Aligning human resource development with business strategy

There is a growing interest among senior managers, human resource professionals and business school academics about evaluating the strategic benefits of workplace learning, particularly how organised training and development activities contribute to an organisation's success. Opinion is polarised: one school of thought takes a pro-human resource standpoint and advocates a strong and irrefutable connection, while the other view offers a more critical and independent perspective, arguing the evidence is not convincing. Despite this division, all sides give the impression that the best chance for evaluating the success of training may rest in aligning learning and development activities with business strategy. The term alignment has grown to become a popular expression for directing effort towards organisational success. However, this is not as straightforward as it may first appear, as business strategy can change perpetually - especially in a competitive and globalised marketplace. It has been suggested that the increasing complexity of what organisations have to deal with, makes strategic planning a tenuous activity, if not almost impossible. These assertions present a significant challenge for those wishing to align training activities with strategy and this paper contends the term alignment needs to be understood more fully if is to serve a useful purpose. Drawing on case study evidence collected in the New Zealand manufacturing sector, this paper examines how three organisations responded to global market challenges, and explores how workplace training and human resource development projects concealed a multi-dimensional face of alignment, offering both strengths and limitations to the success of the enterprise. Employees from five different roles within three organisations took part in in-depth interviews. Information from a literature review and documents from the organisations complement the evidence. The findings offer new possibilities for aligning human resource development initiatives successfully with business strategy.

Published abstract.

Available papers from the 11th Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA) Conference are indexed from TD/TNC 92.459 to TD/TNC 92.499 and from TD/TNC 92.701 to TD/TNC 92.716. Show less