Steps in Human Resource Planning Process
Human resource planning process focuses on the demand and supply of the labor. It involves in the acquisition, development, and departure of people.
Human resources are definitely the most significant part of the organization as the success of any organization depends upon its qualified, skilled and effective personnel.
The purpose of manpower planning is to ensure that a predetermined number of persons with the correct skills are available at a specific time in future.
Thus, human resource planning is the process of identifying systematically that what must be done to fulfill the availability of the human resources needed by an organization in the future to meet its strategic business objectives.
Analyzing of Organization Objectives;
The human resource management manager first observes the objectives of the organization. Then the manager prepares a list of all the activities such as jobs, human resources etc. that are required to achieve the organization objectives efficiently.
There are some corporate level strategies like expansion, diversification, mergers, acquisition, reduction in operations, technologies to be used, method of production etc.
So, HRP should start with analyzing these corporate level strategies. Therefore, human resource planning should analyze the corporate plans of the organization before setting out on fulfilling its tasks.
Manpower Forecasting;
Forecasting the overall human resource requirement like skills, knowledge, values and capabilities in accordance with the organizational plan is one of the key aspects of demand forecasting.
(a) Executive or Managerial Judgment. In this method the managers decide the number of employees in the future according to the need of the organization. They adopt one of these approaches mentioned below.
- Bottom Up Approach. In this approach the concerned supervisors send their proposals to the top management who compare these proposal with the organizational plans, and then implement necessary adjustments and finalize them to execute.
- Top Down Approach. In this approach management prepares the requirements and proceed the information downwards to the supervisory level who finalize the draft and improves it.
- Participate Approach. In this approach projections are made after participation and joint consultation of supervisors and management.
(b) Statistical Techniques. In this method statistical methods and mathematical techniques are used to forecast and predict the supply and demand of human resources in the future.
(c) Ratio Trend Analysis. In this method the past data of human resources like number of employees in each departments and work load, etc. are estimated. Past values are examined in this method to get the fairly and accurate idea of future projections.
(d) Work Study Method. This technique is suitable to study the correlation between volume of work and labor i.e, demand of human resource is estimated on the workload. Work study method is very much suitable to the field of repetitive and manual jobs when it is feasible to measure work and set standards.
(e) Delphi Technique. ‘Delphi’ is the name given to this technique after the Greek Oracle at the city of Delphi. The views of different experts related to industry are taken into consideration in this method and the then consensus about the human resource requirement is arrived at. Delphi technique primarily used to estimate the long term requirement of human resources.
Analyzing Human Resource Supply;
The human resource department manager estimates the manpower supply. The manager examines and find out that how many managers and employees are available in the organization.
Every organization has two sources of supply of human resources such as internal source and external source. Internally, human resource for certain posts can be obtained through promotions and transfers.
In order to judge the internal supply of human resource in future human resource inventory or human resource audit is necessary. Human resource inventory assist to determining and evaluate the quantity of internal existing human resources.
Once the future internal supply is estimated, supply of external human resource is analyzed.
Estimating Manpower Gaps;
Manpower gaps can be clarified by matching the demand forecasts and supply forecasts. Such matching will show the deficit or surplus of human resources in future.
Deficit suggests the number of persons to be recruited from outside, whereas surplus implies redundant employees to be redeployed or terminated.
Action Planning;
Once manpower gaps are identified, plans are prepared to bridge these gaps. Plans to meet the additional personnel may be redeployment in other departments of the organization and may be retrench.
People may be persuaded to quit voluntarily through a golden handshake. Deficit may be fulfill through recruitment & selection of the employees, transfer of the employees, and promotion of the employees.
If there is shortage of certain skilled employees, then organization has to take care not only about recruitment but also retention of present employees. Therefore, the organization should make a plan to retain the existing employees.
Modify the Organizational Plans;
If future supply of personnel is estimated to be inadequate or less than the requirement, then the manpower planner has to suggest the management regarding the alterations or modifications in the organizational plans.
Controlling and Review;
When the action plans are set and implemented, than human resource structure and the processes should be controlled and reviewed according to action plans.
Problems in HRP process
As the future is uncertain so there may be some problems in the process of human resource planning which can be grouped as;
Inefficient information system;
For making the successful human resource planning the human resource information system should be reliable and strong. In the absence of reliable data, it is not possible to develop effective HR planning.
Uncertainties;
Labor absenteeism, labor turnover, seasonal employment, technological changes and market fluctuations are some uncertainties which human resource planning process might have to face.
Inaccuracy;
Human resource planning is entirely dependent on HR forecasting and supply, which can not be cent per cent accurate process.
Time and Expense;
Some of the industries avoid the human resource planning because it is very time consuming and expensive.
Employee resistance;
Employees and their unions feel that the human resource planning increases their workload so they resist the process.
Human Resource Planning at Different Levels
Human resource planning is done at various levels according to their requirements. There are several levels of human resource planning according to different enterprises.
National Level;
Generally, central government plans human resources for the entire nation. It anticipates the demand and supply of human requirements at the national level.
Sectoral Level;
Central and state governments also plan human resources requirements at sectoral level. It offer to meet the needs of some special sectors like Agriculture.
Industry Level;
Different types of industries need the different types of personnel according to their nature of work. There are some personal requirements of the particular industries according to their nature of work.
These industries are such as Engineering, Heavy Industries, Paper Industries, Consumer Goods Industries, Public Utility Industries, Textiles, Cement, Chemical Industries, etc. Planning is executed to match personnel requirements of a particular industry.
Departmental Level;
This level of planning is done to fulfill the manpower needs of a particular department in a company, e.g. Marketing, Finance, and production departments etc.
Job Level;
This level of planning fulfills the human resources needs of a particular job family within department. For Example, the number of sales executives required in the marketing department of any organization.
Related Posts;
Human Resource Management (HRM)
The purpose of Human Resource Planning process is to assure the availability of predetermined number of people required in the future.