Defining Important Terms (Due 7.12.13) - Essay Example

Human Resource Development Human resource development deals with the developmental aspect of employees. It focuses on the growth of the employees as well as growth of the organization by providing them adequate training. Human resource development covers three important areas of development that includes employee’s personal development, career development and organizational development. This program of human resource management focuses on the professional well-being of the employees by keeping the workforce updated with modern and required skills and knowledge.

Human resource development further helps employees to seek for rewards and promotions as their level of performance get enhanced. Thus over all human resource development programs motivates employees and assists individuals in better decision making through enhanced level of acquired skills and knowledge.The basic purpose of human resource development program is to promote fair and positive working environment for employees. It relies on the fact that the success of any organization is dependent on the growth and development of their employees thus these programs play a vital role in growing their organizations.

This actually turns out favorable for both the parties that is employees and the organization (Torraco, & Swanson, 1995).EvaluationEvaluation is the process of systematic assessment of a matter or an object. It is defined as the systematic acquisition and assessment of information to provide useful feedback about some object (Ferguson, & Reio Jr, 2010).It can also be defined as the process of examining the worth, merit or significance of an object (Boselie, Dietz, & Boon, 2005). It includes analyzing strengths and weaknesses of an object.

Proper evaluation is aided by sufficient amount of information regarding the object that is taken into consideration. The reason why evaluation is done varies with the type of objective one has. As evaluation is closely related to one’s objectives because evaluation helps as a tool to manage performance so that the intended target of performance can be achieved. Thus to have effective process of evaluation, it is very necessary to know about one’s objectives. There must be clear understanding about what a firm or an organization wants to achieve, otherwise evaluation process will not take place properly and divergence can be observed in achieving goals which can alienate firms from their vision.

Mostly evaluation helps in measurement of performance, providing credibility, understanding equity, improvement of upcoming activities and learning. Another important role that evaluation plays is in the process of benchmarking where firm compares their level of performance with the benchmark that they set of expected level of performance.There are two types of evaluation which are categorized as formative and summative evaluation. The difference between the two is that formative evaluation takes place when the project is still in progress where as summative evaluation takes place once the project is completed.

However, there are two natures of evaluation, one is quantitative evaluation and second is qualitative evaluation. The difference is the outcomes that each nature of evaluation provides. Qualitative evaluation describes how well the task was completed and quantitative evaluation illustrates how much amount of work was completed within the given time (Boselie, Dietz, & Boon, 2005). Evaluation is an integral part management which should be done rigorously in order to maintain high level of intended performance.

ReferencesBoselie, P., Dietz, G., & Boon, C. (2005). Commonalities and contradictions in HRM and performance research. Human Resource Management Journal, 15(3), 67-94.Ferguson, K. L., & Reio Jr, T. G. (2010). Human resource management systems and firm performance. Journal of Management Development, 29(5), 471-494.Torraco, R., & Swanson, R. (1995). ‘The Strategic roles of Human Resource Development’, Human Resource Planning, 18 (4), 10-21.