This chapter is divided into three main sections. The first section inductively provided conclusions regarding the research findings and results in chapter four. The second section put forward the implications and the recommendations according to the research findings and can be regard as the reference guide for comprehending the competencies and their importance to human resource managers in Burkina Faso. The final sections provide the limitations and suggestions for future researchers.
Conclusions
This study endeavored to examine and identify the HRD expertise and importance level which is the major driving force behind the interest of this topic in Burkina Faso. The study found that HRD in Burkina Faso is still a work-in-progress. The benefit is not fully realized yet as there are several challenges present like skills gap of HR managers as presented in the quantitative and qualitative study findings and results. Thus, as alluded in the research introduction, the subject of HR delivery does not only concern practitioners, but is of growing interest to researchers as well.
In addition for HR managers to effectively executive their mandates, they need to have the necessary skills and competencies regarding various HRD domains.
The results and findings show that, HRD expertise and importance level are multi-faceted.
Again, the key issues that this research dealt with are the importance of the HRD competencies to HR managers in Burkina Faso. According to the results all the competencies level are somehow are important and need to be developed, especially learning technology which need to be improved.
In Burkina Faso, it has been noted that organizations in the country are left with no choice but to embrace the paradigm shift adopted by some organizations and countries around the world, that is, to embrace learning technology. This can enhance human resource development practices, as the current trend towards increase globalization and competition among organization and countries presents an opportunity and a demand for HRD professionals to come with strategies to enable their organization achieve its mission and stay ahead of the pack.
Moreover, highly skilled human resources development professionals are key sources of advantage for organizations which Burkina Faso need to improve in order to equip HRD to carry our institutional changes as informed by the interviewees. A major problem facing HR employees in Burkina Faso is the limited knowledge in development needs especially current HRD trends in developed countries. As HRD practices is not highly develop in the country, that resulted many
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people to disregard HR and even regard it as job that every employees can do and no major skills is needed to carry out its various functions.
Therefore, as recent development in many countries shows, the global economy and market is greatly liberalized, thus, has eventually resulted in an increase competition among organization, which ends up competing for same customers who are increasing aware of their choices. In addition to stay on top of the race, strong and vibrant human resource development practitioners are needed for many organizations in Burkina Faso.
According to the results and discussions, performance improvement, training delivery, measuring and evaluating, instructional design, managing learning programs, integrated talent management, coaching, change management, knowledge management are at a competent level, except for learning technology which is below the competent level. To sum, the variables under study are critical development needs as they are rated as important for the current function of HR managers in Burkina Faso. The detailed conclusions and implications are presented below.
The Importance Level of HRD Competencies for HR Managers
The results of this study, concludes that all the competencies are important for the HR managers in Burkina Faso. Those HRD competencies therefore contribute greatly to the function of HR in Burkina Faso and should be considered as development needs, while trying to develop HR manager’s skills and abilities in the country.
Expertise Level in HRD Competencies of HR Managers
Also the results showed that all the AOEs except learning technology are perceived above competent level. Nevertheless, in the context of continuous improvement, all competencies are susceptible to be improved. As a matter of fact, some authors such as Dreyfus (2004), previously discussed, pointed out that being at a competent level does not equate to being an expert in the areas, therefore there is still room for improvement.
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The Self-Assessment Development Needs of HR Managers
The third questions results elucidate that HRD competencies are very important HR managers to effectively carryout their jobs. This suggests that when HR managers possess these skills, they may be able to contribute towards the organization, but without this expertise they may not contribute effectively to the organisation.
The study concludes that addressing the development needs affect HR work output which can have an indispensable impact on their level of performance, and productivity. Considering those employees who have no or little skills may not contribute to the organisations, which should be addressed.
The Difference in the Perception of Demographics Groups towards HRD Competency Expertise level
The study concludes from the data analysis that there is a different in expertise level base on demographics groups. This conclude that since the different demographic group have different level of expertise in the various competencies, organization in Burkina Faso should apply stronger measures including the establishment of need assessment and performance management system to ensure relevance of competency development that the HR managers need. Nonetheless, the interviewees also reveal that sometimes there is skill gap between demographic groups based on their experience. Therefore, competencies might be developed base on those levels.
The Competencies Development Channel for the HR Managers
All the interviewees express the best channels to develop the HR competencies is through school, formal trainings and later to the organizations as the field of HRD is evolving, thus skills should be constantly updated as well. This development channels will help HR to be more professional in their work performance of their daily-routine assignments and in identifying their various potentials, especially organizational development expert as one of them. They will also met qualification for strategic partnership, whereas HR professional could help in achieving organization target goals.
