduce the discrepancy between the optimum and actual performance (Rossett, 1992).
As a rule, the study of the training needs reveal multiple opinions, which are usually generated by the diversity of organizational contexts (Szymanski, Linkowski, 1993). Differences with respect to the employees’ training needs are identifiable according to the following variables: gender, schooling, hierarchy, work field, experience and type of organization. Moreover, the meta-analytic study conducted by Moseley and Heaney (1994) has revealed variables in what regards the assessment patterns and techniques depending on the working field.
Besides factors such as the resources invested by organizations for enhancing the quality of their employees’ activities, the value assigned by the institution to its human resources, or the colleagues’ support (Foley, Redman, Horn, Davis, Neal, & Riper, 2003), the job performance also depends on the congruence between the content of the program and the specific needs of the employees. The professional development programs are more efficient when they meet the employees’ knowledge and priorities (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1992).
Understanding employees’ development needs and their career objectives is a key element for an efficient development program (Evans & Chauvin, 1993).
For this reason, an important step in designing a development program is to identify the faculty needs for professional improvement. In conclusion, the assessment and planning of the human resources development should also include the analysis of these characteristics.
The strategy suggested by Freeman (1993) inserts the following stages:
1) Meetings with different level organizational representatives; 2) Job analysis-
at this stage there is information gathering carried on about all the available positions in the institution; 3) Personnel assessment – the information obtained in the previous stage is processed in order to assess the employees’ performance.
The personnel evaluation offers information regarding the employees’ weakness in their job performance; 4) Training and development assessment – this stage focuses on the assessment of the long-term training and development needs. The training needs depend on immediate needs and involve concrete changes in the immediate behavior of the staff, whereas the development needs hint at the acquisition of transversal abilities serviceable both in the present and in the future.
A distinction made in the scientific literature is that between needs assessment and needs analysis (Kaufman, Rojas, Mayer, 1993). If the needs assessment calls for the identification of the discrepancies between the actual and desired outcome and the establishment of the priorities in order to eliminate the shortcomings, the needs analysis focuses on the identification of the factors that have generated these discrepancies. Ignoring this distinction, most of the training needs assessment methodologies only track the needs as perceived by the employees.
Starting from the distinction between development needs and development wants, the purpose of this paper is to develop and propose a set of instruments which to facilitate the identification of the faculty’ professional development needs in higher education.
In order to overstep the bounds generated by the oblivion of the differences between the development needs and employees’ wants, the methodology submitted within the present study is based on the pattern of discrepancies in the needs assessment (Kaufman, Rojas, Mayer, 1993) and purposes the analysis of the differences between the actual and wished for outcomes; this path calls for 2 stages.
The former, namely the development needs assessment, is a top-down strategy, oriented towards the future of the organization in which the primary objectives of the institution are being analyzed, in order to design the best training strategies which to concur to their fulfillment. Starting with the chief objectives of the institution, there will be a delimitation of the activities which will call for further information from the employees. Therefore, the employees’
personal wishes can be diagnosed in an early stage of the process, so as the employees training needs compatible with the objectives of the institution are identified.
The second stage aims at the identification of the employees’ perception upon the improvement of performances through training. Employees are asked to devise a top of the main factors that hinder them from optimum achievement of tasks, in a pre-investigation printed form. They assign training strategies to each identified problem. As opposed to the traditional methodology of needs identification, which has the respondents assign the type of training they consider necessary, this type of investigation compels the respondents to focus on the expected performances in their work.
The letter stage, namely the identification of opportunities for better performance, is a bottom-up strategy, which plans to involve all employees and diagnose the chief training needs. The focus is aimed at the development needs requisite for the performance improvement, as opposed to the training programmes desired by the employees. Thus, the conclusions submitted by the end of this assessment, approach the main training strategies in relation with the desired performances, in close connection with both the organization objectives and with the opportunities sighted by the employees in order to improve performance through training.
Four universities were part of the research sample: one large, public, general higher education institution (University 1); an average sized one (University 2); a rather large general higher education institution from the western part of the country (University 3); and a relatively recently established small private university (University 4). A total number of 570 questionnaires were filled in: 329 from the University 1; 148 from University 2; 42 from University 3; and 51 from University 4. The response rates ranged between 30 and 40%.
The assessment instrument of the development needs followed the identification of the relevant purposes for the faculty professional development and the identification of the activities believed to support the achievement of the main purposes.
The primary goal for the teaching staff from the four universities is: “the improvement of one’s own line of specialization” (chosen as primary goal by 15% of the respondents), followed by “the improvement of teaching skills”
(professed as main goal by 14% of respondents), and “participation in external scientific exchanges” (11% of the respondents). Comparing subgroups of faculty, the early career faculty members consider the development of their teaching skills slightly a more important goal. The participants holding the positions of junior lecturers tent to render higher importance to the improvement
of teaching skills and intensification of interactivity with fellow faculty (ideas and experience exchange) than the professors.
The leading positions seem to be associated with differences among teaching staff in setting their professional goals. The teaching staff in leading positions renders the targets regarding the improvement of scientific research more importance than the other faculty (t = 2.09, p< .05). Depending on the general field/discipline of the teaching staff (sciences and social sciences and humanities), the independent samples t test indicates differences in the goals established regarding the teaching skills, managerial, communication and exchange attendance. Thus, in opposition to the teaching staff from sciences, the social sciences faculty render significant more importance to the targets concerning teaching skills (t = 2.55, p< .05), managerial (t = 2.58, p< .05), communication skills (t = 2.24, p< .05), and mobility attendance (t = 2.02, p<
.05).
The hierarchy of the strategies perceived as necessary for achieving the set goals is as follows: the access to prestigious scientific publications is chosen by 8.7% of the participants as the most appreciated activity, followed by the sessions of scientific events, such as congresses, symposiums, summer schools (8.3%), funds for participation in at least one annual conference (7.9%), work visits to foreign/local universities (7.8%), scientific partnership with other professors/researchers (7.7%), partnerships with the practitioners (7.2%).
The efficiency of the faculty development is greater if the content of the program addresses the specific needs expressed by the teaching staff. The present study identifies several differences in the development needs perceived by different subgroups of faculty, and for this reasons, development needs assessments might be extremely useful in designing and investing in successful faculty improvement programs, in order for the institutional development programs to distinctly address the faculty subgroups.
To sum up, the present paper proposes a set of instruments necessary for the identification of the professional development needs of the faculty in higher education. The analysis is based on the distinction between employees’
development wants and needs, so that the methodology used to identify the necessary level as regards employees’ development, according to the institutional strategic objectives and the specific characteristics of the teaching staff.
As regarding the limits of the present study, in order to immediately meet the organizational daily needs, one of the main difficulties is generated by the lack of organizational long term strategies and objectives. Another problem
is represented by the lack of communication between the management and employees with regard the objectives establishment, which might lead to different set of goals for these two categories.
As the results emphasize, the efficiency of the development program is greater if the content of the program addresses the specific needs expressed by the employees. The present study identifies several differences in the development needs perceived by different subgroups of employees. Early career members are more oriented towards teaching skill improvement and development plans, while tenured faculty are rather interested in their research skills development. For this reasons, similar development needs assessments might be extremely useful in designing and investing in successful human resources improvement programs, in order for the institutional development programs to distinctly address the employees’ subgroups.
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