Human resource management practices of manufacturing and engineering organisations in India: Lessons for the developing world

This study reviewed and categorised human resource literature into the triad areas of, human resource management (HRM), human resource development (HRD), and organisation development (OD). It further collated underlying concepts in HRM, HRD and OD and built a classificatory scheme, which was analysed, and found to compare favourably with the People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM), a concept known for higher organisational maturity. However, results from seven leading manufacturing and engineering companies in Pune (India) and interviews with fifteen HR experts revealed that the P-CMM was an unknown quantity. Instead, companies and practitioners were found to be in favour of such mundane concepts as: 5-S, Kaizen, Sigma Six, performance management system (PMS), employee satisfaction surveys (ESS) and ISO standards, amongst others. That notwithstanding, the maturity levels of these companies were found to be high, over 73.2%, which was not expected as the above practices, unlike the P-CMM seem, disjointed. Thus the practices were further investigated to establish the extent to which they could contribute to organisational maturity. The investigation revealed that the practices are based on the Deming’s improvement cycle of Plan-Do-Check-Action, the very foundation of the P-CMM. It was thus observed that when a number of these practices are applied simultaneously, repeatable organisational processes are achievable hence the high maturity levels noted.   Key words: Human resource management, human resource development, organisation development, people capability maturity model, human capital.