Education is the basic tool for the development of an individual.
Individual is linked to the society and society is linked with the country. Therefore the development of manpower resource in education sector has key role to play in the development of a nation. Present study focuses on the issue of Human resource development climate prevailing in private engineering colleges of Odisha. Based on employee opinion the OCTAPACE Culture, general climate and HRD implementation dimension were surveyed and the overall HRD Climate was found to be average.
Keywords: HRD Climate, OCTAPACE Culture, General climate.With a shift in the perception from primitive education to pragmatic education Technical education has attended a significant growth in recent years. This provides a wide range of choice for the potential students of this generation. In this context state Odisha has also matured as a major technical education provider in the form of engineering colleges. The state has altogether 91 private engineering institutes with an approximate intake capacity of 37,388 offering various disciplines (according to OJEE information brochure 2012).For the effective and efficient management of theses institutes employees are considered to be the most important and valuable asset.
Human resource development therefore plays a vital and essential role in maintenance and development of employees. Human resource development is a continuous process to ensure the development of employee’s competencies, dynamism, motivation and effectiveness in a systematic and planned way. Hence, HRD is concerned with the development of Human resource and optimum utilization of existing human capabilities. i.e.
intellectual, entrepreneurial and creation of new ones in an organization.The present study is based on the study of Human resource Development climate in private engineering colleges of Odisha. Human resource development climate is an integral part of organizational climate. It can be defined as perceptions the employee can have on the developmental environment of an organization.
It can be further grouped into three-broad Categories:1- OCTAPACE culture 2- general climate 3- human resource development mechanisms. The OCTAPACE items deal with the extent to which Openness, Confrontation, Trust, Autonomy, Pro-activity, AuthenticityCollaboration and experimentation are valued and promoted in the organization. General climate items focus on the importance given to human resources development by the top management. The items dealing with human resource development mechanisms measure the extent to which human resource development mechanisms are implemented seriously.Benjamin (2012) examined the relationships among human resource development climate (HRDC), organizational Citizenship behaviour (OCB) and voluntary turnover intentions (VTI) in Nigerian banks.
He found Nigerian banks ‘management can reduce turnover and foster citizenship behaviour by ensuring that a favourable developmental climate exists within their organizations. Gupta and Malhotra (2012) carried out HRD climate survey in 13selected different information technology organizations and found most of the employees are highly satisfied with the prevailing human resource development practices, policies and climate in the different organizations. Srimannarayana (2009) studied HRD Climate in 18organizations, in manufacturing sector in India and found the prevailing HRD climate of moderate level.Khan, Tarab (2012) analyzed the HRD Climate in Private Sector Telecommunication Industry of India.
They developed a positive relationship between the climate of the organization and the development of the employees. Mane (2012) in his article judged HRD practices in private sector milk processing organizations in Pune region to be moderate and suggested scientific way to enhance the HRD climate in global competition. Mohant, Parija and Sahu (2012) in their article concluded that there exists a good or average HRD climate in the private insurance sector in Odisha. Kilam and Kumari (2012) in their article studied the HRD climate in Banks and experience of a target group of executives in various public sector banks in India with respect to their career in the bank.They found “Career Planning & Development” to be one of the most important HRD Sub Systems and not the most important HRD Sub-System.
Saraswathi (2010) presented a better understanding of the HRD climate prevailing in software and Manufacturing organizations. The general climate, HRD Mechanisms and OCTAPAC culture were found to be better in software organizations compared to manufacturing organization. Battu(2007) in his book studied HRD Climate in AgrigoldPvt. Ltd.
He compared the perception of managers, supervisors and workers on different level of general climate, OCTAPAC culture and HRD mechanisms. He indicated the overall climate in the organization to be good but just below the desired level.Following are the broad objectives of study:1. To analyze the prevailing system of HRD Process through OCTAPACE Culture (openness, collaboration, trust, authenticity, proaction, autonomy, confrontation and experimentation). 2. To study the perception of employees on various aspects of general climate.
3. To study opinions of the employee on the HRD mechanisms implemented by engineering institutes.Hypothesis to be tested:1. There is no relationship between age of the respondents and education of the respondent.
2. There is no relationship between experience of the respondents and income of the respondent. 3. There is no relationship between income of the respondent and educational level of the respondent.
4. There is no relationship between experience of the respondents and age group level of the respondent.Empirical approach is adopted in the study, in order to collect the first hand information. In the present study 10 different engineering institutions in the state of Odisha were taken as a unit of study.Sampling procedure has been adopted by canvassing predesigned structured questionnaires.
Through direct personal interview method employees were personally interviewed as a unit of sample. Modifications were made wherever necessary for the actual interpretation of the questions to avoid non-response. Sometimes observational method was also followed against the non-response when the respondents feel uncomfortable to answer certain questions. Keeping in view the objective of the study convenience sampling technique was adopted.
Employees of 10 different engineering colleges of odisha were selected and covered for the survey. A total of 200 schedules were used to obtain information, 100 schedules were issued to the teaching staffs (faculties) and 100 to the non-teaching staffs (administrative).HRD Climate survey questionnaire developed by Prof. T.
V.Rao was used as principle instrument for data collection (with some modifications). This is because it is a standardized and widely used principle instrument for HRD Climate survey.The questionnaire was developed using a five point scale for each statement and the respondents were asked to assign their rating on the scale ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement over the issue.
Data analysis was done by using SPSS Software Version16. Testing of hypothesis was done by one way ANOVA technique. Statistical tools like percentage, mean and standard deviation were used to present the data in a systematic manner. Along with the survey, the data from the secondary sources were also used.
