Developing talent internally is more pivotal than ever before in this age of skills shortages and job-hopping. But this responsibility often splits across two key players in HR.
So what exactly is the distinction between human resource development (HRD) and human resource management (HRM)?
As an HR leader with over 15 years optimizing people strategy, I’m often asked to decode the relationship between these two wings of workforce planning. While interconnected, they diverge across a few fundamental dimensions.
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll unpack exactly how HRD and HRM differ in their scope, objectives and activities – and why that matters. I’ll also share insider tips from award-winning heads of people ops transforming performance in their organizations.
Let’s dive in!
HR Development: Growing People to Grow the Business
HR development refers to the learning functions dedicated specifically to cultivating employees’ skillsets, knowledge and abilities in service of performance. This covers:
Training: Both on-the-job and classroom instruction to build competencies
Mentorship: Pairing junior staff with seasoned advisors
Coaching: One-on-one guidance tailored to growth areas
Rotational programs: Cross-functional role exposure
Microlearning: Short burst lessons delivered digitally
The focus rests squarely on systematically expanding human capital – the collective talents across the workforce. Companies investing heavily in HRD signal to employees that they are valued assets worth developing.
I recently spoke to Jane Garcia, VP of People Development at sales platform GlobalShop. She shared:
“A continuous learning culture has been essential to keeping top-tier talent engaged as we’ve scaled from 50 to 500 employees. Our training budget has grown 1000% in the past 5 years as we introduce new development programs – from manager bootcamps to our rotational GenSpark initiative for high-potentials.”
With purposeful HRD infrastructure, GlobalShop has simultaneously expanded revenue by 600% and kept voluntary turnover under 8% annually.
But dedicated learning teams don’t just retain star players – they transform them into all-star leaders of the future.
The Value of STRATEGIC HR Development
While day-to-day duties keep employees plenty busy, HRD carves out airspace for focusing intentionally on the horizon ahead.
74% of companies see learning and development as primarily a strategic function rather than just an operational one according to 2021 data from Styckr.
How does this strategic outlook manifest?
Here are a few key ways long-term HRD efforts pay dividends:
Career Progression Support
HRD identifies high-potential future stewards of the organization and gives them tools to unfold into those roles.
Tactics like growth planning discussions, lateral role shifts and leadership seminars help activate and roadmap advancement.
Innovation Upskilling
As technologies and methodologies evolve in every industry, HRD ensures staff skills stay ahead of the curve.
Familiarizing every department on innovations like AI, automation and new collaboration modes makes adoption smooth.
Business Goal Alignment
HRD also plays communicator, ensuring all employees understand company priorities like expansion or restructuring plans. It rallies people around the why behind what they do.
Management Strengthening
People don’t quit jobs – they quit managers. HRD grows trust in leadership by plugging managerial skill gaps with coaching on motivating and developing team members.
Diversity Acceleration
With demographic realities shifting, HRD helps organizations walk the talk on inclusion via thoughtful programming examining biases and building belonging.
While just a snapshot, these examples demonstrate how HRD scales purpose-driven education across an enterprise for sustained excellence.
Now let’s explore the yin to HRD’s yang – HR management.
HR Management: Deploying and Coordinating Talent
While HRD focuses vertically on nurturing individuals, HR management takes a wide lens managing ALL workforce-related infrastructure. This includes:
Talent acquisition: Employer branding, hiring, onboarding
Total rewards: Compensation, recognition, benefits
Engagement and retention: Surveying satisfaction, limiting turnover
Policy and compliance: Workplace regulations, safety standards
Labor relations: Interactions with labor unions, resolving disputes
People data analytics: Reporting key metrics like productivity benchmarks
The scope includes both long-horizon initiatives like succession planning AND urgently deployed interventions like offboarding.
I connected with Robert Brown, Chief People Officer at healthcare technology provider CareSource about the urgency this demands:
“There’s simply no pause button in HR management. When a complex policy issue emerges or critical senior leader gives notice, we need to solve relentlessly without delay so employees stay supported. That mandate to keep people infrastructure running like clockwork is core to the work.”
While urgent issues represent just a fraction of the average HR manager’s responsibilities, they exemplify why immediately actionable coordination is so vital.
Now that we’ve explored both functions’ focal points, where exactly do HRD and HRM diverge?
Key Differences Between HRD and HRM
HR development and management are mutually-enabling disciplines. But they play distinct roles fueling people success.
Here are 5 major points of divergence:
| HR Development | HR Management |
|---|---|
| Grows skills, knowledge and readiness | Administers programs AFTER skills built |
| Long-term strategic outlook | Handles urgent daily fires |
| Boosts human capital value | Contains costs |
| Enhances engagement via learning | Enhances engagement via programming |
| Careers focus | Compliance focus |
While simplified, this showcases how HRD drives upward mobility and HRM sustains stable infrastructure for talent to shine.
Next let’s analyze a few fundamental differences through an even deeper lens.
