Cec Pedersen

HRD: the shapes and things to come

Purpose – To redefine contemporary HRD through a discussion of its conceptual development from “training and development” to a holistic “orchestra”.Design/methodology/approach – HRD is often defined as being merely the training and development aspect of human resource management and this form of definition is commonly associated with “hard” forms of HRD which focus on the practical and strategic or “structured” elements of organisational functioning. However, it is change, and especially the rate at which change occurs, that largely influences the HRD hybrid that any organisation adopts. This paper systematically considers the professional discussions in a number of countries to trace HRD through four key phases: the “Duet”, the “Trio”, the “Quartet”, and concluding with the “Orchestra” and a holistic definition of HRD.Findings – HRD is a combination of structured and unstructured learning and performance‐based activities which develop individual and organisational competency, capability and capacity to c...

Older workers in Australia: the myths, the realities and the battle over workforce 'flexibility'

A decisive 2004 fourth term win for the Howard Government and control over the Senate provided the Australian government with a mandate to further deregulate the labour market in the name of ‘flexibility’. This conceptual paper uses a critical perspective to challenge the wisdom of neo-liberal market economics as the driving force behind the rapid expansion of non-traditional ‘flexible’ forms of work and argues that this kind of divestment strategy can produce negative long term consequences including under utilisation of labour and skill shortages stemming from a lack of investment in human capital. While an ageing workforce is set to intensify labour shortages long into the future, the Howard Government has adopted modest measures designed to counter age based discrimination and encourage workforce participation. However, participation rates among mature age workers in Australia have remained one of the lowest among OECD countries. This paper argues that the Government’s labour market deregulation policies are reducing the availability of jobs that provide sufficient working conditions and remuneration to make workforce participation attractive to many of those who are not working. The erosion of employment conditions associated with ‘flexible’ workforce reform can lead to underemployment and other employment outcomes that often fail to meet the needs of disadvantaged groups in the labour market. More recently, however, the Government has embarked on reforms that appear to provide genuine incentives aimed specifically at attracting workforce participation by older workers, but only for those aged 60 years and over.

The virtues of the virtual organization

Purpose – This paper attempts to conceptually clarify and examine success factors for the establishment and subsequent sale of a successful small virtual organization, Millennium3, in the financial services sector in Australia.Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes the concept of a virtual organization, outlines some distinct characteristics of virtual organizations and provides some historical and current background to Millennium3 (M3). It then provides a descriptive evaluation of outcomes from semi‐structured interviews with all M3 executives and, based on those interviews and organizational structure, examines its overall performance.Findings – The following values describe how M3 conducts business: lifelong learning; teaching by example; interdependence; customer intimacy; all relationships founded on a win/win basis; and respect and courtesy.Originality/value – The paper concludes with some critical success factors for M3 and gives the reader an idea how a corporation successfully works as...