AN INTERVIEW WITH AN HRD PROFESSIONAL

An Interview with a HRD Professional

Jonathan West

ADLT 620, Summer 2010

Human Resource Development Overview

Virginia Commonwealth University

Robin Hurst
AN INTERVIEW WITH AN HRD PROFESSIONAL

Interview with an HRD Professional

I interviewed Amy Wallis, manager of talent management and performance management at

Welch Allyn, a company that manufactures medical diagnostic equipment. The interview explored

how Wallis came into the HRD field, her current position in HRD, perspectives on the internal

versus the external role of a HRD professional, a definition of HRD, qualifications of HRD

practitioners, key issues in the field of HRD, an explanation of the talent management, and how the

current economy affects HRD efforts.

Wallis’ current position is manager of talent management and performance management in

the organizational development group, which she has held for two and a half months. Wallis has

worked in various capacities both externally and internally in the HRD field since she first began

as a consultant over 15 years ago. She actually began in the field as a management consultant and

found that she had a passion for learning and subsequently changed into HRD. After a few years of

working in training, she returned to school to complete a doctoral program in counseling

psychology (at VCU) where she focused on adult learning, group learning, and things such as 360

degree feedback.

Internal and external HRD roles

Wallis’ work as both an internal HRD practitioner and an external HRD consultant

provided her with an interesting perspective. She sees the internal and external roles as being very

different with pros and cons to both. Being and internal HRD person gave her the opportunity to

become involved and understand an organization’s culture at a deep level. It was also very

enriching for her to see have the opportunity to see the long-term effects of her efforts, because

many HR initiatives take time before they make a difference.

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An external consultant rarely gets the opportunity to see long-term effects. They usually

“swoop in, do your work and then leave,” Wallis said, and, “if you are lucky the client lets you

know how things are going after a year or two” (Wallis, A., phone interview with author, 2010).

For the most part the external consultant never knows the results. One aspect that fascinates Wallis

is the credibility that people in the organization imbue external consultants with, even if they truly

do not know what they are doing. People in the organization want to listen to external consultants.

However, some organizations will never actually implement what the consultant says once they

leave even if it is ‘good advice.’

Defining HRD

Wallis definitely sees that the concept of HR has changed over the years with a traditional

definition of HRD as well as a ‘state of the art’ definition. The traditional HR department has a

director of compensation, director of benefits, director of training, and a director of employee

relations, and then a managing director of HR or VP. These functions operate quite separately. In

this kind of environment, HRD has the role of training in the context of training is done because

organizations are ‘supposed to do it.’ There is no strategic thinking on the value of HR for an

organization. Wallis suggests that many organizations are currently living the definition of what

HRD was twenty years ago.

In a ‘state of the art’ definition of HR, Wallis sees that the functions of HRM and HRD are

integrated and organizations have a strategic view of HR. In particular, leadership recognizes the

value of HR as assets. At Welch Allyn there are HR directors for various business functions

responsible for their respective populations. There is then an organizational development (OD)

group that interacts and collaborates with all of the HR directors to deliver OD solutions. A Vice-

President of HR then serves as an advisor to the CEO on human assets, rather than being the
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person who works for the CEO who makes sure people are paid well, receive benefits, and are

technically trained. Wallis considers this the HR view of the future.

Qualifications of HR practitioners

In order to enter the field of HRD, Wallis considers it essential to have a masters’ degree in

OD, adult learning, or similar area with the same fundamental concepts. There are people with

bachelors’ degrees who have come up through the ranks of some organizations, but for new

entrants, a masters’ degree seems to be the ticket in. In addition, it is important to be able to

demonstrate application of the knowledge through experience rather than only have book

knowledge.

Key issues in the field of HRD

One of the key issues that Wallis sees in HRD is the recognition at the executive level of

the strategic importance of HRD. Leadership realizes that in order to become an ‘employer of

choice’ it is necessary to support ongoing HRD efforts within an organization. Within this setting,

it then becomes important for the HRD practitioner to find a champion for their HRD project and

continue to influence and motivate this person to stay engaged and invested and to take

responsibility for the project on a long-term basis. A champion could be the CEO or a VP of

product development, for example.

A reflection of the issue of the strategic significance of HRD is for the organization to

realize that learning and change are a developmental process, especially when considering soft

skills. Wallis sees this as a process of moving from ‘unconscious incompetence’ to ‘unconscious

competence.’ A learner moves through the phases from unconscious to conscious incompetence (I

do not know I do not know to I know I do not know) and then conscious competence to

unconscious competence (I know and I need to do this and then that to I just do it without thinking
AN INTERVIEW WITH AN HRD PROFESSIONAL

about how). Most organizations do not recognize this developmental process of learning and

change and have unrealistic expectations from training or OD efforts. When an organization

recognizes a developmental process for individual and organizational learning and growth, then

HRD initiatives are a long-term investment in building capacity. To support and enable the

development of employees, state of the art HRD departments are frequently using managers of

talent management and performance management.

Talent management

Talent management is a relatively new concept in the HRD field and still being defined.

