1 Aligning human resource development with business strategy

There is a growing interest among senior managers, human resource professionals and business school academics about evaluating the strategic benefits of workplace learning; particularly how organised training and development activities contribute to an organisation’s success. The opinion is polarised: one school of thought takes a pro-human resource standpoint and advocates a strong and irrefutable connection, while the other view offers a more critical and independent perspective, arguing the evidence is not convincing. Despite this division, all sides give the impression that the best chance for evaluating the success of training may rest in aligning learning and development activities with the business strategy (Phillips 2007; Sloman 2007). The term alignment has grown to become a popular expression for directing effort towards organisational success. However, this is not as straightforward as it may first appear, as business strategy can change perpetually- especially in a competitive and globalised marketplace (Thompson 1995). Hamel (1996), a global expert o