Define HRP.
Discuss Scope, Purpose, Nature, and objectives of Need/scope of Human Resource Planning
HRP.
Human Resource Planning (HRP) can be defined as a process of
balancing the people's supply including the present and
prospective employees with the potential job openings in the
organisation in a given period. It is the system of the
organisation to ensure the availability of the right number of
people, the right type of people, at the right time and the right
place to attain the organisational objectives. HRP is also known
as manpower planning, personal planning or workforce
planning.
It comes under the preview of organisational planning and is a
future-oriented activity. Inappropriate planning may result in
the excess recruitment of the staff, rise in expenses regarding
direct costs and training cost and other amenities for
employees besides the production cost. Inappropriate
recruitment also results in an adverse impact upon the self-
esteem and the efficiency of the employee. All these factors
highlight the importance of HRP in an organisation
Nature of Human Resource Planning
The nature of human resource planning is as follows :
1) Continuous Activity:
It is an ongoing activity as the need for assessing the supply
and demand of the manpower resources within the
organisation never comes to an end.
2) Clearly Specified Objectives:
HRP objectives may be guided by the strategic and operational
planning of the organisation. Basically, the needs of the human
resources within the organisation are based on the firm's
objectives HRP also aims at developing human resources,
sharpening the technical skills of resources, assisting them to
plan their career map, retaining them, etc.
3) Assessing the Staff Requirements:
HRP focuses on the pre-planning of the needs and estimates
regarding the human resources within the organisation. All the
proceedings related to the recruitment, selection and training
procedure are planned in advance.
4) Maintaining Inventory of Existing Human Resources :
It consists of the record of present human resources. The
manager must be aware of the available manpower supply for
fulfilling the higher positions in the future.
Internal to Wipro
7) Judicial Regulations:
Human resource planning is needed due to the following
reasons:
1) Balancing Employment-Unemployment Situation:
HRP tries to maintain a balance between the educated
unemployed skilled youth of the nation and the skill
requirements in the industry.
2) Technological Upgradations:
There have been continuous upgrades in the marketing
methods management techniques, and systems of the
production technologies in the industry. It has also demanded
modifications by the job profiles. HRP is required to plan the
manpower needs accordingly to avoid problems regarding
redundancy, re-training, or re-deployment.
3) Changes in Organisational Environment:
In the dynamic and ever-changing business
environment,organisations are always subjected to variations
and breaks in their system of working. Therefore, organisations
must rely on HRP to strategically plan their manpower
requirements.
4) Diverse Workforce:
In the present scenario of the business environment, the
workforce consists of people of different ages, gender, social
background and culture having altogether different skills. An
effective HRP is required here for proper planning of the
manpower needs of the organisations.
5) Skill Shortages:
In this competitive era of business, the system of working in
the organisations is becoming more and more complicated on
account of the special and rare skills requirement within the
firm for accomplishing the task. Therefore, HRP has an
important task of not only attracting the required potential but
also ensuring to retain them in the organisation.
6) Government Interference:
Various legislative measures such as provision regarding the
work conditions and working hours, restrictions on child and
women employment, contract labour, casual labour, etc. and
government interference in the administration of the
functioning of the firm have necessitated more systemic HRP
for the firms.
Gone are the days when employees were treated as objects
within the organisation. The various legislative measures have
strengthened the positions of the employees in the
organisation. Various labour laws have been implemented to
ensure that the employees do not face unjustified lay-off,
retrenchment, etc. HRP is responsible for forecasting the
requirements after considering this fact.
8) Justified Recruitment:
It is very natural in an organisation to get recommendations
for recruitment from various groups like trade unions, political
groups, and personal sources. To avoid this type of partial
recruitment, HRP must be strictly implemented in the system.
9) Systematic Concept:
As with the growth of the concept of people management,
there has been a need to maintain transparency in the system
which can be fulfilled by maintaining the systematic and
transparent record by HRP.
10) Lead Time:
As new employees are being trained for the new job
responsibilities and profile, sufficient time is required for the
employees as well for the management to assess the worth of
the employee and to assign him the task accordingly. HRP
provides lead time for all these issues.
What are the approaches of HRD in manpower planning
Manpower Planning which is also called as Human Resource
Planning consists of putting right number of people, right kind
of people at the right place, right time, doing the right things
for which they are suited for the achievement of goals of the
organization. Human Resource Planning has got an important
place in the arena of industrialization. Human Resource
Planning has to be a systems approach and is carried out in a
set procedure. The procedure is as follows:
Analysing the current manpower inventory
Making future manpower forecasts
Developing employment programmes
Design training programmes
Steps in Manpower Planning
Analysing the current manpower inventory- Before a manager
makes forecast of future manpower, the current manpower
status has to be analysed. For this the following things have to
be noted-
 Type of organization
Number of departments
Number and quantity of such departments
Employees in these work units
Once these factors are registered by a manager, he goes for
the future forecasting.
Manpower Planning
Making future manpower forecasts- Once the factors affecting
the future manpower forecasts are known, planning can be
done for the future manpower requirements in several work
units.
The Manpower forecasting techniques commonly employed by
the organizations are as follows:
Expert Forecasts: This includes informal decisions, formal
expert surveys and Delphi technique.
Trend Analysis: Manpower needs can be projected through
extrapolation (projecting past trends), indexation (using base
year as basis), and statistical analysis (central tendency
measure).
Work Load Analysis: It is dependent upon the nature of work
load in a department, in a branch or in a division.
Work Force Analysis: Whenever production and time period
has to be analysed, due allowances have to be made for
getting net manpower requirements.