Implications
Nowadays, due to the changing organizational environment, there an opportunity, and a demand for HR to possess competencies that enables their organizations to gain competitive
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advantage and stay ahead of the pack. Moreover, HR professionals must perform a wide variety of functional roles to achieve expected output in the organization. To carry out these roles, HR professionals need to possess many different competencies and make use of these competencies to develop particular areas of expertise. Against this backdrop, this study makes several important implications for Burkina Faso HR managers based on the research conclusions:
1. The AOEs stated by the ATD competency model, were found relevant to the HR field in Burkina Faso.
2. Although the expertise level of some HRD competencies are above competent level, there is still room for improvement.
3. Prior to any competency development activities, needs assessment should be thoroughly conducted.
4. Activities such as formal training, long and short term courses, specialization courses, field practice could be considered as development tools for HR managers.
As the interviewees pointed out, HRD is barely inexistent in Burkina Faso, and HR managers should be cautious on how HRD could be beneficial to their organizations. Therefore detailed further implications on the importance of each competency is presented below.
Training Design and Training Delivery
As shown in table in chapter IV, training design and delivery are importance level. This means that within the context of Burkina Faso. These two competencies are relevant for HRD managers.
This research has very important implications for human resource development, as it adds on the literature of HRD in Burkina Faso. It is therefore, suggested that HRD practitioners consider training design and delivery skills to better serve their organizations.
Thus, prior to the training delivery during the design of training programs, HR professional needs to do the following: Firstly, perform a need analysis to uncover which competencies need to be developed. The need analysis is taken into account to develop the training in itself, for which organizations often use a mix of traditional in-class training and new training methods, such as e-learning, simulations and business academies; seminars and conferences of the field; degree-oriented or non-degree-degree-oriented long- or short-term training and education; company-specific training and development programs; individual or group coaching and mentoring; participation in
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the research and development projects; job rotation through professional networks; keeping track of professional literature and trade magazines.
Evaluating Learning Impact
HR expertise in measuring and evaluation is considered important to both HR and the organisation as it contribute effectively and gauge on what is working and what is not in the organization. In addition it helps HR to collect descriptive and judgemental information necessary to make effective training decisions related to the selection, adoption, value, and modification of various instructional activities (DeSimone 2012). Therefore these competencies when utilised can aid managers, employees, and HR professionals make informed decisions about a particular programs or training. As it help identify the strengths and weaknesses of HRD program, which can help lead to changes as desired. In addition to the importance of measuring and evaluation, Burkina Faso HR professional might consider the following reasons and importance of evaluation to help them effectively execute their mandates.
1. HRD can use measuring and evaluation to substantiate its contribution to the organisation, as sometimes in turbulent time’s organisation can cut HRD program cost.
2. An evaluation can also be used to build credibility with top managers and others in an organisation.
3. Also, to informed the different management in Burkina Faso about the benefits of HRD programs. As HRD program is a process that is goes through several stages as assessment, design, implementation and finally evaluation.
Performance Improvement
Performance Improvement is important not only for the organisation but for the HR professional themselves. This is a way to ascertained effort, contribution and identify competency gap for improvement. For HR managers having performance improvement competencies, they will be able to motivate and encourage employees to keep working with positive energy.
Therefore, it is important to put into consideration the communication competency when setting the performance improvement goals as it is critical to improving the employees’
performance.
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Knowledge Management
The study also found knowledge management to be highly valued expertise for Human Resource managers. There are also a number of practical implications, primarily revolving around HRD. As previously mentioned, HR knowledge management skill has been empirically found to be developable, even in relatively short training interventions though informal or formal trainings.
Since the results from this study suggest KM as an important expertise, HRD possessing the skills will be of practical benefit to the organization. Since both Empirical and anecdotal evidences have shown that both Human Resource and knowledge, are an inimitable resource, unique, and are considered as the most strategically important asset which organizations possess. If properly managed, allows organizations to increase customer service, foster innovation, and reduce risk and cost (Deboswki, 2006).
Learning Technologies
Technology aided many HR professional around the world to effectively execute their duties.
This area is one of the aspects Burkina Faso needs to develop more. Recently, there are many new HR technologies that require better – educated and trained workers. Therefore the work of HR should require highly skill employees. Thus, in Burkina Faso both public and private organisation must hires employees with knowledge that can help the organisation perform in this increasingly sophisticated market in some part of the world. For example e-HR usage has been increasing around the world, and HR managers in Burkina Faso should be equipped on dealing with such requirements.
