Impact of Human Resource Development Interventions on Organizational Effectiveness: A Study on Indian Cement Industry

Abstract

Cement industry is one of the key industries playing a vital role in the growth and development of the nation. Cement is the most preferred building material in India and its demand in the economy can be linked to the economic development activity in the country. There has been tremendous growth of activities in the Indian cement industry in terms of modernization, in order to keep pace with such modernization due to technological development; a strong manpower base equipped with latest development has to be built within Cement industry. Human Resource Development (HRD) interventions have to be implemented to update knowledge and improve the skills of personnel at all levels including the fresh talents in the industry.
Seminal works in developed countries have advocated that organizational performance is influenced by employee competencies through the implementation of HRD interventions. However, the past studies emphasizing on HRD interventions to enhance employee competencies are scarce in India. Thus, this research examined the impact of HRD interventions on employee competencies towards building organizational effectiveness in Indian cement industry. Specifically, the study focuses on gauging the perceptions of employees of Indian cement manufacturing units on HRD interventions, organizational learning culture, employee competencies and organizational effectiveness to build a logical relationship among the variables.
A survey was conducted among the employees of Indian cement industry situated in two Indian states Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The selected cement manufacturing plants for the study are Jaypee Balaji Cement Plant (a unit of Jaypee Group), Madras Cements Ltd. (a unit of Ramco Group), OCL India Ltd. (a unit of Dalmia Bharat Group), Bargarh Cement Ltd. (a unit of the Associated Cement Companies Ltd.), and Jharsuguda Cement Works (a unit of Ultratech Cement Ltd.). A structured questionnaire comprising of eighty six items was administered among nine hundred fifty two respondents by adopting the method of simple random sampling. In the process of opinion survey, six hundred fifty three useful responses were retrieved owing to a response rate of sixty eight per cent. The responses obtained were subjected to analysis by using SPSS 20 and AMOS 20. The preliminary analysis of data was conducted by using the descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis. Then, the hypothesized research model was validated by using statistical tools such as exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. The findings reveal that HRD interventions have a significant association with employee competencies. Similarly, found that organizational learning culture significantly moderates the relationship between HRD interventions and employee competencies. Further, employee competencies are significantly associated with goal oriented and competing values approach to organizational effectiveness. Along with these employee competencies partially mediated the relationship between HRD interventions and goal oriented approach to organizational effectiveness and fully mediated with competing values approach to organizational effectiveness.
Thus, this research provides a holistic framework that may act as a blueprint for cement manufacturing organizations to assess and improve employee competencies as well as improve organizational effectiveness. Further, the study may also provide substantial evidence to the HRD managers for improvement of HRD practices and development of organizational learning culture through appropriate policies and procedures at the workplace along with enhancement of employee competencies towards significant outcome of organizational effectiveness.