Other methods: Several Mathematical models, with the aid of
computers are used to forecast manpower needs, like budget
and planning analysis, regression, new venture analysis.
Developing employment programmes- Once the current
inventory is compared with future forecasts, the employment
programmes can be framed and developed accordingly, which
will include recruitment, selection procedures and placement
plans.
Design training programmes- These will be based upon extent
of diversification, expansion plans, development
programmes,etc. Training programmes depend upon the
extent of improvement in technology and advancement to
take place. It is also done to improve upon the skills,
capabilities, knowledge of the workers.
Importance of Manpower Planning
Key to managerial functions- The four managerial functions,
i.e., planning, organizing, directing and controlling are based
Internal to Wipro
upon the manpower. Human resources help in the
implementation of all these managerial activities. Therefore,
staffing becomes a key to all managerial functions.
Efficient utilization- Efficient management of personnels
becomes an important function in the industrialization world
of today. Seting of large scale enterprises require management
of large scale manpower. It can be effectively done through
staffing function.
Motivation- Staffing function not only includes putting right
men on right job, but it also comprises of motivational
programmes, i.e., incentive plans to be framed for further
participation and employment of employees in a concern.
Therefore, all types of incentive plans becomes an integral part
of staffing function.
Better human relations- A concern can stabilize itself if human
relations develop and are strong. Human relations become
strong trough effective control, clear communication, effective
supervision and leadership in a concern. Staffing function also
looks after training and development of the work force which
leads to co-operation and better human relations.
Higher productivity- Productivity level increases when
resources are utilized in best possible manner. higher
productivity is a result of minimum wastage of time, money,
efforts and energies. This is possible through the staffing and
it's related activities ( Performance appraisal, training and
development, remuneration)
Need of Manpower Planning
Manpower Planning is a two-phased process because
manpower planning not only analyses the current human
resources but also makes manpower forecasts and thereby
draw employment programmes. Manpower Planning is
advantageous to firm in following manner:
Shortages and surpluses can be identified so that quick action
can be taken wherever required.
All the recruitment and selection programmes are based on
manpower planning.
It also helps to reduce the labour cost as excess staff can be
identified and thereby overstaffing can be avoided.
It also helps to identify the available talents in a concern and
accordingly training programmes can be chalked out to
develop those talents.
It helps in growth and diversification of business. Through
manpower planning, human resources can be readily available
and they can be utilized in best manner.
It helps the organization to realize the importance of
manpower management which ultimately helps in the stability
of a concern.
What is the importance of HRP in the field of HR
development
Importance of Human Resource Planning – Key to Managerial
Functions, Efficient Utilization, Motivation, Better Industrial
Relations and Higher ProductivityWe are acquainted with the
objectives, approaches, forecasting, and techniques of HR
planning. Obviously the importance of HR planning is manifold.
It serves as a key to managerial functions, efficient utiliza-tion
of men, identifying and motivating them, promoting industrial
relations, and boosting productivity.
i. Key to Managerial Functions:
Planning, organizing, leading, directing, and controlling
(POLDC) are the five managerial functions that need HR for
their execution. Human resources help in the accomplishment
of all these managerial activities effectively and efficiently.
Therefore, staffing becomes a key to all managerial functions.
ii. Efficient Utilization:
With the emergence of the concept of the global village,
handling HR efficiently has become an impor-tant function in
the industry. Large organizations need huge HR to execute
their job effectively. As such, the staffing function has emerged
as a critical organization process.
iii. Motivation:
Irrespective of their levels, organizational citizens need
motivation. The staffing function, in addition to putting the
right men on the right job, also comprises various motivational
programmes. It is essential to launch financial and non-
financial motivational schemes, including incentive plans.
Therefore, all types of incentive plans become an integral part
of staffing function to satisfy both intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation.
iv. Better Industrial Relations:
Stability, smooth running, and growth of a concern depend on
the quality of interpersonal relations; especially on the relation
between the management and unions. Members from the
unions and asso-ciations form a collective bargaining forum. A
 strong relation between them helps taking decisions
collectively. Furthermore, human relations can become even
stronger through effective control, clear communication, and
effective supervision and leadership.
v. Higher Productivity:
Productivity levels increase with the efficient utilization of
resources in the best possible manner. Productivity is
enhanced by minimizing wastage of time, money, efforts, and
energies. Alternatively, cost reduction, value engineering,
method study and work measurement, and other techniques
help to enhance productivity. Human resource and its related
activities/systems such as performance appraisal, / training
and development, remuneration, further settle on
productivity.
Importance of Human Resource Planning – 10 Benefits to the
Organization
Human Resource Planning is an important and highly
specialized activity.
If this activity is taken up professionally by the human resource
team it can offer numerous benefits to the organization which
are as follows:
1. It is wise for the managers to anticipate the workforce
requirements with precision rather than getting burdened with
unrequited workforce.
2. Planning prevents the business from falling into the trap of
ill-equipped departments with workforce which is a common
concern among all industries.
3. It Works proactively as the expansion in the workforce
market is not always in conjunction with the workforce
requirement of the organization in terms of professional
experience, talent needs, skills, etc.
4. Organizations in growth phase may face the challenge of
meeting the need for critical set of skills, competencies and
talent to meet their strategic objectives so they can stand well-
prepared to meet the HR needs if they have planned well.
5. Considering the organizational goals, HR Planning allows the
identification, selection and development of required talent or
competency within the organization.