Managing Learning Programs
HR professional with managing learning skills might have the potentials in improving their own performance and others at work. In Burkina Faso though HR professional with core HR background are not many possession of this skill will greatly help.
Integrated Talent Management
Talent management now come with a renew emphasis for organisation. Recently organisations that are able to manage their talent pool gain more from their employees than organisation without talent management expertise (Debowski 2012). Therefore, to achieve this HR professionals in Burkina Faso need to abreast their competencies to achieve organisational goals.
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Coaching
The study results also found that coaching is an important competency for HR professional.
Therefore, professional should be able to map out a coaching strategy for the organisation by involving the employees. This can help enhance both the skills of the HR professional and the employees.
Change Management
Change is the only permanent thing in any organisation. The country is competing in global economy which requires more than educating and training employees to meet new challenges.
Also a very skillful HR professional will also contribute to the organization. Developing HR professional skills into global leaders has been identified as a major challenge for organization (Debowski, 2012). Therefore, for HR professional to effectively lead the change in their organization they should implement new ways of managing employee to effectively deal with any challenges the organization is confronting with.
Recommendations
The study based on the research purpose, the results and research findings to provide recommendations to both policy makers in Burkina Faso and future researchers in human resource related fields. The research purpose aimed to explore the competencies and their importance level for the human resource professionals in Burkina Faso. During the interview the research subject provide relevant and valuable information not only on human resource the competencies of managers but the status of HRD in Burkina Faso, which call for the redefining HRD status in the country. This is fundamental as the interviewees echoed that the field of HRM is struggling much more the Human Resource development field which is new and many concepts are not deeply imbedded yet to the system.
Burkina Faso has an inspiring education policy. However, the task is for higher education institute to translate this into reality. The Burkina Government, therefore, should support to further strengthen its human and materials resources. A possible way to achieve, it should have HR training institute to collaborate with public and other corporate institute in training and research endeavors.
Therefore one can conclude that there are still areas where HR managers can progress even further to improve in the organization like Performance appraisal and need assessment skills. The
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HR department can also use HRD to reflect the true values or culture of the organization to the employees. This will potentially enhance mutual trust and cohesiveness among the various departments and employees.
Recently, many private and public organizations around the world are increasingly depending on skilled technical and professional employees, and this trend is expected to continue. As there is an increasing need of skilled HR practitioner with skills as technological advances, organizational goals changes, and some organizations restructure. These changes will call for the need for more cognitive skills, as well greater interpersonal skills of HRD professional. Therefore, whether the changes results from organizations restructuring, or other innovation, the HR professionals in Burkina Faso have to help create a shift from current organizational level to a more strategic level in order to contribute more to national development.
Limitations
This study was limited to HR managers in Burkina Faso, owing to data collection, measurement and sample characteristics. Some limitations need to be recognized in this study.
Firstly, because of time and resource limitation, purposeful sampling was adopted for data collection that may cause restriction to generalize the results to other HR professionals. Therefore whether the findings of this study can be applied to all type of organizations in Burkina Faso also remain to be investigated. Secondly, the common source bias might affect the results of this study since the data was collected from self–report questionnaire and HR might rate the development need and importance high to reflect their skills.
Additionally, the data study did not include observations of HR professional in their organisation to ascertain their competency level and gap, and whether the results can reflect the real development need of the participants remain also to be investigated.
Due to the difficulties to access the previously chosen target population, the researcher extended the research to all HR managers in Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso.
Despites these limitations, the results of this research expand current understanding of development needs and their important levels in Burkina Faso.
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Future Research Suggestions
Based on the limitation of this study, there are some suggestions being provided in this phase of the study for further researches. First, further study with greater focus on individual competencies and developing an HRD competency model for Burkina Faso HR managers is suggested. Because the concept of HRD is new in Burkina Faso, it was difficult to find abundant literatures and empirical studies to connect and make a disconnection among the different HR practices and HRD.
Secondly, other data collection methods such as documents review, performance review, observation, interviews of employees and other sources should be triangulated and included in the analysis to provide extensive detail and in-depth knowledge of HRD competencies of HR managers in Burkina Faso
Thirdly, the study did not take into consideration the outside environment and other factors that might affect HR program delivery such as political, economic, technology and social factors.
Therefore, it is recommended to take this and other outside factors into consideration while investigating the development channels and needs to know outside forces affect the HR professional.
Another concern is about whether the findings of this research can be applied to other countries a since the data in the study were collected only in Burkina Faso, the suggestion here is to collect data from other West African countries to verify and ascertained if the results will be different in other settings.
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