Employee DEVELOPMENT Focus
HRD professionals awaken a thirst for growth by incentivizing skills acquisition and demonstrating advancement opportunities.
They salesify latent potential. A learning management coordinator at Citibank explains:
“We frame development like an exciting product offering – targeted learning paths, microlearning nuggets, credentials unlocking promotions. Positioning it attractively gets people bought in.”
Once invested, employees pull their careers upstream into more challenging waters.
HR managers take the opposite pole, stressing diligence over dynamism. They distribute information detailing expected behaviors and standards through vehicles like policy manuals.
These guardrails contain activity, reducing distracting deviations. Consider performance improvement procedures – they limit failure exposure.
So where HRD expands horizons, HRM defines boundaries.
Proactive VS Reactive Focus
Another axis they split? Change-maker vs taskmaster mentalities.
HR Development morphs the now into “what’s next”, preparing people for eventuality before it crystallizes. This preventive approach allows smooth evolution vs reactive disruption.
Here‘s a client case illustrating this mentality in action:
“When COVID hit, retail banking execs braced for mass branch closures. But their Learning team had rolled out digital integration training pre-pandemic. So bankers easily managed remote client consultations without missing a beat.”
Contrast this to HR Management mitigating crises like discrimination lawsuits or turnover spikes through corrective measures. They course-correct issues vs pioneering improvements.
While HRM resolution tactics aim to stabilize, HRD’s proactive footing drives transformation.
Strategy VS Operations
Here’s another handy shorthand: HRD formulates aspirations while HRM actualizes them.
HR Development play vision-caster, scanning the horizon and signaling upcoming needs in next-generation capabilities.
They convince stakeholders like executives to invest in ambitious plans shaping a brighter future of work. An agenda-setting HRD leader notes:
“We continually make the case that people programs must live 5 years in the future. That allows us to stretch beyond incremental progress into game-changing initiatives like VR onboarding and agile reskilling.”
Meanwhile Operations-focused HR Management executes defined responsibilities reliably. They optimize present-moment infrastructure for functional fluidity.
While HRD charts the roadmap, HRM paves the road.
This creative clash and synergy of strategy and administration enables organizations to fly.
Now that we’ve broken down key differences, what exactly does harmonious HRD + HRM symbiosis look like?
Achieving Operational Excellence WITH Development Velocity
Hopefully it’s clear why both extremes of the HR continuum matter.
Vision without infrastructure leaves ideas in purgatory. But infrastructure without vision caps potential.
When I advise executive teams on configuring their HR functions, I urge fully empowering BOTH capacities.
Here is my recommended framework:
HRD
- Owns multi-year development strategy
- Evangelizes capabilities vision
- Pilots advanced people concepts
- Cultivates innovation culture
HRM
- Stewards reliable HR operations
- Budgets department resourcing
- Enforces policies uniformly
- Protects company from risk
This split empowers each function to operate in their sweet spot of adding value.
With tight collaboration, they balance extraordinary employee progress within safeguards allowing reasonable risk-taking.
Now let‘s hear from a transformational people leader putting this model into action.
Macy Holmes, Chief Culture Officer of MarketSource, explains:
“Three years ago when I stepped into this role, we were experiencing concerning employee churn. It was clear our flat organizational design left no clear upward path from associate to executive level.
We divided HR responsibility into a specialized Employee Experience team focusing on skill and leadership development programs while the People Operations team expertly managed compensation, performance evaluation and compliance.
This enabled us to stretch into more aspirational development offerings while strengthening foundational retention guardrails. After a few quarters optimizing this model, we now boast 95% higher retention for high-potentials and 68% internal fill rates on director openings.”
Macy‘s success story demonstrates why tightly coupled HRD + HRM forces multiply results.
The symbiotic functions nourish and protect the crown jewels of any business – its people.
Key Takeaways On Harmonizing HRD and HRM
- HR development cultivates human capital through training, mentoring and upskilling.
- HR management deploys and administers workflow, policy and programs.
- When strategically balanced, they optimize engagement AND reliability.
- Keep HRD innovating capabilities while HRM grounds operations for fluidity.
- Specialization allows each group to excel in their domain.
While purposefully polarized on the HR spectrum, these symbiotic functions must work hand-in-hand advancing individual AND institutional people goals.
Conclusion: Two Wings of the Same HR Bird
HR development and management achieve exponential impact together, but weaker isolated efforts in siloes.
This is why astute leaders expressly empower – and adequately resource – both capabilities.
When HRD and HRM smoothly interlock, magic unfolds:
- Prospective employees become high-performers
- One-time individual contributors transform into enterprise leaders
- Job satisfaction scales into lifelong loyalty
In this environment, people don’t just work FOR companies. They flourish WITH companies.
So take a cue from thriving people-first organizations getting this flywheel humming. Evaluate whether your HRD + HRM equilibrium fuels concealed talent and harnesses it strategically over the long play.
That perpetual pairing promises a workscape filled with potential realized – the ultimate competitive advantage.