6. Planning Provides organization with competent Personnel.
7. It Enables organization to optimally use manpower.
8. Human resource planning enables a company to plan its
Internal to Wipro
expansion and diversification.
9. Human Resource Planning contributes towards management
succession and development.
10. It helps in planning physical facilities.
It is, therefore, suitable on the part of the organization to opt
for HR Planning to prevent any unnecessary hurdles in its
workforce needs. An HR Consulting Firm can provide the
organization with a comprehensive HR assessment and
planning to meet its future requirements in the most cost-
effective and timely manner.
Importance of Human Resource Planning
1. Human resource planning is a continuous process – Human
Resource Planning is a continuous process by which
management ensures that it has the right personnel, who are
capable of completing those tasks that help the organization,
reach its objectives.
2. Human resource planning links people to company’s
mission, vision, goals and objectives – Rigorous Human
Resource Planning links people management to the
organization’s mission, vision, goals and objectives, as well as
its strategic plan and budgetary resources.
3. Human resource planning is forward looking process –
Human resource planning is a forward-looking function. It
occupies a pivotal place in successful human resource
management programme. It ensures that people are available
to extend their willing hands towards the development
endeavours of an organization.
4. Human Resource Planning is Value Addition in Competition
and Economic Downturn – In the times of great economic
turbulence, the importance of human resource planning is
more apparent than ever. A short-sighted lay-off, intended to
temporarily reduce overhead, can result in much heavier long-
term costs. We may regret letting people go when we are
spending time and money to hire and train new staff. Plus, we
lose profits when we lose experienced, knowledgeable and
talented employees.
Increasing environmental instability, demographic shifts,
changes in technology, and heightened international
competition are changing the need for and the nature of
human resource planning in several organizations in India and
across the world.
In addition, organizations are realising that in order to
adequately address human resource concerns, they must
develop long-term as well as short term solutions. As human
resource planners involve themselves in more programmes to
serve the needs of the business, and even influence the
direction of the business, they face new increased
responsibilities and challenges.
Importance of Human Resource Planning – With Reasons Why
Human Resource Planning is Essential
Human resource planning is very important as it helps in
determining the future human resource needs of the
organization. The effectiveness of human resource planning
process decides the adequacy of available manpower in the
organization. An unsuccessful human resource planning leads
to either shortage or surplus of workforce in the organization
and brings serious disaster.
The importance of human resource planning are as follows:
a. Human resource planning helps in finding out surplus and
shortage of manpower in the organization. Hence it creates
reservoir of talents;
b. It leads to systematic employee development and prepares
people for future;
c. It is useful in finding out the deficiencies in existing
manpower and providing corrective training;
d. It is helpful in overall planning process of the organization;
e. It facilitates the expansion or contraction of scale of
operations;
f. It helps in preparing appropriate human resource budget for
each department or division, which helps in controlling
manpower costs; and
g. It plays a major role in succession planning for the key
personnel in the organization.
When man is considered as a resource, it is understood, he has
some potential characteristics, which can be used to
organizational needs in the path of fulfilling the organizational,
social and national goals. Manpower or Human resource can
be considered as the total knowledge, skills, creative abilities,
talents and aptitudes of an organization’s work force, as well
as the values, attitudes and benefits of an individual involved.
 Among the resources used for production i.e. materials,
machines, methods, money and manpower, the most
important M is manpower resource. When considered as a
resource, it is valuable asset of the organization. Hence,
planning for manpower is as important as planning for other
resources.
Manpower planning or Human Resource Planning is
synonymous. It is forecasting future manpower requirement to
cater the needs of the organization. It involves of making an
inventory of present manpower resources and assess the
extent to which these resources are employed optimally. It
consists of projecting future manpower requirements and
developing manpower plans for the implementation of the
projections.
If Human resource planning is used properly, it helps in
maximum utilization of human resources, reduces excess labor
turnover and high absenteeism; improves productivity and
excels the organization in achieving the purpose for which it is
established. A bad manpower plan may induce dissatisfaction
in labor and lead to higher labor turnover, reduces
productivity.
Human resource planning is essential because of the
following reasons:
i. It provides the required personnel with necessary
qualification, skills, knowledge, work experience and aptitude.
ii. To replace the employees who retire, who leave the
organization for some reason or the other and to
promote/transfer people, proper manpower planning will help
the manager.
iii. It helps in estimating the labor turnover and making a
forecast and provides adequate supply of labour force in time.
iv. Manpower planning helps the manager to estimate the
human resource required for business expansion programs.
v. Human resource planning helps in planning for training
needs due to challenging changes in industrial environment,
technology etc.
vi. It helps in identifying areas of surplus or shortage of
personnel and making the necessary modifications.
Importance of Human Resource Planning
7 Ways in Which Human Resource Planning is an Important
Tool of Human Resource Management-
Internal to Wipro
-Human resource planning is a two-phased process by which
management can project future human resource requirements
and develop human resource plans.
- It helps in proper recruitment and selection so that right
types of people are available to occupy various positions in the
organisation.
-It also facilitates designing of training programs for the
employees to develop the required skills in them. Thus, human
resource planning plays an important role in the effective
management of personnel.
-Systematic human resource planning provides lead time for
the acquisition and training of employees to meet future
requirements.
-It is all the more crucial because the lead time for procuring
personnel is a time consuming process and in certain cases,
one may not always get the requisite type of personnel needed
for the jobs.
-Non-availability of suitable human resource may result in
postponement or delays in executing new projects and
expansion programs, which ultimately lead to lower efficiency
and productivity.
