Along with the rapidly changing social and economic context accompanied by COVID-19, concerns have been raised for the less-educated, low-wage workers who disproportionately experienced disadvantages in accessing workplace learning or training opportunities essential for job placement or career development. In response to the challenges of…

This chapter reviews how the impact of WIOA on adult education provision in the United States may be limited because of persistent structural problems within adult education policy and practice.

Refutes arguments against professional certification for human resource development, such as lack of common knowledge base, restriction of labor supply, and administrative/regulatory issues. Presents positive implications of certification for individuals, organizations, and the field. (SK)

Traces the development of adult education and human resource development, as well as the burgeoning of workplace learning. Raises issues related to nomenclature, knowledge base, professionalization, and the learning organization. (SK)

Human resource development (HRD) is an evolving system, a confluence of disciplines with its own professional identity. Understanding HRD as an evolving system enables professional practice and theory development to emerge within the context of existing taxonomies. (SK)

Without a solid theory and research base, human resource development will never become a valid field of study and a profession. The rise in academic programs with graduates trained in research may improve the situation. (SK)

A reflective practitioner is a problem solver who develops theories anchored in a practitioner's ways of knowing. Reflective practice is a significant means of contributing to the knowledge base of adult education and human resource development. (SK)

Professional preparation of workplace educators must change to deal with substantial challenges. A three-phase model includes initial professional preparation and exploration at the baccalaureate level, advanced preparation and career exploration (work experience and graduate study), and professional leadership and career redirection. (SK)

The purpose of human resource development (HRD) should be to improve individual performance so that it contributes directly to organizational performance goals. Performance-focused HRD has no room for blind application of interventions or poorly conceived programs. (SK)

A holistic approach to individual development within the context of a learning organization produces well-informed, knowledgeable, critically-thinking adults whose decisions contribute to organizational prosperity. From a systems perspective, valuing development only if it contributes to productivity is counterintuitive. (SK)

Human resource development has been framed within a market model with economic aims and purposes. Reconceptualizing it as a form of adult education, which has a democratic and social justice tradition, can better serve an emerging participatory, democratic workplace. (SK)

Professional licensure of human resource development practitioners is problematic for several reasons: lack of regulatory control, diversity of the field, divisiveness of licensure, inadequate evaluation procedures, and lack of need. A less formal approach emphasizing individual freedom, democratic peer review, and a free market is more…

Contrasts definitions of workplace learning and human resource development and addresses emerging issues that affect the field: professionalization, increased litigation, diffusion, technology, globalization, and reengineering. (SK)

Organizations learn when they embed new practices and values and make real changes. Organizational learning must address group tendencies toward helplessness and conformity. Individuals still bear responsibility for monitoring what is learned. (SK)

The lukasa, an African mnemonic device, illustrates the way in which individual meaning-making enables adults to interpret and shape organizational meaning-making. This may be limited by power abuses, lack of learning skills or developmental capacity, and the changing social contract. (SK)