Wallis suggests that, fundamentally, talent management is envisioning the future of the

organization and preparing staff to be promotable and high performers in the future. A significant

part of this is through identifying where individuals need to grow and develop. This could be

through leadership, increasing various skills, a course of study at a university, becoming better at

communicating, or similar things. It is a combined effort of exploring the individual’s and the

organization’s goals. A part of this process is then making a plan with the individual on how they

can develop according to their own career goals. Part of this process might include training, but

there is also a significant amount individual work such as coaching and mentoring.

An example Wallis gives is that Welch Allyn is a medical equipment products company (in

existence over 80 years) that traditionally has needed primarily mechanical engineers. With the

current movement towards digitalizing medical records, there needs to be an integration of data

aspects that would include more electronics and computer programming. Talent management’s role

is to consider how to make the transition with the current staff that is traditionally mechanical

engineers. They now need engineers who can build computer systems instead of just medical

equipment. A key goal of the company is to keep employees happy. They want people who want to
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work for the organization, not people who just want a job. They have only a 6% turnover rate,

which is very low. So, developing people in alignment with the company’s goals is a primary

function of talent management.

A collaborative work environment is a key aspect of the organizational culture that Wallis

said has permitted her role as talent manager to evolve. Participatory decision-making has a long

history that stem from the family origins of the company.

Impact of the economy

The current economic climate does not significantly affect the HRD efforts at Welch Allyn.

Wallis considers this is because Welch Allyn has taken a strategic approach to HRD. Wallis did see

a much greater impact when she was consulting. She said that when organizations cut budgets,

consultants are some of the first ones to go. However, when HRD has a strategic value, then it

becomes “as imperative as having a customer call center or a front desk person. It’s just

fundamental, I think” (Wallis, A., phone interview with author, 2010).

What I learned from the interview

Two key points of learning for me are the strategic importance of HRD and insight into the

function of talent management. It was very interesting for me to hear the perspectives of a HRD

professional working in a company that has a strategic view of HRD. I understood the importance

of having the leadership team committed to HRD from my work with nonprofits, but my

experience was where the some leadership understood this, but there was still a significant

challenge to put this into practice. It was encouraging to hear about how a company with ‘state of

the art’ HR department has a strategic view of HRD and support at the executive level.

More specifically, it struck me how the organization views talent management. I had the

strong impression that the CEO and top leadership want to invest in developing individual talent in
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accord with the organizational goals. This seems to be drastically different from the concept of

Taylorism where the employee was functioning as ignorant tool, like a machine. There is clearly an

interest at Welch Allyn to integrate the individual’s growth and development with the goals of the

organization. I see this as a distinct result of integrating the human dimension proposed in

McGregor’s Theory Y (2006) into the workplace. I also see that the function of

Another key point that demonstrates the impact of the historical efforts the of HRD giants

such as Lewin, Emery and Trist, and many others is the culture of collaboration and participatory

decision-making found at Welch Allyn (Weisbord, 2004). I was impressed when Wallis said that

collaboration and participatory decision-making create the culture that “allows HRD to be as

important as it is” (Wallis, A., phone interview with author, 2010).

I did not get a chance to explore Wallis’ role as manager of performance management and

wonder how this fits into the historical views of Theory X. However, from her description of other

aspects of the organization, I envision it to be a collaborative process that considers the human

aspects of employees.

Conclusion

It was fascinating for me to gain insight into how a modern HR department functions and

the role and impact HRD has as a strategic element of an organization’s vision. It helps me to

appreciate the work many thinkers and practitioners have contributed to such enable this to occur. I

realize that a significant part of this evolution is the willingness of people to put theory into

practice and learn from the efforts. I am encouraged in my own aspirations to step into the

unknown that occurs when applying theories and ideas to new situations and hope to continue to

learn as I evolve in my practice of HRD.

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References

McGregor, D. (2006). The human side of enterprise. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Wiesbord, M. (2004), Productive workplaces revisited: Dignity, meaning, and community in the

21st century. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Interview Questions
• Your email said you have been in HRD for 15 years or so, can you share some of the

perspectives you have come to have?

• How would you describe the differences between your internal and external HRD work?

• Have you found that clients sometimes do not follow recommendations of as an external

consultant?

• So, would you say that in your external consultancy role been organizational development?

Where have you focused your interest?

• So, I’m trying to get an idea of just what talent management is. From what you said, it is

focusing on individual development. What sort of areas would that look at? Whatever

anyone needs… leadership, problem solving, or whatever?

• How did you get into HRD. I know you said you started in training. How did that start out?

• What would you say the definition of HRD is and how would you say it has evolved or

changed?

• What qualifications would you say that a person needs to work in the field of HRD now?

• What do you see as key issues in the HRD field today?

• So, what can you say about the idea of a learning organization. It sounds like when HRD

takes on a strategic significance, it could be considered moving towards a learning org.

Would you say that?

• Do you see it as a team culture there? When decisions are made on bigger level, is it a

participatory process?

• How do you feel the economic climate affects HRD?