- To overcome this, an organisation must plan out its human
resource requirements well in advance so that it could
compete effectively with its competitors in the market.
Human resource planning is an important tool of Human
Resource Management as it helps in the following ways:
1. Human resource planning results in reduced labour costs as
it helps the management to anticipate shortages and/or
surpluses of human resource and correct these imbalances
before they become unmanageable and expensive.
2. It serves as a basis for planning employee development that
is designed to make optimum use of workers’ skills within the
organisation.
3. It enables identification of the gaps of the existing personnel
so that corrective training could be imparted. Thus, the
training program becomes more effective.
4. It leads to improvement in the overall business planning
process.
5. It helps in formulating managerial succession plan as a part
of the replacement planning process which is necessitated
when job-change plans for managers are formulated. Besides,
this exercise would provide enough lead time for identifying
and developing managers to move up the corporate ladder.
6. It leads to a greater awareness of the importance of sound
human resource management throughout the organisation.
7. It serves as a tool to evaluate the effect of alternative
human resource actions and policies.
Importance of Human Resource Planning – In Indian
Organisations
For industrial organizations in India, the issue of manpower
planning has special significance. Advance planning and action
for a resource is required when it cannot be acquired or
divested quickly according to the requirement of the business
and/or when it can be acquired but cannot be used in the
organization without further development over a period of
time. There are several reasons why human resource
acquisition or reduction in our country cannot be done at will.
The foremost reason being the difficulty in estimating the
actual requirements of manpower in the company based on
company business projection. The question arises how to
estimate the demand for manpower in a company? How much
can one rely on such estimation? Though Indian economy has
made considerable progress in developing database and
statistical information about industrial activities, yet very few
organizations are aware of this and even fewer organizations
have expertise in using it.
One of the critical differences between a developed economy
and a developing economy is that in a developed economy the
documentation process of economic activities is also quite
developed. And, most people have good access to this publicly
available information on economy.
Moreover, the problem related to statistical information on
economy in general and company specific manpower
information in particular get compounded further by the
widespread apprehension among industrial organizations for
loss of company secret. Some of these concerns are possibly
valid but much of it are overreactions.
Mostly these reactions are due to unawareness of public good
that may come from sharing of information with public
agencies. All the same, the apprehensions are very much
there. A lot of work needs to be done to allay these fears
before an industry specific database can be built for estimation
of manpower demand or supply.

The second issue is the general response of the local
population in terms of choice of career to market signal on
economic opportunity and career. Poor communication
infrastructure and low mobility of workforce are two
characteristics which give our labour markets certain levels of
rigidities. In the Indian economy, it is quite common to find a
low wage sector operating side by side with a high wage sector
for many years without much exchange of manpower or
market-based correction of the wage rates.
Example – Illiterate workers working as regular peon in a
government office at block level versus similarly skilled rural
labour in agricultural household. The annual income of a
regular government employee is more than double that of a
rural unorganized labour.
The labour market adjustment process is too slow to make
much difference in the wage rates of workers in organized and
unorganized sectors. It is this kind of market inertia which may
make it very risky for business organizations to rely on the
external market for their required manpower.
The nature of academic training facility of the country does not
make the load lighter either. Aca-demic institutes in general
and technical institutes in particular have developed and
grown along es-tablished lines. Very few institutes show
interest to keep up with the changing demands of the industry
and innovate into new areas or new ways of delivering
educational programmes.
The lack of academic material and inadequate communication
between academic institutes and industry makes all the more
difficult to have academic programmes in emerging areas.
Most academic programmes developed along traditional lines
because these were the areas where documented knowledge
were available.
With, this state of academic training facilities and the response
patterns of the general population, the industry has no choice
but to rely for most of its manpower requirements on in-house
facility. Development of expertise is a slow process and
development of skill through on the job experience is even
slower. Most in-house learning processes follow a conservative
route along established lines because of high cost of
managerial time and apprehension of trainees’ mistakes.
Internal to Wipro
Trainees or newly hired employees are rarely given the
opportunity for experimentation or jobs that require
reflection. The result is that most on job learning processes are
slow and require careful advance planning for appropriate job
placement and managerial guidance. Naturally, the supply of
manpower from internal learning system is a long drawn
process.
Apart from the slow learning process, progressive loss of
interest in learning by the learners and/or because of poor
facilities for learning are other factors which take heavy toll on
the number of learners who survive a learning process. There
is always a possibility that in a batch of say 10 learners all of
them would not pass out with flying colours at the end of a
long learning programme.
This attrition rate is higher when the duration of the
programme is long and the content of the programme requires
a lot of hard work and self-initiative. The attrition also depends
on the quality of the facilities provided to the learners. A
simple statistic from national educational programme at high
school level will show how the natural attrition of the learners
reduces the potential number of candidates at the end of a
long-learning programme.
At the all India level, during 2006-2007 the dropout rate of
students who passed out from fifth standard education was
25.4%. The corresponding rate of those who passed out eight
standard was 46% and those who passed out the tenth
standard was 60% (Ministry of Human Resource Devel-opment
2009).
This means that if we took a sample of 100 students who
started their first standard education today, then at the end of
their five years of education we would end up with just 75
students, at the end eighth standard we would get just 56
students, and at the end of tenth standard we would be left
with just 40 students in the class.
The rest 60 students were dropped dead either because they
lost interest or because the learning programme content was
too tough for them to understand. At the national level quite a
high dropout of school level learners could be attributed to
poor learning facility both in school and/or at home. This is
why dropout rates are so high in rural schools than those in
urban centres.
