Human Resources Management in Europe

Résumé du document

The term 'human resource development' (HRD) refers to educational activities, training and development related to work life. It is often used in a broad sense to encompass all learning activities related to work, it further identifies the development and learning activities of people who work and have completed their basic training. The HRD, however, far from being an isolated concept is derived from the theories of 'human resource management or HRM'. Over the last fifteen years, European companies have revised their attitude towards the organization of work in order to respond to radical changes occurring in commercial environments, both global and European. These challenges have been described in numerous reports, but to remember them, we will briefly summarize four major factors of change in this paper.

Extraits

[...] HRD in Europe Cultural traditions of European industry and the world of work. From a historical perspective, we find in Europe, particularly in northern continental Europe and Scandinavian countries, many different versions of what we can call a model of industrial and world work development based on a common evolution of sectoral and national traditions, on common problems encountered during the historical development and choices made on the common path of industrialization. Cultural traditions of European industry and the world of work differ from those of the United States in that they put more emphasis on the role of skilled workers than on the managers (especially in small and medium companies ) and on the role of social partners in employment relations, and she also planned interventions from government The economic and industrial model of continental Europe, the "Rhineland model" is far different from the "Anglo-American" model. [...]

[...] The term "competency" refers to the ability of a person to perform a series of actions (or an entire complex action) independently. The competency is able to act as an expert in various social contexts in generalizing the skills and transferring them from one context or situation to another, whether they were professional or personal. The "competency" means the ability of an individual to perform tasks to meet external demands, and is based on the perception of the individual as a human interpreter, who acts and resolves problems . [...]

[...] We call this model a "hard" model of development of human resources derived from the Taylorism and neo-Taylorism thinking. He opposes to the “flexible” model, that is the humanist model focus on development which attempts to reconcile business needs with individual career development and larger societal effect. The "hard model" is based on "external flexibility" (or "numerical flexibility") of the external labor market, as opposed to "internal flexibility functional flexibility of company personnel, which is cultivated through the continuous development of the competencies of individuals and their ability to change. [...]

[...] Regarding the border between "human resources management" and "human resource development". In reality, some authors argue for greater integration, judging that the distinction between these two concepts is too tight. Human resources development and competence development In accordance with the theory just mentioned, the goals of "human resource development" will focus on the development of "competency" of employees. In the context of HRD, the concept of "competencies development" focuses on a comprehensive program addressing to all the employees, whatever they occupy intermediate, operational or managerial functions, contrary to an approach focused solely on developing the competencies of the management staff. [...]

[...] The main advantage of Germany lies in its people. If the German concept of HRM differs from the humanist model of the United States, they both agree on the need for a workforce highly motivated, flexible and well trained. HRM should not be considered as a new or abroad concept for German companies. A different human resources strategy : the utilitarian and instrumentalist approach A recent study on trends in "human resource development” in seven European countries came to the conclusion that, faced with globalization, there seems to be a trend towards convergence of human resource policies of Europe, U.S. [...]