HRD Climate in Public and Private Sector Banks

Introduction In today's competitive environment it is important for organizations to innovate, improve and adapt itself with the changing environment. This can be realized if the potential of the human resource is fully optimized and they are in a trajectory of growth and dynamism. Human resource development plays an imperative role in developing a learning environment where the knowledge and intellect can grow. The HR subsystems like performance appraisal, training, feedback and other planned developmental activities coupled with enabling climate helps an employee to gain competencies and realize their potential. The term HRD was first coined by Leonard Nadler who defined it as a series of organized activities which are conducted within a specified time and designed to produce behavioral change. The HRD Climate of an organization plays an important role in ensuring competency, motivation and development of its employees (Patel, 2005). HRD Climate was found to be positively correlated with organizational effectiveness and productivity (Jain, Singhal & Singh, 1997). The study by Rohmetra in 1998, found that job satisfaction was positively associated with HRD Climate. Kumar & Patnaik (2002) found that a positive relationship exists between HRD Climate and job satisfaction, attitude and role efficacy. Krishnaveni & Ramkumar in their study (2006) titled "Impact of developmental climate on individual's behavior in organizations" found that HRD Climate is positively associated with the level of role satisfaction of individuals in the organization. Purang in her paper (2006) titled "HRD Climate: Comparative Analysis of Public, Private and Multinational Organizations" reported HRD Climate perception of employees in private and multinational organizations to be significantly better than in public sector organizations. Venkateswaran (1997) made a study in a public sector undertaking in India and found that, to a large extent, a favorable HRD climate was prevalent in the organization understudy. M. Srimannarayana (2001) identified below average level of HRD climate in a software organization in India. However, Agarwala (2002) found that the HRD climate was significantly more developmental in the IT industry when compared to the automobile industry. Mishra & Bhardwaj (2002) carried out a HRD climate survey in a private sector undertaking in India and concluded that the HRD climate in that organization was good. Lewlyn (2004) conducted a study in the engineering institutes in India and found the HRD climate to be highly satisfactory. In this study we will do a comparative analysis of HRD Climate in the public and private sector banks in India Human Resource Development HRD has been defined by various authors and lay stress how it develops the human resource. It is an organized learning experience provided by employees within a specified period to bring about the possibility of performance improvement and/or personal growth (Nadler & Nadler, 1989). It is the integrated use of training and development, organization development, and career development to improve individual, group, and organizational effectiveness (McLagan, 1989). Rao (1985) says that it is a process by which the employees of an organization are helped in a continuous, planned way to acquire or sharpen capabilities required to perform various functions associated with their present or expected future roles, develop their general capabilities as individuals and discover and exploit their own potentials for their own and/or organizational development purposes and develop an organizational culture in which supervisor --subordinate relationships, teamwork, and collaboration among subunits are strong and contribute to the professional well-being, motivation, and pride of employees. HRD provides a platform for an employee to grow and play a vital role in the growth of an organization. Guest & Davey (1996) suggest, for example, that for organizations to attract and retain high quality employees in an employability or transactional contract environment, they must provide "challenge, autonomy, impressive extrinsic rewards and, above all, opportunities to learn and thereby become more marketable and more able to move on to the next job. …