Now imagine a batch of fresh graduate managers going
through an organizational learning and developmental
programme of say 10-year long. Do you think all of the freshly
recruited managers would pass out with flying colours at the
end of say 10 years of internal experience-based
developmental programme? Most likely they will not.
Some will dropout because they are getting better offer in
other organization. Some will fail because they do not fit with
the internal human infrastructure of the company well. Some
will lose interest to acquire expertise because the company
does not have that many chairs at higher level.
The dropout rate for company managers is likely to be much
more than the dropout rates of the school-going children. First,
a freshly recruited manager may get lots of other opportunities
knocking on his/her door every other day disturbing his/her
concentration to acquire new skills and expertise. His/her
family organization may place lot of additional demands on
his/her time.
Second, because the number of positions in higher levels
comes down as one moves up in the hierarchy, unless an
organization grows very fast the organizational hierarchy may
not be able to accommodate all the freshly recruited managers
in higher levels. In other words, because the capacity for
developmental opportunity in an organization comes down as
one moves up in the hierarchy, there is likely to be purposeful
rationing process for allocation of opportunities.
Most Indian business organizations operate in a single country.
They compete with many other organizations in the same
product as well as factor markets. Naturally, their growth could
not be very high to accommodate all the learners with newer
positions continuously. This means such organiza-tions may
find that dropout rates of their freshly recruited managers are
pretty high.
An Indian organization which is expecting to develop all its
senior managers through in-house development process must
plan its internal developmental programme well in advance
and with sufficiently large pool of candidates.
Another related issue in manpower planning is the
requirement of manpower reduction. With the Indian
economy getting integrated with the world market, much of
the advantage of inward-oriented economy that provided a lot
of insulation to the Indian organizations from the ups and
 downs of the world market may go away. And, many
organizations may have to live with frequent highs and lows of
their businesses.
Manpower planning is a hard job, but for Indian business
organizations perhaps it is harder to reduce manpower. Due to
lack of employee mobility any business driven manpower
reduction attempt is not taken kindly by either the employee
union or the government.
This means before hiring an employee, a company has to
assume and ensure that there will be enough job for that
employee for the rest of his/her career. A company may not be
able to close its plant even when its ecological niche has
shrunk in size and does not support its continued sustenance
or growth.
Inadequate manpower acquisition and development may
jeopardize a company business expan-sion plan in future yet
excessive zeal in manpower acquisition and development
without considering the long-term business prospect may
make it sink fast in hard times.
Importance of Human Resource Planning: 10 Important
Points
1. Estimating future demand for human resources – HRP
determines the future requirement of personnel on the pace
of development, expansion and diversification of business. It
also deals with surplus and deficit workforce of the
organization.
2. Bridging the gap – HRP plays an important role in bridging
the gap between the demand and supply of workforce in an
organization.
3. Enhancing workforce – HRP advocates for training and
development of workforce to cater to the future demand for
workforce.
4. Coping with changes – HRP facilitates to cope with changes.
As the changes are inevitable, HRP focuses on change in nature
of workforce, technological change, organizational change,
demographic changes, legality and ethicality in dealing with
workforce.
5. Determining the cost of human resources – Out flow of
money is involved in every process of HRM. HRP takes into
account the money spent on every activity of HRM and
facilitates cost control and cost reduction.
Internal to Wipro
6. Cost of hiring and training – HRP minimizes the cost of hiring
and procurement. It is simple to understand that money
unspent is money saved.
7. Diversification and expansion of business – Diversification
and expansion of business results in demand for workforces.
HRP determines the qualitative and quantitative workforce
requirement for an organization.
8. Management development programmes – HRP decides
upon the need for management development programmes
and facilitates to conduct the same more effectively and
efficiently.
9. Optimal utilization of human resources – Effective Human
Resource Planning will help ascertain the adequate workforce
and facilitate to use them optimally. It also prevents disguised
unemployment and overloading, leading to job stress.
10. Essential for strategic planning – Strategic plans are the
long-term plans of the organization. In the absence of HRP,
strategic planning will become ineffective.
What are the limitations of HRP
Limitations of Human Resource Planning.
1) Inaccuracy of Forecasts:
2) Identity Crisis:
3) Requires Active Involvement of Top Management:
4) Employee Resistance:
5) Technical Issues:
6) Weak Information System
The future is uncertain. There are several external factors viz.
Technological, political, cultural, etc. that affects the
employment opportunities. Therefore, the management can
consider the human resource planning as a guiding factor and
can not rely completely on it.
With the surplus manpower, the companies try to remove this
imbalance using termination, layoff, removal of the existing
employees. This could create a sense of insecurity among
them, and that would result in the loss of their faith in the
company.
The human resource planning is time-consuming since it
collects the complete information regarding the personnel
requirements of each department and then finds the suitable
sources to satisfy the needs.
The human resource planning is an expensive process. All the
activities carried out from the time the manpower need arises
till the final placement of employees, consumes lot of time and
is very expensive.
Thus, the firm must carry out the human resource planning
cautiously since it is accorded with several limitations that can
adversely affect the overall functioning of the firm.
What is manpower planning and its step.
Step # 1. Job Analysis:
Any manpower planning programme is knowledge about
existing jobs in the organisation. The information is needed to
develop hiring plans, to select and train employees, to provide
appropriate compensation and to develop valid performance
appraisals. Job analysis provides these information.
It is the identification of the specific activities to be performed
in a job and characteristics of the person, the work situation
and the materials or equipment necessary for performing the
job effectively. Job analysis is the procedure by which the facts
with respect to each job are secured, organised and combined.
