Human Resource Planning at Quebec-Telephone Thierry Wils, University of Quebec (Hull), Christiane Labelle, University of Ottawa and Jean-Yves Le Louarn, H.E.C., Montreal Executive Summary The human resource planning function has traditionally been viewed as an activity present in large organizations. More recently, smaller companies have begun to realize that more systematic planning of their employees’ mobility may be useful for indi- vidual and organizational effectiveness. This case study demonstrates that human resource planning is possible for medium-sized organizations, and in regulated, unionized environments. We describe how a human resource planning system has evolved within Quebec-Telephone and suggest how planners in medium-sized companies can benefit from Quebec-Telephone’s experience. Tn March of 1985, the Association of Human Resources Professionals of the Province of Quebec (Canada) awarded to Quebec-Telephone its prize for excellence in recognition of the company’s compre- hensive evaluation program for manage- ment personnel (La Presse, 29-03-85). This program is one phase of a much broader human resources planning (HRP) project being implemented by Quebec-Telephone. The existence of such a project might not seem surprising were it not for Quebec-Telephone’s relatively small size. It does not belong to the ranks of the very large Canadian corporations: in 1983, Quebec-Telephone had annual earnings of $151,516,000, it had 2,023 employees, and it ranked 373rd among Canada’s top 500 companies (La Revue Commerce, June 1984). In this article, we present the results of a longitudinal case study covering the accumulated human resources planning. experience of this medium-sized firm during a ten-year period (1974-84). Data collection and secondary data analyses were carried out in June and July, 1984. During a subsequent six-week period, the researchers analyzed internal Human Resources Department documents and conducted 30 semi-structured interviews lasting an average of three hours. After we describe the evolution of HRP at Quebec-Telephone, we will describe the subsystems for manpower and career planning. The closing discussion will focus on the major challenges we believe the company’s human resources planners will confront in the coming years. The Evolution of HRP at Quebec-Telephone How did human resources planning (HRP) get started at Quebec-Telephone? Before examining the emergence and consolidation of HRP, we will briefly describe the company and its operating environment, as these contextual factors will help readers more clearly under- stand the evolution of the HRP function in this particular corporate setting. Description of Quebec-Telephone Active in the telecommunications field since 1927, Quebec-Telephone, like other telephone companies, has sought to "The authors would like to thank Emilien Demers and Jean-Pierre Bolduc both from Quebec-Telephone. The study was made possible thanks toa grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AT QUEBEC-TELEPHONE 255—_—.5 extend its telephone services to as many users as possible. Based in the city of Rimouski (Quebec, Canada), Quebec- Telephone provides telephone service to some 500,000 customers spread over a territory representing 40% of the inhab- ited area of the Province of Quebec (ie., Quebec City and its environs, as well as the Lower St. Lawrence, Gaspesie and the North Shore regions). In addition, Quebec-Telephone offers such services as teleprocessing, word processing, mobile radiocommunication, and transmission of data and television signals. Since 1966, through its intermediary, the Anglo-Canadian Telephone Com- pany, Quebec-Telephone has been part of General Telephone & Electronic (GTE). This multinational corporation ranked 1st among the 50 largest U.S. utilities in 1986, with assets of $27.4 billion (Fortune, 1988). Under provincial jurisdiction, Quebec-Telephone is monopolistic. Its activities are subject to regulation by the “Régie des services publics du Québec” (the province's public utilities board.) ‘The company operates mainly in a stable, traditional, and saturated market. Its major business objective is to be as efficient as other companies operating in the same industry. One way to achieve this objective is through technological changes and rational administrative decision-making. The following decisions illustrate this. First, the introduction of technological changes contributed to improvements in productivity by replacing labor (e.g., operators) with machines. Second, the centralization of all technical training activities within the human resource department helped to increase efficiency. Third, over the years, the company gradually evolved into an increasingly centralized, functional structure, in which the “finance/accounting” and “engineering” functions were given a prominent role. The Emergence of the HRP System How did the idea of implementing a human resources planning system at Quebec-Telephone come about? What factors or events contributed to its emer- gence? Unfortunately, there exist few studies on human resources planning that can help us answer these questions. In the early 1970's, the company was operating in a conventional telecommu- nications market, which was at that time expanding and full of promise. For Quebec-Telephone, this meant growth in both its annual earnings and staffing levels. Yet Quebec-Telephone succeeded in containing the labor costs. It has increased earnings without substantially increasing staffing levels, as shown in Exhibit 1. In order to oversee and manage this controlled growth in manpower levels, the company assigned a number of its human resources professionals to the hiring of personnel. After analyzing the patterns of personnel movement, these same professionals came to the conclu- sion that adopting a more comprehen- sive, macroscopic, anticipative human resources strategy would enable them to manage the staffing function more effectively. At