Importance of HR planning

There are many factors that you have to look into when deciding for an HR
Planning programme.

HR Planning involves gathering of information, making objectives, and

making decisions to enable the organization achieve its objectives.
Surprisingly, this aspect of HR is one of the most neglected in the HR field.
When HR Planning is applied properly in the field of HR Management, it
would assist to address the following questions:

1. How many staff does the Organization have?

2. What type of employees as far as skills and abilities does the
Company have?
3. How should the Organization best utilize the available resources?
4. How can the Company keep its employees?

HR planning makes the organization move and succeed in the 21st

Century that we are in. Human Resources Practitioners who prepare the
HR Planning programme would assist the Organization to manage its staff
strategically. The programme assist to direct the actions of HR department.

HR Planning forms an important part of Management information system.

HR have an enormous task keeping pace with the all the changes and
ensuring that the right people are available to the Organization at the right
time. It is changes to the composition of the workforce that force managers
to pay attention to HR planning. The changes in composition of workforce
not only influence the appointment of staff, but also the methods of
selection, training, compensation and motivation. It becomes very critical
when Organizations merge, plants are relocated, and activities are scaled
down due to financial problems.

The Process of Human Resource Planning

Human resource planning refers to the process by which organizations determine their current
and future requirements of human resources in terms of number of people as well as the kind of
people needed, and determine the ways and means of meeting these requirements. It is a process
which enables the organization to have the right people at right time and right place. It involves
determining the manpower requirements of the organization in light of its operations, plans and
strategies and organization structure. Specific steps of human resource planning process include:

1. Establishing the total manpower requirements for different planning horizons.

2. Taking inventory of current manpower availability.
3. Anticipating changes in current manpower availability due to normal process such as
improvement in abilities through skill, promotion, retirement and resignations.
4. Establishing net shortage anticipated in case no specific action is taken to influence the
availability of manpower.
5. Determine the nature of actions such as recruitment, and training to be taken to meet the
total manpower requirement. These actions also cover changes in policies and practices
of conditions of employment to attract and retain the right number of employees in the
company.

Human resource planning is influenced by many factors both within and outside the
organization. These include:

Internal factors

 Organizational plans which determine the overall level of operations or activities of the
organization.

 Organizational strategy and structure.

 Current manpower availability in the organization.
 Human resource policies and practices of the organization. Among others this includes
the policies and practices relating to remuneration and other conditions of employment.
 Organizational culture.

External factors

 General availability of kind of manpower required by the organization.

 General employment policies and practice and policies followed in the industry and in
economy.
 Government regulation governing conditions of employment.
 Rate of changes in different factors in the environment including in marketplace that
determine the nature of challenges faced by the company.
 General culture of the society within which the organization operates including any sub-
culture that may exist for different groups of prospective employees.
Overview of the Human Resource Planning
Process

ANSWER -2
Human resource (HR) department deals with wide range of activities from strategic planning
level to the day to day operations level. Therefore defining roles and responsibilities of HR
manager is a quite complex task but some of the functions carried are summarized below.

 Involvement in the strategic planning process

HR manager gets involved in the strategic planning process of the organization and identifies HR
as a core competency of the organization. When HR is assumed as a core competency HR
becomes a competitive advantage for the organization and HR manager is responsible of
developing the HR of organizations to bring the stated competitve advantage to the organization.

 Forecasting the labour requirement

The HR manager holds the responsibility of forecasting the labour requirement of the
organization in the future based on the future level of sales/production level of the organization.
The labour forecast may identify the need for need for hiring or firing employees.
  Recruitment

Once the labour forecast is done organization can identify the need for more labour in the
organization if the existing workforce is not sufficient to handle the future workload. In such a
situation HR manager has to recruit new potential candidates to fill the vacancies. Recruitment is
the process of creating a pool of potential candidates who can be employed to fill the vacancies.

 Selection

Selection is the process by which the most suitable candidate is selected from the recruited pool
of candidates. Selection is done by carrying out various types of tests and interviews. HR
department/manager is responsible of selecting the most suitable employees to fill existing
vacancies.

 Induction

Induction is the process by which new employees are made familiarized with the organizational
environment. Once the employees are selected they need to be introduced to other staff of the
organization and they should be given necessary guidelines about the organizational culture and
the procedures.

 Training

Once the employees are done with the induction they become an employee of the organization
but the skills they possess may not be adequate to carry out required tasks. The need for training
arises when the there is a gap between expected level of skills and the current level of skills of an
employee. If a there is a training need HR department has to design training programs and
execute them.

 Motivation

HR manager is responsible of motivating employees to carry out their duties of a timely and
accurate basis.

 Performance Appraisal

This is where the employees performance are evaluated based on expected level and the actual
level of the performance. HR department needs to design performance appraisal systems to
appraise the employee performance on a fairly manner.

 Rewarding employees

Once the employee performance evaluation is done HR department needs to design good
employee rewarding packages to reward well performing employees. These rewards could be
of monetary or non monetary in nature.
  Managing Carrier Growth of employees/Promotions

HR department is responsible of managing the carrier growth of employees where they needs to
promoted in the carrier ladder if they are suitable to fill existing vacancies in high ranks of the
organizational structure.

 Managing redundancy

When the organization decides that thy no longer need the service of certain employee they need
to be sent to be given the redundancy notices and have to be paid the redundancy charges.
HR department has to manage this process.

 Managing employee grievance

HR department needs to accept the grievance and complaints submitted by the employees about
their problems. HR department need to listen to grievance and should come up with solutions to
solve problems.

 Managing complains about employees

There can be complaints about employees regarding poor performance, bribery, misbehavior and
so on. HR department needs to hear those complains and make necessary steps
(advising/punishing employees) to solve those issues.