Job analysis may be defined as a process of discovering and
identifying the prominent information relating to the nature of
a specific job. It is the determination of tasks which comprise
the job and of the skills, knowledge, abilities and
responsibilities required of the worker for the successful
performance of the job. It essentially deals with data collection
and then analysing the data.
Job Analysis:
The main purpose of this analysis is to describe and define the
distinction among various jobs in the organisation and their
relationships.
It provides the analyst with basic data pertaining to specific
jobs in terms of duties, responsibilities, skills, knowledge etc.
To quote William Spriegel, “Job analysis is the process of
critically evaluating the operations, duties and relationship of
the Job”.
Edwin Flippo. “Job analysis is the process of studying and
collecting information relating to the operation and
responsibilities of a specific Job.”
Job analysis basically seeks to provide information regarding
seven major areas:
(i) Job Identification:
The title of the Job.
(ii) Nature of the Job:
 This includes the characteristics of job, its location, physical
setting, supervision etc.
(iii) Operations Involved in Performing the Job:
What the employee does, specific operations and tasks that
make up the assignment, their relative timing and importance,
the simplicity, routine or complexity of tasks.
(iv) Materials and equipment’s to be used in performing the
job.
(v) Personal attributes required to do the job. This is related to
education, training, physical strength, mental capabilities.
(vi) How the job is performed.
(vii) Relation with other Jobs.
(viii) Others like opportunities for advancement, patterns of
promotion, relation to other jobs in the organisation.
The three immediate outcomes to job analysis are:
(a) Job description
(b) Job Specification
(c) Job evaluation.
(a) Job Description:
It is an organised factual statement of job contents in the form
of duties and responsibilities of a specific job. This is to be
prepared before a vacancy is advertised. It emphasises the job
requirements. The document is descriptive in nature and
constitutes a record of job facts in a organised way. The job
analyst is to prepare the document in an objective way after
getting reports from employees at various levels like workers,
foremen an id supervisors.
Job title, Job location, Job summary, Duties to be performed,
Machines, Tools and materials, Relation to other jobs, Nature
of supervision and work environment.
(b) Job Specification:
This is a document which specifies the minimum acceptable
human qualities necessary to perform a job property. It sets
forth requirements sought in a person who is to be selected or
appointed to perform the job.
It is a measuring rod of personnel and it combines the qualities
required for acceptable performance of a job like formal
education, psychological attitude, physical measurements, etc.
The assessment of these qualities is recorded on job
specification document. This may involve an element of
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subjectivity. The proper assessment of these qualities depends
on the value judgments of many people.
(c) Job Evaluation:
It is an analytical and systematic method of determining pay
rates for jobs. It is an attempt to determine and compare the
demands which the normal performance of particular jobs
make on average workers, without taking into account the
individual abilities of performance of workers. It is the task of
determining the demands in terms of efforts and ability which
the normal performance of a job makes on a normal worker.
Dale Yoder defines job evaluation, “as a practice which seeks
to provide a degree of objectivity in measuring the
comparative value of jobs within an organisation and among
organisations.”
The purpose of job evaluation is to measure the relative worth
of different jobs in the organisation. It rates the job and not
the man. Once the worth of the job is determined, it is easy to
determine and fix the wage or salary level that will be fair and
executable.
So job evaluation does three things:
(i) It provides standards which enable a company to act
uniformly in all matters pertaining to salary and wage
administration.
(ii) It yields an orderly management of all jobs in the company
in terms of their contributions.
(iii) It gives considerations to market rates by comparing the
community wage level with the organisation level.
So it facilitates the management in evolving a rational and
consistent wage and salary structure. It also provides the
criteria for fixation of salaries and wages. It tends to eliminate
wage inequalities within the organisation. Helps in proper
selection and recruitment of employees.
Job evaluation involves the evaluation of various jobs in terms
of certain factors.
Normally the important factors to be considered for job
evaluation are:
i. Mental and manual skills,
ii. Experience,
iii. Efforts and initiative,
iv. Responsibility to be undertaken,
v. Working environment and
vi. Supervision needed.
There is no standard classification of factors to be considered
for job evaluation. The list of factors to be adopted for
evaluation will depend on the type of the job to be evaluated.
There are four basic methods to determine the worth of jobs.
They are:
(a) Ranking method
(b) Job grading method
(c) Factor comparison method
(d) Point method.
(a) Ranking Method:
In this method, the list of jobs in the order of importance
beginning with the most important job to the least important
job in the office is prepared. The importance is determined on
the basis of factors discussed above. This method is suitable
for small organisations.
(b) Job Grading Method:
Other name classification method. Job grading seeks to
determine the grade of each job. The jobs are classified on the
basis of predetermined levels of skills required for each class of
job. For each grade or class there is a different scale of pay. It
is a useful method for job evaluation. But the main difficulty
arises in defining the different grades.
(c) Factors Comparison Method:
In this method a number of factors like mental requirements,
physical requirements, responsibilities and working conditions
form the basis of evaluation. These factors are listed on a
sheet in a columnar form. The salary for each key job is
allocated to different factors as related to each job. Each key
job is evaluated with regard to each of the given factors and
entered in the factor column against the appropriate salary
index. The salary components for each factor are added to get
the appropriate salary level for each key job. The jobs are
ranked in relation to ranking of jobs.
(d) Point Method:
In this method a quantitative evaluation of different jobs in
terms of various factors are made. Each job factor under
consideration is assigned maximum point values. Each job is
 awarded points for each of the factors. The appropriate salary
level for each job is fixed on the basis of total points scored by
it.