Quebec-Telephone, then, the decision to resort to human resources planning was not the result of a crisis situation, such as the layoffs at the Corning Glass Works, nor was it the product of fears about shortages of managerial talent, as in the case of American Hospital Supply (Dyer, 1985). It was the outcome of a desire to rational- ize staffing decisions. This rationalization of staffing via human resources planning was made possible by the arrival at Quebec-Telephone of two young indus- trial relations graduates who were firmly committed to the concept of planning. These two professionals set about intro- ducing this new human resources man- 256 HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING, VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4Exhibit 1 Trends in Annual Earnings and Staffing Levels Since 1970 ‘Annual Earnings Total Personnel Year (in millions) to December 31st 1970 28,363 1,604 1971 30,954 1,648 1972 37,484 1,758 1973 42,618 1,952 1974 47,451 1,956 1975 56,570 2,055 1976 64,692 2,054 1977 77,191 2,081 1978 84,136 2,199 1979 101,303, 2,208 1980 112,000 2,195 1981 130,884 2,166 1982 139,587 2,036 1983 151,516 2,023 1984 174,066 1,993 Source: Annual Reports. agement approach to the company’s line officers, eventually persuading them to accept its implementation at Quebec- Telephone. Similarly, as one of the company’s human resources planners has argued, a critical role in reinforcing the importance of HRP and in aiding practitioners to clarify the HR planning process conceptually was played by the published writings of academicians, notably those of Gilles Guerin in Quebec (Guérin, 1975, 1980). The dialogue be- tween human resources professionals and line managers concerning the merit of HRP as a vehicle for rationalizing the staffing function continued until 1974. This was followed by a three-year period of informal collaboration (1975-78) on a prototype program for the company. In 1978 the decision was made to undertake a formal HRP program at Quebec-Telephone. As its opening salvo, top management decided to improve efficiency by centralizing all training ac- tivities, which had formerly been di persed across several company divisions. At this stage, the informal prototype program prepared by human resources staff, as well as the staff's energetic advo- cacy of a newer and more anticipatory approach to management via HRP, were instrumental in persuading top manage- ment of the wisdom of linking the HRP program to the newly-created adminis- trative entity responsible for training (mainly technical in nature) within the human resources department. As it happened, top management was espe- cially receptive to this new human resources management approach because the telecommunications industry was then entering an era of rapid technologi- cal change. For the HR practitioners, it was seen as a means to better integrate human resources activities. In this con- text, in 1978 an administrative unit was set up to handle manpower development. HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AT QUEBEC-TELEPHONE 257The Consolidation of the HRP System Once the manpower development unit had been set up, human resources plan- ning began to take root, aided considera- bly by three factors. The first of these was the decision by Quebec-Telephone’s top management to go before the province's public utilities board, where Quebec- Telephone argued that investing in its human capital—by such means as train- ing, career planning, and manpower forecasting—was essential if the com- pany was to deal effectively with the technological and social challenges that lay ahead. Once rate increases were obtained, it became even easier for the company’s human resources staff to continue “selling” the HRP concept and obtaining the necessary resource allocations. A second factor vital to success was the composition of the team responsible for implementing the project. On the one hand, the project director was very open in his dealings with subordinates and allowed a great deal of autonomy to HR planners. As for the planners themselves, their competencies were complementary: the team was composed of one conceptu- ally-oriented manager, one action- oriented practitioner who was committed to promoting the achievements of HRP, and one specialist who was particularly interested in the latest applications of HRP technologies. The complementarity of the team members enabled them to implement the kinds of HRP actions that lent credibility to the project. A third and final factor that served to reinforce the position of HRP within the company was the stance taken by the parent company, GTE, which sought to persuade its subsidiaries of the necessity of better human resources planning. In 1979, four members of Quebec- Telephone’s human resources staff were specifically assigned to the task of devel- oping a formal HRP project. From 1980 onward, the company’s manpower planning staff embarked on a series of meetings with their “opposite numbers” in several corporations that enjoyed solid reputations in the practice of HRP (e.g., Bell Canada, Canadian National Rail- ways, Air Canada). It is interesting to note that Quebec-Telephone’s initiatives in this area led to the creation (in July 1980) of an advisory committee on human resources planning. Its goals were to share experiences in HRP and other aspects of human resources management and to facilitate information exchanges among human resources planners em- ployed by such companies as Steinberg Foods Ltd., Canadian National Railways, Hydro-Quebec, and (since 1983) the Alcan and Domtar corporations. In addition, Quebec-Telephone’s career planning specialists consulted the theo- retical works of a number of American authors, such as Burack and Walker (1972), and gathered information about practical experiences in HRP from com- panies such as GTE-Florida. Information from diverse sources was brought to- gether in a central repository in 1981. Several