This presentation was made to a breakout session at the 2011 Skills Australia and Industry Skills Councils joint conference, "Putting Skills at the Heart of Economy". The paper addresses the challenge of measurement in workforce development planning and discusses the role of the various players in the labour and training…

This paper presents Stan Jones' testimony before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training. In his testimony, he talks about a new American majority of students that is emerging on campuses, especially at community colleges. These students must delicately balance long hours at jobs they must…

The fields of instructional technology (IT) and human resource development (HRD) are both evolving fields of study and practice with overlapping domains. However, this overlap can be viewed not as a redundancy but as a potential opportunity to mutually strengthen both fields. This paper offers a preliminary conceptualization on how to capitalize…

Organizational commitment has been explored extensively over the past 40 years because of its benefits to individuals and the organization. Action learning, in turn, has been used by companies worldwide to develop leaders, teams and organizations. No study, however, has been undertaken to determine how action learning might develop organizational…

In this paper, I would like to offer the suggestion that HRD (human resource development) become an ethics champion within the corporations and the organizations we serve. By surveying and synthesizing literature from higher education and professional associations on business ethics theory and practice, this paper provides both rationale as well…

In this paper, the author shares some thoughts about health education profession, including some things that educators need to do to keep the profession "vital". He also offers some thoughts that educators need to consider as they attempt to respond effectively to the challenges that lie before them now, and face them in the future. He discusses…

Critical approaches to HRD do not focus solely on improving organizational performance; instead, they address previously undiscussable issues such as power, politics, class, sexism, racism, and heterosexism. Since critical HRD often seeks to raise problems instead of solve them immediately, it is sometimes criticized for being elitist and detached…

Utility analysis offers human resource management a powerful framework for decision making. Previous research has indicated that this framework can provide dollar-valued estimates of the consequences of human resource decisions. Moreover, this framework provides a general model of decision costs and benefits that can help organize and integrate…

It is no secret that America is at risk of losing its place as a world leader in education. Some 88 million adults in America need help with their English as a Second Language (ESL) and basic skills, yet the nation is currently providing services to only 3 million people. The Commission on Adult Literacy calls for bold change at the state and…

Changing conditions in the workplace and the impact of these changes on the individual worker are examined in this paper, which also discusses the implications of these changes for education and training. Major workplace trends likely to continue through the year 2000 include changes in work force demographics, in the industry mix, and in the…

Noting the vital importance of a trained work force to our national economy, the chairman of Bell & Howell Company states that industry must assume a leading role in the education and training of American workers. He calls on industry to organize its training resources to meet its needs. (PD)

Discusses changes in the economy that have occurred due to the growth of the information sector, and suggests that the achievement of economic growth in an information-based society without major disruption of the labor force will require policies focused on the development of new sources of employment. (SW)

Reindustrialization problems in the United States (U.S.) include unemployment, low productivity, inflation, and inadequate economic growth. To determine how to improve economic performance, a careful, rational evaluation must be made of such factors as tax policy, spirit of risk, managerial effectiveness, rates of innovation, research and…

This paper examines the debates and critiques surrounding HRD by uncloaking myths about HRD philosophy and practice that seem to commonly held by professionals in the field of Adult Education. We argue that the HRD field is "marginalized" in adult education and reflect on both the problems this situation creates and the increasing need to bridge…

The "rhetoric of skill requirements" is a way of describing work by decomposing the human contribution into distinct components. Three important characteristics of this rhetoric are especially germane to an understanding of work. The first characteristic is that jobs and their incumbents can be fully analyzed by breaking them down into skills.…