Human Resource Development: Conceptual framework for Public Enterprises in India

The greatest asset of an enterprise, be it public or private can boast of its employees, the people or human resources. Generally, every organization tends to consider only the machinery, buildings and furniture, capital equipment etc. as their assets. With this approach in mind only planning is carried out with regard to proper utilization of plant and machinery and very less consideration is given to human resource or potential of human resources. This contradiction is while other assets tend to depreciate over a period of time, with usage, it is the human resources that appreciate under proper guidance and leadership. The reality is that the investment made on human resources is most valuable of all capital that is invested in an organization. This approach gained momentum during 90s when the industrial development was in boom. Lots of research in this field was carried out by various researchers and research institutes and their findings were duly accepted by the government, public and private sector. Human resources were started treated as one of prime asset or organization along with money and material and 3Ms i.e men, money and material were started recognized in public as well as private sector. But, because of industrial recession and poor economic growth in India the organization again shifted their focus on increasing production and started ignoring the significance of its human resources. Keeping all these aspects in mind, the macro objective of this paper is to study and evaluate various theoretical concepts of human resource development that can help the public enterprises in increasing their productivity. Further, in this paper an efforts has been made to identify the need and relevance of human resource development in the present scenario and attempt has also been made to review the reasons for ignoring the human resources as one of the asset by public enterprises in the 21st Century.