internal documents of HRP were drafted, which attempted to clarify both theory and practice as they related to Quebec-Telephone’s particular needs and organizational culture. It was at this stage that human resources planners began conceptualizing HRP as a mecha- nism for articulating the company’s diverse human resource activities, and Quebec-Telephone’s top management began perceiving the utility of HRP to the company’s survival. Following the drafting of the internal documents in 1981, the company decided that the first order of business was to deploy its preliminary efforts along two main lines: the manpower planning subsystem and the career planning subsystem. Although the mandate underpinning the manpower planning function derives directly from the terms of the initial implementation project, the 258 HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING, VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4mandate for career planning came about via a somewhat more circuitous route. In the latter case, the initial impetus toward formal career planning as a component of human resources planning came from top management's decision in 1980 that the administrative unit responsible for human resources development should completely rethink the company's per- formance evaluation system. After reflecting on human resources manage- ment in the planning context, human resources planners proposed that the scope of their initial mandate be enlarged to include such concepts as “potential,” “career,” and “employee development.” They regarded these data as essential to the study of the organization’s internal manpower supply. This new and en- larged mandate enabled the planners to set up a career planning subsystem (or comprehensive evaluation program for managerial personnel) in addition to the manpower planning subsystem initially envisioned. With this background in mind, we may now examine more clearly how these two HRP subsystems have evolved since 1981 The Manpower Planning Subsystem System designers working in the man- power planning area did their best to see that analytical advances were not made at the expense of practical realities. On the analytical front, they worked to develop a bank of historical data regard- ing human resources. At the same time, the company’s more practical concerns were addressed by the creation of manpower planning committees, which were intended to aid in resolving the ad hoc staffing problems that arose. In both cases, human resources planners directed their efforts to all categories of employees. The Manpower Planning Committees Beginning in 1980, human resources planners were called upon to deal with the problem of surplus telephone opera- tors, a problem brought about by techno- logical change. At Quebec-Telephone, the problem of surplus telephone operators was not a new one—their numbers had already been declining for a number of years. Because of the social and political ramifications of layoffs in small commu- nities where jobs are scarce, planners set up their first manpower planning com- mittee to deal with the telephone opera- tors. In cooperation with line managers, they helped develop humane solutions, such as convincing the company to spread out implementation over time. It could be argued that, in its handling of the telephone operator surplus, Quebec- Telephone used a “reactive” rather than an “anticipatory” problem-solving ap- proach. It was responding to existing rather than anticipated human resources problems. Such an approach proved to be feasible in this case, no doubt because the operators were not key resources that posed a threat to technological change. With the advent of the 1980's, the telecommunications field began experi- encing even more intense technological change (Fombrun and Astley, 1983), which served to further accentuate the importance of human resources plan- ning. A case in point is the replacement of electromechanical transmission sys- tems by the newer digital technology, a development which has had profound effects on manpower and related human resources activities. In order to anticipate the impact of digital technology on human resources, a manpower planning committee for commutation was created in 1980. This committee’s review of the situation revealed that the new digital technology threatened to bring about a decline in staffing levels for certain employee categories and a transforma- HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AT QUEBEC-TELEPHONE 259tion of the kinds of job skills required for other categories (e.g., decreases in skills required for maintenance jobs, increases in skills required for technical jobs). With a view toward minimizing the impact of digital technology on human resources, the committee put together an action plan that had the twin objectives of avoiding growth in staffing levels (through the use of overtime or tempo- rary workers) and facilitating the recon- version of employees affected by techno- logical change (through retraining or job transfers). The manpower planning committee for commutation, active throughout 1980 and 1981, can be consid- ered a good example of cooperation between human resources planners and line managers on HRP issues. In all, five manpower planning com- mittees were created in 1980. Unfortu- nately, all five did not function with as much success as the committee for com- mutation. In one case, the lack of interest by certain line managers led the human resources planners to demand that the committee be disbanded altogether. The Construction of a Human Resources Data Bank While practical measures were being taken to resolve the ad hoc staffing problems that surfaced from time to time, manpower forecasters were busy with the analytical task of assembling a bank of historical data on human re- sources and carrying out a number of “quick and dirty” analyses that would lay the groundwork for the use of statisti- cal techniques in forecasting internal