Stock taking and Manpower Mapping

I understand what you Boss wants from this glossary of “stock taking and manpower
mapping”
Such glossary is used either by some top management person with technical or some hybrid
qualification background that obviously not belongs to Human Resources. These words are
very generic words and have no definitions in the books of Human Resources Management

You can use many methodologies; you may also engage some world class consulting
companies in the business such as:
1. Deloitte
2. Price Waterhouse Coopers
3. Mckinsey & Co.
4. Arthur D Little
5. Boston Consulting
6. Booz, Allen, Hamilton
7. Ernst & young
8. etc
These consulting companies charge in US$ price for project ranging from 400,000 to
14,00,000 UD$.
Hence, Indian companies cannot afford such price for world class knows-how. Therefore we
have to depend on shortcut methods tailored made to apply on Indian business models. I
work on technical evaluation of several projects assigned to these consulting companies
mentioned above hence can easily differentiate what matter for Indians and what is global
phenomenon. Except TATA I did not seen any other Indian company approach to them
because of its price.

Be simple and short:

1. Prepare Organization Chart
2. Then prepare department wise and section wise as well as unit group wise organization
chart with exact location and positions of the job.
3. Take over view of department functions and process cycle.
4. Describe the activities of each position in the chart (Job Description) with reporting and
its work load.
5. Work on sample case how departments are being functioned.
- Take account of the skills sets required by the organization for conduct of the business by
listing job positions and number of jobs with job roles.
- Works on what amount of activities being engaged by each position.
- Work on volume of the transitions which been conducted in the past to know whether this
structure is feasible or not.
- Or is there any surplus manpower exists or redundancies.
- Or whether some positions have no job. Or jobs which can be outsourced.
6. Once you are sure of your analysis through job audit report and identified the surplus
jobs then restructure of department by redesigning the process to identify more efficient
and thin model to reduce the size of the department.
7. Then prepare one power point presentation describing new model and weakness of old
model where you find surplus or shortages or lack of competencies.
This is only approach and broader guidelines to design action plan how you are going to
conduct this management jargon of so called “stock taking and manpower mapping”

It means taking the stock or looking at the human inventory of the organisation.
In most of the organisation, it’s done through HRIS (Human Resources
Information System) where the data about each individual working inside the
organisation are kept. This entire detailing can be based upon each division
inside the organisation.

Then under each division, the people’s data can be gathered and regularly
updated on these major fonts –
Name, age, designation, personal details, professional details, qualifications,
achievements, awards, trainings, total experience, experiences with us,
objections (if any) etc. etc!

These data, combined together, will clearly depict what’s the human resources
competency of the organisation and where it lacks! Then the management
should do the following analysis –
• What kind of industry we belong to?
• What are generally followed industry standards?
• What is our long term and short term business goals?
• What the shape of the human sources should look like for our future goal?
• What are the necessary changes that we should bring in?

Stocktaking: Improvement through quality:

Stocktaking is one of those chores which you have to do, but which everybody hates.
One man's chore, though, is another man's fortune. If a job must be done, there's a
market: and if people dislike the job, there's a demand for somebody else to take over
the task.

When Nick Holland-Brown joined The Orridge Group, which earns its living by taking
stock, he didn't exactly follow this line of reasoning. Accident led to opportunity. Now 46,
he came in 26 years ago through family connections. The company had been founded by
Benjamin Orridge, Queen Victoria's pharmacist, who reckoned it was a good idea to act
as agent for the sale of pharmacies.

The first stocktaking work was for pharmacists, still considerable Orridge customers. For
all its boredom, counting stock accurately is a foundation of good business - and the
more modern the business, the greater the need. Holland-Brown says that with
electronic point of sale (now used by all up-to-date retailers) 'it starts going wrong from
the day you get it right.'
In theory, the EPOS system accurately records every sale and subtracts the item from
the inventory. In practice, there's 'shrinkage', 'leakage' - and just plain error, when the
wrong entry is made. That produces 'all sorts of ripples down the whole chain of
management functions.' You haven't got enough of the right stock, you have too much
of the wrong stuff, and your reordering goes haywire.

A lot of Orridge's customers aren't like Tesco, Next, B&Q, etc., but are small multiples or
single stores. They need an annual count, whose accuracy is just as vital for protecting
their businesses. Errors can reach frightening size. About 1% of total UK retail turnover
'disappears' from inventory by various means: that's a gigantic sum, but you can do
much worse than 1%.

Holland-Brown recalls one client with a large warehouse whose stock proved wrongly
valued by half-a-million pounds. The error was in the company's favour - but don't count
on being so fortunate. Since accurate stock counts done by a specialist outsider can cost
10 to 15% less, they're doubly attractive. But as with all businesses today, there's more
to success in stocktaking than meets the eye.

It's not enough to spot the latent or existing demand for a job that people are prepared
to 'out-source' to others. The service has to be developed to fulfill its potential. Some ten
years ago, Holland-Brown formed the necessary 'vision' of what Orridge could become.
'We could see what could be achieved' by using the latest electronic technology.
Unfortunately, the key hardware - hand-held computers - couldn't then be had at 'a
sensible price.'

Once prices fell, Holland-Brown was able to transform the operation. Today he can put
as many as 200 people, full-timers and part-timers, armed with their hand-held marvels,
on a big stock-count. He's also on the third generation of software, developed by Orridge
itself, and highly sophisticated - it must be to cope with the great variety of computer
systems used by clients.

The sophisticated approach wasn't adopted for fun, but from sheer necessity. Holland-
Brown faced a familiar form of competition these days - single-handed operators,
working from home with zero overheads, and selling on cut prices. To make this
especially galling, many one-man bands were former employees; 'we've probably trained
most of the stock-takers in the country.'

Try to compete with this kind of competition, and you end up dead: the low prices won't
support the overhead of a properly established company (Orridge has five offices). The
answer was to compete, not on price, but quality. 'That led us into a different, and more
satisfactory market, and gave us a viable, good, modern business that will last into the
next century.'
Thanks to steady acquisition of shares, starting in 1971 ('I gradually bought people out'),
that business is wholly in Holland-Brown's control. The key end-1987 share purchase,
using borrowed money, was 'somewhat of a gamble'. But it 'concentrated the mind' on
matters like having 'good people and training them. It's nice being able to control all
that'. Otherwise, you can't pursue a 'mission for quality' - and (which is Orridge's key
lesson) 'you can't survive in any service without it.