HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING
HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING
Human resource planning is a process of forecasting and
preparing for human movement into, within and out of an organisation. The aim
of human resource planning is to utilise human resource effectively so that the
organisation’s goals can be achieved. Human resource planning also ensures the
organisation has the correct total and type of employees.
1.1 Importance of Human Resource Planning
(a) Recruitment
Changes in the employee environment and composition
require the manager to be more involved in human resource planning. The manager
must plan a more effective recruitment method so that the aim to hire capable
employees will be achieved.
(b) Reducing non-visible costs
Human resource requirements that are effectively planned
will reduce an organisation’s losses. For example, a job vacancy that is
immediately filled will not disrupt organisation’s operations. Quality of
products or services will be maintained and organisation’s losses can be
avoided.
(c) Employee career planning and development
Any weaknesses in human resource planning will give a
negative effect to an employee’s career. Employees’ opportunities to further
themselves in a job and position are limited.
(d) Effectiveness of human resource management programmes
Human resource planning is a basis to standardise human
resource management functions. For example, an employee from Section B has resigned,
but an employee is being hired to work in Section A even though Section A does
not need a new employee. This shows that the human resource management
functions are not performed effectively.
1.2 Human Resource Planning and Strategic Planning
For the purpose of
future organisational planning, a human resource manager must combine human
resource planning with the organisation’s strategic planning. There are three methods
on how human resource planning and strategic planning can be related
(a) Relating the Strategising and Execution Process
Human resource planning is related to strategic planning
at the beginning and final stages. In the beginning, human resource planning is
the input in the strategising process. Human resource planning will address
what can be done. In the final stage, strategic planning and human resource
planning is related in terms of their implementation. When the strategies are
set, the management must decide on the division of source, including matters involving
structure, process and human resource.
The combination of human resource planning and strategic
planning is effective when both plans assist each other. In this matter, the
top management must understand that decisions made in strategic planning will
affect human resource planning, and vice versa. The human resource manager is
seen as part of the management team planning the organisation’s strategic
planning.
(b) Determines the Types of Human Resource Present in the
Organisation
The strategies planned can be related to the human
resource in terms of employee’s basic efficiency. This is because aside from
the basic efficiencies, each organisation has its own employee skills and human
resource.
Therefore, in every
organisation, there are a few categories of employees that help an organisation
to be more competitive. These employees can be divided into four categories
based on their skills and the strategic values given to them by the
organisation.
(i) Employees with Core Knowledge
This refers to employees with special skills and high
strategic values. An organisation needs to give a high commitment to these
employees by giving them training and opportunities to develop. Examples of employees
with core knowledge are accountants and computer programmers.
(ii) Employees with Traditional Tasks
This refers to employees who have skills, but not unique.
Usually an organisation does not give much training and opportunities for the employees
to develop career wise. Examples of these employees are salespeople and
drivers.
(iii) Contract Labourers
This refers to employees that are readily available and
with limited tasks, for example, clerks and furniture restorers.
(iv) Affiliates
Affiliates have unique skills but are not related to the organisation’s
basic strategies. An organisation tries to promote a good relationship with
their affiliates and invests in the exchange of information and knowledge.
Examples of affiliates are lawyers, consultants and lab researchers.
(c) Ensures the Suitability and Flexibility of the Human
Resource Planning Practices
Another way of relating human resource planning and
strategic planning is to suit the policies, programmes and practices of human
resource planning to the organisation’s strategic requirements.
Human resource planning policies and practices must
achieve to types of adaptation, i.e. external adaptability and internal
adaptability.
(i) External adaptability focuses on the relationship
between business objectives and the main human resource efforts. For example,
to achieve a low operational cost, the human resource planning policies and
practices must support the direction of low operational costs.
(ii) Internal adaptability is a human resource planning
practice that is suited between one another to produce a symbiosis
relationship. For example, job design and training focus on the same
behavioural target, such as efficiency and creativity in work.
When changes taken place in the working environment,
human resource planning must be flexible and able to withstand the change. This
will increase an organisation’s ability to act and change in the efforts to maintain
the organisation’s competitive advantage. Flexibility can be achieved in two
ways, i.e. coordination flexibility and source flexibility.
(i) Coordination flexibility happens through a swift
resource change to fulfil new or changed requirements. For example, through
human resource planning, the manager can predict economic trends and competitor’s
pace.
(ii) Source flexibility happens when employees are able
to perform many different tasks in many different ways. For example, an
employee can work as a team, or switch tasks, and is flexible in nature, in
terms of manpower.
1.3 Human Resource Planning Process
Through human resource planning, an organisation can
forecast and prepare for
human movement into, within and out of the organisation.
Therefore, the steps
involved in human resource planning:
• environmental scanning;
• predicting manpower needs;
• predicting manpower provision; and
• balancing human resource supply and requirement.