manpower supply (e.g., Markov chains). The construction of the data bank was aided substantially by GTE’s policy of insisting that its subsidiaries regularly provide status reports on the manpower situation (known as Form S-5010) as well as explanations of any marked variations in employee turnover. Although GTE ceased requiring, the submission of these status reports in 1975, Quebec-Telephone has continued keeping these data current and compiling a number of manpower statistics. Thanks partly to the “adminis- trative burden” imposed by GTE, and partly to the willingness of Quebec- Telephone’s human resources staff to keep on with data collection, the company’s human resources department today possesses a rich store of time-series data going back to 1970 on staffing trends and patterns, internal mobility, and turnover for the various personnel categories. Since 1980, human resources planners have also been collecting environmental data on such subjects as office technology and procedures, economic issues, and women’s employment. It was only in 1982, however, that analysts began putting these data to various analytical uses. Included among these analyses were several studies on employee turn- over (trimestrial reports) and internal mobility. Progressively, the bank of historical data came to be used for the forecasting of internal manpower availabilities. A number of ad hoc studies were carried out, either for internal use at Quebec- Telephone (e.g., a study forecasting retirement trends in support of the company’s early retirement program) or by request from GTE (e.g., a study fore- casting the supply of engineers). Proba- bly because the company lacked a com- puterized data processing system, not to mention the human skills required to run such a system, its manpower planners preferred to limit themselves to the production of descriptive statistics and a number of ad hoc forecasting studies on the internal manpower supply situation. On the demand side, manpower fore- casting was begun in 1981, and since that time three triennal plans (1982-84, 1983- 85, 1984-86) have been carried out. These reports, each about 100 pages in length, present the manpower requirements 260. HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING, VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4forecasts together with descriptive statistics on the current state on internal manpower availabilities (such as tables on employee tumover or personnel distributions by age). In 1981 and 1982, data for the manpower demand forecasts prepared by line managers were gath- ered twice yearly, once by the human resources department and once by the budget department. In 1983, however, in order to lighten the workload of line managers and avoid duplications of effort, an agreement was reached be- tween the human resources and budget departments whereby data on human and financial resources would be com- piled no more than once a year. For forecasting techniques, some line managers seem to prefer simple quantita- tive indicators, such as ratios (number of line hours/line), while others have more confidence in techniques based on judg- ment and experience. According to manpower planners, whatever the analytical approach used, forecasts made by line managers tend to be conservative. This is no doubt explained in part by the economic conjuncture (i.e., the recession of 1982) and by the conservative system of values prevailing in the company. It may also be a byproduct of the con- straints inherent in collective agreements (e.g,, seniority, bumping), that tend to cause line managers to hesitate about making accurate forecasts—especially forecasts of declining staff levels—for fear of losing good employees with low seniority. Finally, line managers also seem reluctant to incorporate anticipated structural changes into their manpower forecasts. The combined effect of all these factors is that forecasts of manpower requirements tend to be more a reflection of the status quo than a realistic guide to changing human resources needs. To sum up, the creation of a man- power planning subsystem at Quebec- Telephone was aided considerably by its parent company, GTE, which helped to justify the adoption of HRP (by request- ing ad hoc studies) and facilitated the development of a manpower data bank (by requiring the submission of status reports). GTE also contributed by regu- larly supplying its subsidiary with data on environmental trends and develop- ments and on recruitment costs by personnel category, information which served to stimulate and inform Quebec- Telephone’s human resources staff. GTE also offered seminars in HRP and a number of Quebec-Telephone’s human resources staff members have partici- pated. However, as important as GTE’s initiatives in this regard have been, its role has been mainly facilitative. The critical nature of efforts by Quebec- Telephone’s human resources staff—in defending the idea of anticipatory human resources management and using to the best advantage the assistance offered by the parent company—should not be underestimated. Since 1984, the company’s human resources planners have been concen- trating mainly on forecasting in-house manpower supply so as to reconcile supply and demand forecasts. Concur- rently with its manpower forecasting activities, the company has also set up a career planning subsystem, as described below. The Career Planning Subsystem As a recipient in 1985 of the IRIS trophy from the Association of Human Resources Professionals of the Province of Quebec, Quebec-Telephone was honored for excellence in the design and implementation of its comprehensive evaluation program for managerial personnel (Document P, May 1985). The basic aim of this evaluation program, which targets managerial personnel only (managers, unionized and non-unionized professionals), is to integrate the various human resources activities, such as HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AT QUEBEC-TELEPHONE 