Martin Luther was a Feminist!!!

In order to fully understand the implications of Human Resource Development today, it’s beneficial to understand how it began in the first place. While HRD itself is a young field, the components and ideology of HRD have been around throughout history. Think back to one of the earliest times in history, say around 100 B.C. through 300 A.D. Some of you may recognize this period as a time of major Greek and Roman influence, teachers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were all the rage. The Greeks valued the pursuit of knowledge simply to know things. The up side of this is that people were truly taught to think, the down side was that the Greeks had a strong dislike for any sort of manual labor and social classes were very distinguished. So, unless you were in the upper echelon of Greek society and rich enough to spend you days ‘thinking’, off to the farming and merchant trades you went. In HRD terms, this was one step forward, two steps backward. Obviously, HRD professionals would agree with the pursuit of knowledge as a means of individual improvement. However, limiting such improvement to only a select portion of the population would never float with HRD. Moreover HRD is typically housed within organizations, the exact place the Greeks denied the pursuit of knowledge, so I’m guessing this would limit my job offers.

Now lets examine the middle ages, 300 – 1300 AD where the influence of Christianity began to dominate and replace Grecko-Roman education. Monastic life played a big role in education where communities learned to be self sufficient and practical learning replaced philosophical pursuits. Monks also placed a heavy emphasis on reading and writing, thus allowing knowledge to be shared with others. These ideas easily lend themselves to current components of HRD that is often based upon performance driven learning. Like the monks, HRD sees the value and important of practical skills that can be utilized by the individual to better the overall product.

Now lets consider the Renaissance, approximately 1400-1800 A.D. Enter our hero, Martin Luther. Many of you may recognize this name from Luther’s controversial critique of the Roman Catholic Church that helped bring forth the Protestant Reformation. Perhaps lesser known is Luther’s criticism of the monastic schools that he believed were overly harsh and rigid. It was Luthers’ idea that education should be given to all people regardless of wealth or gender—yes, even teach the girls! This was quite scandalous at the time. However I think Luther’s ideas were complimentary to modern HRD. Both believed in the power of education, but felt that the benefits of learning and knowledge shouldn’t be restricted to any segment of the population.

But perhaps the biggest influence on HRD as we know it today was in the not so far past. World War II saw a huge surge of workers and a large demand for products which mandated some kind of management and training within organizations. It was the War Manpower Commission which officially established Training Within Industry (TWI) and made a clear distinction between education and training. Three of the four TWI components are still critical to HRD today including performance, quality, and human relations. Program success was measured by production, efficiency, and cost effectiveness. Employees were encouraged to troubleshoot potential problems and try new methods to correct them. Supervisors were encouraged and trained to establish good relationships with their employees. All of these ideas may seem common sense now, but at the time they were revolutionary and provided a strong foundation for human resource development practices that are employed in the field today.