Step # 2. Skill Inventory:
Every organisation must be conscious of its manpower
potential within the organisation for its long term success. The
organisation is to take systematic steps to ensure that the
reservoir of talent must be continuous within the organisation.
For this purpose the management is to know the inventory of
manpower resources, develop and appraise their executives,
draw up management succession plans and calculate the
replacements that will be needed because of retirement and
other causes.
Skill inventory is needed for understanding the nature of
recruitment and development problem. The management
must try to develop in advance talented employees to occupy
the managerial positions in future.
Step # 3. Personnel Forecasting:
Other name Manpower forecasting. This involves two aspects.
They are:
(a) Work load analysis
(b) Work force analysis.
(a) Work Load Analysis:
Workload analysis is used to determine how many employees
of various types are required to achieve production targets.
Similarly plans are made by each part of the organisation
concerning the amount of work that is to be accomplished
during the coming year. It is necessary to determine the work-
load in some tangible units so that it may be translated into
man-hours required per unit. This work-load analysis is
suitable for short-term projections of man-power
requirements.
(b) Work-Force Analysis:
This is useful for long-term projections of man-power
requirements. This analysis focuses on capabilities of work-
force and its problems. This will facilitate in knowing strength
and weakness of the organisation. The focus is more on
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problem side of workforce with the object of improving
performance. The major problems of the work-force are
absenteeism and labour-turnover.
Absenteeism means the failure of the employee to report for
duty. Excessive absenteeism involves a considerable loss to the
enterprise as it affects the work schedules and results in
delays.
To complete work on time this is to be curbed. Labour
Turnover means the relation between the number of persons
joining the organisation and leaving due to resignation,
retirement or retrenchment to the average number on the
pay-roll. Management is to control the high rate of labour
turnover by reducing the avoidable causes of turnover.
Step # 4. Employment Plan:
This refers to the need to prepare programme of recruitment,
selection, training, transfer and promotion that personnel
needs of various departments of the organisation are met.
Step # 5. Training and Development of Personnel:
The preparation of skill inventory helps in identifying the
training and development needs of the organisation. Training
for learning new skills and for refreshing the memory is
necessary not only for new employees but also for old
employees. Executive development programmes have to be
devised for the development of managerial personnel.
Define human resource information system .Write down its
important types and process .
A human resource information system (HRIS) is software that
provides a centralized repository of employee master data that
the human resource management (HRM) group needs for
completing core human resource (core HR) processes.
An HRIS stores, processes and manages employee data, such
as names, addresses, national IDs or Social Security numbers,
visa or work permit information, and information about
dependents. It typically also provides HR functions such as
recruiting, applicant tracking, time and attendance
management, performance appraisals and benefits
administration. It may also feature employee self-service
functions, and perhaps even accounting functions.
In some ways, an HRIS can be considered a smart database of
employee information. The interaction of the data, the
processes that can be performed and the reporting capabilities
make the data stored in the system more accessible and
usable.
HRIS benefits
An HRIS enables the HR department to spend less time on
clerical tasks, helps ensure the accuracy of employee data and
can enable employees to take a greater role in the
management of their information.
Having a centralized repository for employee data removes the
need to store paper files, which can be easily damaged, as well
as the need to search through large paper-based employee
files to find information. Depending on the type of HRIS
software, it may generate various reports, provide ad hoc
reporting capabilities and offer HR analytics on important
metrics such as headcount and turnover. Modern HRIS
software also offers visualization capabilities for employee
data, such as automatically rendered organizational charts or
nine-box grids.
When an HRIS has employee or manager self-service, the
process for making employee master data or organizational
changes becomes more efficient and uses less time than with
paper-based requests. Approval workflows enable changes to
be approved or rejected, with the necessary individuals
automatically notified. An HRIS might also offer mobile
capabilities that extend self-service and provide additional
flexibility for remote workers.
HRIS security and privacy
An HRIS also helps secure employee data and keep information
private. When using paper forms or spreadsheets, information
can easily be accessed by people who may not have the
authority to access it. An HRIS can secure information so that it
can only be accessed by authorized individuals.
Data security and privacy are important factors when handling
sensitive personal information, especially in countries like
Germany or France, where works councils have a strong role in
protecting employee data. With the exception of lock and key,
protecting paper records can be extremely difficult.
Types of HRIS software
A variety of HRIS systems are available and aimed at different
types of customers, ranging from small and medium-sized
businesses (SMBs) all the way up to large enterprises. Usually,
 the difference is in the range and depth of features for each
process area.
While most HRIS systems cover a large portion of the
processes described above, many HRIS systems aimed at small
to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have less depth of
functionality in each feature than those aimed at large
enterprises.In this way, the HRIS market is similar to the
automobile market. All automobiles will get a driver from A to
B, but major differences exist in the quality and amenities
offered.
HRIS functions
As an HR tool, an HRIS usually features modules to handle the
following tasks:
Master data management (MDM)
Organizational management, such as positions and
departments
Employee and manager self-services
Absence and leave management
Benefits administration
Workflows
Performance appraisals
Recruiting and applicant tracking
Compensation management
Training tracking (as opposed to a learning management
system [LMS]) and organizational development
Reporting and basic analytics
An HRIS provides a comprehensive set of human resource
management functionalities to serve most HR needs. Without
this, unsecured or paper-based documents or spreadsheets are
required to store data. Manual data entry can cause errors and
manual cross-checking of documents and spreadsheets can be
time-consuming and sometimes confusing, especially with a
lack of standardization in how data is captured and stored.