261performance evaluation, evaluation of potential, training and development, and career planning. And, so the philosophy goes, better integration of these activities benefits the employee as much as the company. For the company, this might involve improving its ability to respond to problems arising from technological change (e.g., obsolescence), while for employees the program might be di- rected toward enhancing their possibili- ties for personal development. As was the case for the manpower planning subsystem, human resources planners sought to strike a balance between analytic and practical objectives. On the analytic front, they concentrated on the design of measurement and diagnostic tools and the development of a data bank. On the practical front, they attacked the concrete problem of per- formance evaluation. Design and Implementation of a New Performance Evaluation Too! In 1980, human resources staff were asked by top management to rethink the entire performance evaluation process, because the existing one had been judged too subjective and not entirely fair. This request coincided with the thinking of the human resources planners. They were convinced that an excellent per- formance evaluation system was an essential prerequisite to the smooth functioning of the career planning proc- ess, a point of view supported by the work of Dyer (1983, 1985). Human resources planners opted for an evaluation method based on the principle of “management by objectives. Aided by an evaluation form, supervi- sors and their subordinates begin each year by discussing and agreeing upon objectives concerning maintenance, innovation, and, if applicable, manage- ment. At the end of each year they evaluate together the results achieved and the execution of the employee's regular duties, taking into account the context in which the work was carried out. In the course of the evaluation, they identify the reasons why certain objec- tives may have been met only partially or not at all. The evaluation form also contains a section titled “joint career and development plan,” which is filled out jointly by the supervisor and subordi- nate. This section specifies the principal action recommendations for the employee's development. Realizing that the performance evalu- ation instrument would not, by itself, guarantee better quality evaluations, human resources planners drafted a manual that explains the process in detail. Information and training sessions were also organized to familiarize all 166 evaluators with the new approach. In order to encourage acceptance of the program, the reasons for the new system were personally explained to employees by the CEO, who presented the new concept by means of a videocassette disseminated throughout the company. Design and Implementation of the Career Planning Subsystem In order to maintain its ability to match employees with suitable jobs, Quebec- Telephone set up a career planning program composed of five parts: the “employee file,” the “job file,” the career interview, the individually-tailored career plan, and the identification of employee training and development needs. Exhibit 2 illustrates how these parts interrelate. Since 1980, human resource planners have equipped themselves with instru- ments for gathering data on individuals and jobs to constitute a data bank of very high quality. Data gathered about indi- vidual employees includes personal characteristics (e.g,, training received, experience acquired, languages spoken and/or written, work performance, 262 HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING, VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4Exhibit 2 Model of the Career Planning Program EMPLOYEE FILE —— CAREER INTERVIEW Employee-Supervisor JOB FILE — INDIVIDUALLY-TAILORED. Career plan IDENTIFICATION OF EMPLOYEE TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT NEEDS personal interests) and the individual’s potential for development. These data were transcribed into an “employee file” (see Exhibit 2). Data relating to individual potential were of greatest interest to human re- sources planners. At Quebec-Telephone, individual potential is measured by means of several instruments: a self- study questionnaire, several psychomet- ric tests, and an evaluation-of-potential questionnaire based on observations of behavior in the work setting. The self- evaluation questionnaire, titled “the self- study guide,” is intended to help em- ployees explore the relationship between key aspects of their personal lives (e.g., preferences, leisure-time activities, family life), their career plans (e.g., aspirations, strong and weak points), and Quebec- Telephone (e.g., employer's expectations, specific job requirements). Three psychometric tests are used to collect information concerning the employee's personality (16 PF. test, Institute for Personality and Ability Testing), management style (Bordeleau’s questionnaire on personnel management style), and personal interests (Kuder’s professional interests scale). The evalu- ation of potential is based on observa- tions of the employee’s work behavior. A questionnaire is filled out by the super- visor every two years. For reliability purposes, this state-of-the art instrument elicits the same data as those measured psychometrically. The questionnaire evaluates the employee in terms of a number of personal characteristics that are thought to be predictors of occupa- tional success, namely, interpersonal relations, decision-making, leadership, creativity, etc. With these data in hand, the career counselor first proceeds to reconcile the individual's own view of his or her potential (i.e., the self-evalu- ation questionnaire and psychometric data) with the superior’s observation- HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AT QUEBEC-TELEPHONE 263based assessment. From this, an individ- ual profile is developed, which is then transmitted directly to the employee with a copy sent to the