(a) Environmental Scanning
Environmental scanning systematically detects the
external forces that influence the organisation. The external forces or factors
often scanned are:
(i) Economic factors, including local and global economy.
(ii) Competitive trends, including processes, services
and new innovations.
(iii) Technological changes, including robotic technology
and office automation.
(iv) Political and legal issues, including laws and
administration.
(v) Social matters, including childcare and education
(vi) Demographic trends, including age, composition and
literates.
Aside from scanning the external environment, internal
scanning is also carried out. A cultural audit is the scanning of the
organisation’s culture and work life quality in an organisation.
(b) Predicting Manpower Needs
Based on the human resource planning model as shown in
Figure 2.5, there are two types of approach to predict manpower needs in an
organisation.
The approaches are quantitative approach and qualitative
approach.
(i) Quantitative Approach
Quantitative approach involves the use of statistical and
mathematical techniques. This approach is often used by professional planners.
One of the examples of the quantitative method is trend analysis.
Trend analysis is a quantitative approach to predict
labour needs based on an index. Other quantitative methods that can be used to predict
human resource needs are regression analysis, ratio analysis and timeline
analysis.
ii) Qualitative Approach
A qualitative is an approach that does not involve much
statistics but takes into consideration employees’ interests, abilities and
aspirations in fulfilling future staffing requirements. In this method, the
human resource manager predicts manpower needs through considerations.
Among the qualitative methods often used are management forecasting
and the Delphi Technique.
Management forecasting is opinions, considerations or
proposals from supervisors, department managers, experts or those with knowledge
in human resource requirements for the organisation in the future.
The Delphi Technique is a technique of obtaining and
summarising proposals or considerations from chosen experts on manpower needs in
an organisation. This technique reduces biasness as the final prediction is a
combination of experts’ predictions.
(c) Predicting Manpower Provision
After an organisation predicts employee needs, it has to
determine whether the number and types of current employees will be sufficient
for the future.
This process involves detecting the level of current and
future supply, whether inside or outside the organisation.
There are various methods to detect and predict the total
number of internal manpower. Among these methods are:
(i) Staffing Schedule
A staffing schedule gives a graphic display on all jobs
in an organisation, including existing number of employees involved in the jobs.
It also contains employees’ needs for the future.
(ii) Markov Analysis
This analysis detects the pattern of employee movement
through various types of jobs. It shows the percentage and actual figure of employees
who still remain in a particular job, employees who are promoted, demoted,
transferred or removed from the organisation.
Through the Markov Analysis, employee movement matrix can
be developed and the supply of internal human resource can be predicted.
(iii) Skill Inventory
Skill inventory consist of employee’s personal files that
contain information on education, experience, interests, skills and others.
Skill inventory enables the manager to promptly match the suitable positions
with employee’s background.
(iv) Replacement Chart
A replacement chart consists of a list of current
position holders, and those who have the probability to replace a position,
should the position be vacant. This chart gives information on employee’s or
the Manager’s current performance and the probability of a promotion.
(v) Succession Planning
Succession planning identifies, develops and detects
important individuals for executive positions.
When an organisation experiences a shortage of internal
sources for promotion, or for new positions at the beginning or lower level, a
manager must look at external work source or labour provision from outside the organisation.
There are a few external factors that influence the
labour market. Among them are demographic changes, economy, manpower level of
education, requirements for certain skills, population movement and government policies.
The unemployment rate at the national and state level often becomes the benchmark
to detect the labour force or employee supply.
(d) Balancing Human Resource Supply and Requirement
Through human resource planning, an organisation balances
between employee need and provision. The demands towards employees are based on
trend forecasting in an organisation’s business activities.
Offer involves determining where and how potential
employees can be found in order to fill expected vacancies. Matters become
difficult if a particular job needs specific training, and this will require a more
thorough planning.
If there is a job vacancy, whether aiming at replacing an
employee who has resigned or the existence of a new position, an organisation
must employ a new worker. The organisation can recruit a full time or part time
employee, depending on its requirements.
An organisation can also re-hire employees who have
resigned if the organisation feels that it is appropriate. For short-term and
temporary actions, the organisation can encourage its employees to work
overtime in order to fulfil the organisation’s current requirements.
When an organisation experiences a surplus of manpower,
there are a few actions that can be taken to reduce the existing number of
employees, such as:
(i) Limiting the intake of new employees, unless really
necessary.
(ii) Replacement of employees who have resigned or
retired, or died, will not be exercised.
(iii) Employees can be asked to share a job or task,
demoted, advised to retire, terminated from service or laid off if really
necessary.
However, all organisations’ actions must follow the
existing regulations and laws.
HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING
Reviewed by Kamaruddin Mahmood
on
12:48:00 PG
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