Functions of an HRIS
Even when a specific system is purchased to cover a process --
such as benefits administration -- it may mean manually
entering employee data changes to keep the system up to
date. If multiple systems are used, data re-entry may be
required for each system, or users may need to export data
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from one system, change it and then import it into another
system.
In some instances, payroll can be part of an HRIS. However,
many vendors either don't have payroll as part of their HRIS
offering, or -- as with Oracle, Workday and SAP SuccessFactors
-- they sell payroll as a separate system that integrates with
their HRIS.
Importance of HRIS
An HRIS can play a critical role in enabling compliance -- for
example, to store regulatory data for a country, such as U.S.
equal employment opportunity information or U.K. Working
Time opt-out -- and can offer a means of gaining insight into
the workforce. Both are important and, in some industries, are
interwoven.
In addition, downstream integration of systems that require
employee data, such as payroll or LMS, and the immense time
savings from having integrated applications means an HRIS can
serve a critical role, since data entry in multiple systems -- a
reality for organizations without an HRIS -- can lead to costly
errors or reduced employee engagement.
As one example, suppose a company that manually enters HR
data mistakenly overpays employees or gives out too much
vacation time. That company will find employee engagement
negatively affected if the error is reversed, a situation that
could be avoided with an HRIS.
The difference between an HRIS and an HRMS
Exact definitions for HRIS and human resource management
system (HRMS) vary, but many experts take the view that an
HRMS offers greater functionality by adding talent
management and human capital management (HCM) options
to human resource information systems.
The talent management functions often include:
Employee onboarding processes
Succession planning
Career development planning
Learning management
The HCM functions often include:
labor tracking, typically as a system that tracks all necessary
work and distributes that work to workers, often in hourly
roles, such as in manufacturing plants;
time entry and evaluation; and
workforce management.
HRIS analysts
HRIS analysts are highly trained professionals with skills in both
IT and HR, who are responsible for managing the HRIS and
presenting relevant and beneficial data on employee
productivity, attendance, training and pay. HRIS analysts also
ensure IT departments adhere to HR regulations as well as
provide necessary resources to employees and arrange for
appropriate equipment updates. Large organizations may
employ several HRIS analysts to focus on specific HR tasks,
such as employee benefits, compensation or training.
In general, HRIS analysts ensure efficient organization and
presentation of information concerning all features of HR
functions within a company. Some specific benefits HRIS
analysts provide include:
Customer service for both the employee users of the HRIS and
the management users.
Advice based on analysis of HRIS processes and outcomes from
someone who specializes in the program and its performance.
Data entry for the large amounts of employee information that
is gathered.
Assurance that employee information and data is kept
confidential and secure.
Increased accuracy due to the analyst's editing and confirming
of data before it is reported.
year as basis), and statistical analysis (central tendency
measure).
Work Load Analysis: It is dependent upon the nature of work
load in a department, in a branch or in a division.
Work Force Analysis: Whenever production and time period
has to be analysed, due allowances have to be made for
getting net manpower requirements.
Other methods: Several Mathematical models, with the aid of
computers are used to forecast manpower needs, like budget
and planning analysis, regression, new venture analysis.
Developing employment programmes- Once the current
inventory is compared with future forecasts, the employment
programmes can be framed and developed accordingly, which
will include recruitment, selection procedures and placement
plans.
Design training programmes- These will be based upon extent
of diversification, expansion plans, development
 programmes,etc. Training programmes depend upon the All the recruitment and selection programmes are based on
extent of improvement in technology and advancement to manpower planning.
take place. It is also done to improve upon the skills, It also helps to reduce the labour cost as excess staff can be
capabilities, knowledge of the workers. identified and thereby overstaffing can be avoided.
Importance of Manpower Planning It also helps to identify the available talents in a concern and
Key to managerial functions- The four managerial functions, accordingly training programmes can be chalked out to
i.e., planning, organizing, directing and controlling are based develop those talents.
upon the manpower. Human resources help in the It helps in growth and diversification of business. Through
implementation of all these managerial activities. Therefore, manpower planning, human resources can be readily available
staffing becomes a key to all managerial functions. and they can be utilized in best manner.
Efficient utilization- Efficient management of personnels It helps the organization to realize the importance of
becomes an important function in the industrialization world manpower management which ultimately helps in the stability
of today. Seting of large scale enterprises require management of a concern.
of large scale manpower. It can be effectively done through
staffing function.
Motivation- Staffing function not only includes putting right
men on right job, but it also comprises of motivational
programmes, i.e., incentive plans to be framed for further
participation and employment of employees in a concern.
Therefore, all types of incentive plans becomes an integral part
of staffing function.
Better human relations- A concern can stabilize itself if human
relations develop and are strong. Human relations become
strong trough effective control, clear communication, effective
supervision and leadership in a concern. Staffing function also
looks after training and development of the work force which
leads to co-operation and better human relations.
Higher productivity- Productivity level increases when
resources are utilized in best possible manner. higher
productivity is a result of minimum wastage of time, money,
efforts and energies. This is possible through the staffing and
it's related activities ( Performance appraisal, training and
development, remuneration)
Need of Manpower Planning
Manpower Planning is a two-phased process because
manpower planning not only analyses the current human
resources but also makes manpower forecasts and thereby
draw employment programmes. Manpower Planning is
advantageous to firm in following manner:
Shortages and surpluses can be identified so that quick action
can be taken wherever required.
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