immediate supervisor. The job-related data reported on the “job file” pertain equally to the tasks and requirements stipulated in the job de- scription and job profile and to the psychological characteristics required by the job. These psychological characteris- tics are, by necessity, identical to those measured by the psychometric tests and the work behavior observation question- naire. (For obvious reasons, a data gath- ering exercise of this sort required that the job analysis process be completely redone from the beginning for all the company’s jobs). Each “job file” records the employee's occupational code, as well as its relationship with the relevant job family, so as to situate each job within a logical, predetermined career progression. As described in Exhibit 2, the rationale underlying the career planning exercise is to compare individual profiles with job profiles in order to obtain the best match between jobs and jobholders. Hence, it is important to obtain the highest quality data possible on both. At Quebec-Tele- phone, the functioning of the career planning process is greatly facilitated by the use of the computer. Those respon- sible for career planning have developed a computer program called PLANCA (from its French Title, PLAN de CArriére), which enables planners to compare individual and job profiles to the mutual potential benefit of the company and its employees. From the employee's point of view, the program is useful because it identifies those jobs within the company that are potentially accessible to each employee, taking into account his or her current job. This matching is done so that employees can easily discover the gaps between their present skills and those required for jobs they may aspire to, thereby enabling them to plan their training and development efforts more efficiently and effectively. In this way, each managerial employee, in coopera- tion with the immediate supervisor and the career counselor, can develop an individually-tailored career plan. It is important to note, however, that the PLANCA system can only provide information to the employee; it is the employee who decides what, if anything, to do with that information. The original- ity of the PLANCA system lies in the fact that the individually-tailored career plan put together by each employee may or may not follow the logical progression prescribed by the computer program. Obviously, in those cases where the employee's personalized plan departs from the pre-ordained path, the discrep- ancies between the individual and job profiles will be all the more significant and difficult to reconcile. Notwithstand- ing this drawback, this personalized career planning approach permits the company to respect the personal choices of its employees, who are regarded as primarily responsible for their own career development. The supervisor and the career counselor are there to assist the employee in charting his or her own course. The obvious advantage to the com- pany of the PLANCA approach is that it can more easily and accurately pinpoint the best-suited candidates for any given vacant or potentially vacant position. Discussion ‘The description of the HRP system adopted at Quebec-Telephone suggests that company planners have favored a form of human resources planning that is operational, rather than strategic, in nature. They have focused more on the study of internal manpower supply than on manpower requirements. Similarly, they have put more emphasis on analysis, particularly on the analysis of 261 HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING [UME 11, NUMBER 4internal manpower supply, than of fore- casting. The emphasis given to operational rather than strategic planning concerns can be explained by at least two factors. First, since no formal system of planning existed at Quebec-Telephone in 1978, it would have been quite difficult—not to mention strategically awkward, given the context that gave rise to the decision to undertake HRP—to go about designing and implementing a comprehensive human resources planning system. Second, since operational HRP was at that point much more advanced, both in theory and in practice, than strategic HRP, the company’s planners felt more competent and more at ease designing and setting up an operational form of HRP system. Similarly, the decision to concentrate on the analysis of in-house manpower supply rather than forecasts of man- power requirements was influenced by at least three factors. First, it is generally recognized that manpower demand is much more difficult to predict than manpower supply (Guérin, 1980). Sec- ond, in contrast to many companies on the verge of adopting HRP, Quebec- Telephone possessed from the very beginning (1978) much more extensive data on the company’s manpower supply than on its future requirements. Finally, because forecasting manpower require- ments requires more cooperation from line managers than does forecasting supply, the company’s human resources planners felt obliged to go slowly in enlisting the aid of line managers in the planning project. This incremental strat- egy was instrumental in assuring the credibility of the program and fore- stalling its premature rejection by over- burdened line managers. How, then, would one characterize the type of HRP that is practiced at Quebec- Telephone? Dyer’s model (1985), based on several case studies, identifies two basic types of HRP: the comprehensive approach and the focused approach. If we examine the company’s HRP system in light of Dyer’s criteria, it appears to conform more closely to his conception of a focused approach. The basic aim of the program is to facilitate management of the staffing function; it is not intended either to ease planning and control of the numerous manpower-related decisions or to determine the choice of human resources activities. The program's planning scope is short-term rather than long-term. Operational HRP is independ- ent of the