Purpose – The purpose of this paper is an investigation into the experiences of professional development of human resource (HR) practitioners in the North of Scotland, and the use of non-formal learning in that development. Design/methodology/approach – In-depth semi-structured interviews from a purposively selected sample of HR practitioners were conducted. Data from these interviews was analysed on a phenomenographic basis, to discover the qualitatively different ways in which HR practitioners describe, experience, understand and analyse their professional development and the use of non-formal learning in that development. Findings – What emerged from the analysis were two sets of categories of description, one for each of the phenomena. An outcome space for each of the phenomena emerged, illustrating the hierarchical relationship within each set of categories of description as well as the dimensions of variation relating to the phenomena. These outcome spaces represent the collective experience of the ...

Professional development of HR practitioners – a phenomenographic study

In this paper, the author begins from the premise that the most dramatic change in recent times has been the growth of the knowledge, or learning, society: it is truly global in nature, it functions increasingly through virtual networks and has powerful implications for the ways in which people learn and work. To put these changes into a professional context, the paper first considers continuing professional development (CPD), defined as follows: the systematic maintenance and improvement of knowledge, skills and competence, and enhancement of learning, undertaken by a person throughout his or her working life. Important factors under discussion are new patterns of work and the work life balance.

Graham Guest

Papers

Professionals as flexible workers or portfolio people