From the foregoing discussions, it is apparent that the primary goal of HRD is to increase worker’s productivity and firm’s profitability as investment in HRD improves worker’s skill and enhance motivation. The other goal of HRD is to prevent obsolescence at all levels. To achieve these two goals, HRD Manager of any organization plays following two important roles:
1. To assist people in obtaining the knowledge and skills they need for present and future jobs and to assist them in attaining their personal goals.
2. To play the ‘enabling’ role, providing the right context in which human performance occurs and the organization reaches its stated objectives.
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In 1998, ASTD identified eleven roles of HRD manager, which can be enumerated as follows:
1. Administrator:
The role of providing coordination and support services for the delivery of HRD programmes and services.
2. Evaluator:
The role of identifying the impact of an intervention on individual or organizational effectiveness.
3. Individual Career Development Advisor:
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The role of helping individuals to assess personal competencies, values and goals and to identify, plan and implement development and career actions.
4. HRD Manager:
The role of supporting and leading a group’s work and linking that work with total organization.
5. Instructor/Facilitator:
The role of presenting information, directing structured learning experiences and managing group discussions and group process.
6. Marketer:
The role of marketing and contracting from HRD’s viewpoints, programmes and services.
7. Material Developer:
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The role of producing written and/or electronically mediated instructional materials.
8. Needs Analyst:
The role of identifying ideal and actual performance and performance conditions and determining causes of discrepancies.
9. Organizational Change:
The role of influencing and supporting changes in organizational behaviour.
10. Programme Designer:
The role of preparing objectives, defining content and selecting and sequencing activities for a specific intervention.
11. Researcher:
The role of identifying, developing or testing new information (theory, concepts, technology, models, hardware) and translating these two implications for improved individual or organizational performance.