company-wide strategic plan- ning process. According to Dyer, the focused approach to HRP typically targets only a segment of the firm’s employees (notably, managerial employ- ees) whereas the comprehensive ap- proach concerns all personnel categories. In the case of Quebec-Telephone, this criterion is only partially applicable, for, although career planning is limited to managers, the company’s manpower forecasting activities extend to all em- ployees. It is interesting to note in this connection Dyer’s hypothesis that HRP programs tend to evolve over time from a focused to a comprehensive scope, which leads us to surmise that Quebec- Telephone’s program may well be ina transition phase. According to the literature on the life cycles of planning systems (Higgins, 1983), a strategic planning system typi- cally passes through three different phases: a conceptualization stage (1-3 years), a design and implementation stage (4-8 years), and a maturity stage (9 years or more). The present case study suggests that the life cycle concept may be pertinent to HRP systems. For in- stance, as described earlier, Quebec- Telephone’s human resources planners HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AT QUEBEC-TELEPHONE 265began by engaging in a process of infor- mal reflection and conceptualization (see the description of the emergence and consolidation of HRP), which lasted from 1976 to 1980. This was followed by a design phase and, in 1980, by the begin- ning of an implementation stage. Given the accomplishments of the program to date, it appears that the company’s HRP system has now reached the end of this second phase. For a number of reasons, it also seems likely that this system will continue to evolve toward maturity. First, as previously mentioned, the program's manpower planning compo- nent encompasses all personnel, which Dyer suggests is one of the prerequisites of a more global, and presumably more mature, approach to HRP. Second, Quebec-Telephone is currently contem- plating the possibility of undertaking strategic planning of its human re- sources. In this connection, the authors have prepared a preliminary report, borrowing from the Miles and Snow (1978) typology, linking various types of corporate growth strategies (e.g., de- fender, analyzer) with various possible human resources profiles and activities. These have been presented to the company’s vice-president for human resources management and legal affairs. The two aforementioned indicators suggest that Quebec-Telephone’s human resources planners are trying to move the company toward a more comprehensive HRP approach. For this reason, Dyer’s hypothesis of the evolution of HRP systems from a focused to a comprehen- sive perspective seems to offer a promis- ing avenue for future research. One might usefully ask: Are there types of HRP that fall between the focused and the comprehensive approaches? What are the contextual factors that explain the transition from one type of HRP to, another? What factors influence a given program’s tendency to adhere to the status quo or regress to a preceding stage of development? Conclusion A number of challenges lie ahead for Quebec-Telephone’s HRP program in both the manpower forecasting realm and in the career planning program. For manpower forecasting, the company needs to computerize its system and use statistical techniques in order to derive maximum benefit from its rich store of human resources data. This transforma- tion will no doubt require the acquisition of new skills by members of its manage- ment team. In addition, the forecasts of manpower requirements now prepared by line managers will have to be im- proved, which will certainly mean upgrading their awareness and skills in the forecasting area. Although certain managers are already cognizant of the importance of HRP, as demonstrated by the experience of the manpower plan- ning committee on commutation, others are not. Finally, human resources plan- ners will have to be careful to avoid the trap of “bureaucratization’” if they are to succeed in stimulating and sustaining, line manager's interest in the program. One area of improvement should focus ‘on the company’s reports of its three- year plans, which are far too long and too encumbered with statistics. These reports may be useful within the human resources department, but it would be sensible to simplify and summarize their contents in order to improve their utility for line managers. The company’s human resources staff members are conscious of this problem and have been trying to correct it since 1985. In our view, there are challenges that must be faced in the career planning sphere as well. The first of these is the fact that career planning must be carried out within a context of declining growth: for several years now, manpower levels at Quebec-Telephone have been decreas- ing, jobs have been frozen, and internal mobility has been seriously restricted. 266 HUMAN RESOURC NNING, VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4In such circumstances, human resources planners must see to it that managerial personnel do not lose interest in the career planning program. A related challenge concerns career planning for unionized employees. In 1984, rank-and-file employees negotiated a broadening of the bumping clause of their collective agreement, which had the effect of circumscribing the latitude enjoyed by human resources planners in making decisions involving the move- ment of personnel. A third challenge awaiting the atten- tion of human resources planners involves working on the forecasting of manpower requirements. “Job file” forms, as presently constituted, provide space for estimating the number of positions that will either exist or be created in the future. If the quality of these estimates is to be improved, the training of line managers must be up- graded. In our view, it would be equally desirable to involve human resources planners more closely in decisions about structural changes (ie., in planning at the organizational level) so that they are able to verify the validity of the forecasts made by line managers. Because the implementation of the HRP system has barely begun, it would be premature to evaluate its perform- ance. Up to know, the system has not yet contributed as fully as it might to improving the integration of human resources activities. Although the initial objective was to use HRP as a means of coordinating human resources decisions, this objective was never achieved in practice because such decisions are typically made outside the HRP process (which is, as we have seen, operational in nature at Quebec-Telephone). This observation raises a number of funda- mental questions: Is it possible to have an operational HRP system in the absence of strategic HRP? To what degree is it possible to forecast manpower require- ments without full knowledge of the organization’s strategic plans or goals? To what extent can operational man- power planning instigate changes neces- sary for meeting future human resources challenges when the strategic changes anticipated by the organization are unknown or only partially known? On balance, however, it could be said that the HRP system implemented to date has assisted the firm to direct its efforts in human resources management towards the achievement of corporate goals. At the macro level, the manpower planning, subsystem attempted to resolve staffing fluctuations resulting from technological changes (e.g,, through manpower plan- ning committees). At the micro level, the career planning subsystem helped mesh employee and corporate objectives via a comprehensive evaluation program. Thus, the major contribution of the overall human resources planning sys- tem was to generate more effective solutions to operational problems created by the implementation of the business strategy. In all likelihood, this is an advantage that a human resources planning system may offer to other medium-sized firms. The human resources planning system had another positive impact, one that may be somewhat more specific to Quebec-Telephone, namely enhancing the reputation of its human resources department. HRP helped improve com- munications between human resource professionals and middle and senior line managers. For instance, labor demand forecasting induced line managers to clarify their plans. Career planning stimulated senior management to com- municate corporate objectives. The HRP system helped improve labor-manage- ment relations because human resources professionals could use more accurate and complete information on issues such as staffing. This facilitated discussions and agreements with the union. Thus, HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AT QUEBEC-TELEPHONE 267HRP encouraged a dialogue with all actors. At the same time, it gave the human resources managers the opportu- nity to demonstrate their professionalism and won them the respect and trust of others. The net effect was to enhance the human resources department's image. The decision by the Association of Hu- man Resources Professionals of the Province of Quebec to award its IRIS trophy to Quebec-Telephone reinforced this image of professionalism of the company’s human resources planners in designing and implementing their com- prehensive evaluation program for managerial personnel. However, the introduction of the HRP system would have been facilitated if the human resources planners had been able to systematically convince senior man- agement of all its benefits. At first, this experience taught them the necessity of speaking in financial terms to senior managers in order to sell their program. Top management's consent is but a first step. Solid support is essential. This depends on whether human resources planners can demonstrate the benefits of the activity to the business as more and more concrete, positive results are ob- tained. If the initial involvement stops being supported over the years, senior management will hesitate to spend additional human and financial resources References on the project. Survival of the program may then be at stake. Human resources planners at Quebec-Telephone experi- enced the above as they were unable to maintain senior management's support for the human resources planning activ- ity. Fewer resources then became avail- able to them. As a result, they could not maintain the quality of their own resources, i.e., those committed to the human resources planning activity. For instance, when one of the professionals moved out of the human resources department, he could be replaced only by a less qualified person. Such types of decisions evidently slowed down the implementation of the activity. At the same time, it reduced the positive effect the human resources planning program had had initially on the reputation of the human resources department. This situation is now being rectified in the hope that the activity will continue on its earlier course. However, it may take some time before the initial momentum is regained. Thus, human resources planners at Quebec-Telephone learned another important lesson, that is, the necessity of maintaining the appropriate competence level of their team in order to make their human resources planning program a success in both the short and the long run. Burack, Elmer H. and James W. Walker (eds). Manpower Planning and Program- ming. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1972). Document P, “Résultats du concours IRIS,” APRHQ, 8 (9), 1985: 8-9. Dyer, Lee, “A New View of Human Resource Planning,” Research Docu- ment, Cornell/HRPS, 1985. Dyer, Lee, “Human Resource Planning at ‘Corning Glass Works,” Research Docu- ment, Comell/HRPS, 1983. Fombrun, Charles and W. Graham Astley, “Strategies of Collective Action.” In Advances in Strategic Man- agement, R. Lamb (Ed.), vol. 2. (Greenwich: JI Press, 1983: 125-139). 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