BS 621:HUMAN RESOURCE

MANAGEMENT

TOPIC 2: HRP
 The Concept
• HRP may be defined as the process of
anticipating and making provision for the
movement of people into, within, and out
of the work organisation (Ngirwa, 20…).
• Bulla and Scott (1994), define HRP as ‘the
process for ensuring that the HR
requirements of an organization are
identified and plans are made for
satisfying those requirements.
 The Link between HRP and
Business Planning
• The strategic/business planning process defines
the following:
 projected changes in the business
 types of activities to be carried out by the
organization
 scale of the future organization’s activities.
• It further identifies the core competences (in
terms of skill and behaviour) the organization
needs so as to achieve its goals
• Human resource planning interprets these plans
in terms of people requirements.
 Importance of HRP
As proposed by Farnham (2006):
• It encourages employers to develop a
clear and explicit links between their
business and HR plans and to integrate
the two more effectively.
• It allows for better control over staffing and
staffing costs.
 Importance of HRP
• It enables employers to make more
informed judgements about the skills and
attitude mix in organizations.
• HRP also provides a profile of current staff
in terms of age, sex, disability, etc so as to
move towards being an equal opportunity
organization.
 The Process of hrp
1. Scenario planning
• It is simply an assessment of the
environmental changes that are likely to
affect the organization.
• Basing on scenario planning, a prediction
can be made on the possible situations
that may have to be dealt with in the
future.
 HRP: The Process
• The scenario planning is based on
systematic environmental scanning,
possibly using the PEST approach (an
assessment of the political, economic,
social and technological factors that might
affect the organization).
 HRP: The Process
2. Demand forecasting
• Demand forecasting is the process of
estimating the future numbers of people
required and the likely skills and
competences they will need.
• The basis of the forecast is the annual
budget and longer-term business plan,
translated into activity levels for each
function and department.
 HRP: The Process
• In demand forecasting, the details required
may include, any organization plans that
would result in increased or decreased
demands
 HRP: The Process
3. Supply Forecast/analysis
• Supply forecasting/analysis measures the
number of people likely to be available
from within and outside the organization,
having allowed for absenteeism, internal
movements, wastage and changes in
hours and other conditions of work
 HRP: The Process
4. Action planning
• Action plans are derived from the
resourcing strategies and the detailed
analysis of demand and supply factors.
• The action planning activities start with the
identification of internal resources
available now or which could be made
available through training and
development programmes.
 HRP: The Process
• Actions plans include plans for increasing
the attractiveness of the organization by
developing an employer brand and an
employee value proposition.
• These are important steps for reducing
employee turnover and absenteeism, and
increasing employment flexibility.
Action plans:
1.Training and development; training is the
acquisition of knowledge, skills, and
competencies as a result of the teaching
• Training has specific goals of improving one's
capability, capacity, and performance
• Development involves acquisition of attitudes,
understandings etc as a result of special
programmes.
• Development programmes are designed to
prepare future managers
 Action plans
2. Promotion; movement of an employee
from one job position to a senior job
position
3. Demotion; movement of an employee
from one job position to a junior job
position
4. Recruitment; is the process of identifying
and attracting potential employees, it is
followed by selection process
 Action plans
5. Transfer and reallocation; transfer is the
movement of an employee from one
geographical area to another geographical
area within the same organization
• While reallocation is the movement of an
employee from one job to another in the
same horizontal or functional level
 Action plans
6. Layoff/ redundancy in UK ; is the
temporary suspension or permanent
termination of employment of an employee
or (more commonly) a group of employees
for business reasons, such as when
certain positions are no longer necessary
or when a business slow-down occurs.
 Factors Influencing HRP
Internal Factors:
1. Organisational Objectives.
• The objectives reflects activities to be done
in relation to number of people needed.
2. Leaders’ style and ability
• The style of a leader or supervisor, i.e. his
or her experience, how he or she guides
and handles the employees determines
how many employees will be necessary to
execute the work.
 Factors Influencing HRP
3. Nature of tasks
• Number of operations
• Dispersion of work units etc
4. Work groups
• Work group dynamics influence HRP eg.
the mutual interaction, group
cohesiveness etc of work groups
 Factors Influencing HRP
External Factors
1.Government Policies
• Government policies may stipulate qualifications
that a person needs to posses in order to
assume a certain job
2. Economic Conditions
• Economic conditions can exercise an important
influence on planning for employment.
• For example, in an economic fall the economy
becomes less active and constrains employment
 Factors Influencing HRP
3. Labour Market Conditions
• The labour market generally keeps
changing and at any given time, has
particular conditions for each occupation
or profession.
• Eg. in Tanzania, during the 1970s and
1980s, the labour market demanded lots
of accounting staff
 Factors Influencing HRP
• But during the 1990s and early 2000s, the
labour market demanded less accounting
staff and lots of qualified human resources
management staff
4.Trade Unions
• Trade unions can set certain requirements
with regard to number and type of
employees for specific tasks.
 Factors Influencing HRP
5. Changes in Technology
• Advancement in technology e.g. in
information technology, calls for
recruitment of qualified IT experts but
also displaces employees who used to
perform manual tasks.
 Challenges facing HRP
(1) Insufficient top management support
• HR programmes, HRP needs the support
of top managers to be able to play its role.
• Unfortunately in many organisations top
management teams formulate the
organisation's strategic plan without a
sufficient blend of human resources
planning ideas.
 Challenges facing HRP
(2) Insufficient funds
• In some organisations the HRP function is
appropriately incorporated in the
organisation's planning process, though
unfortunately, the HR department is not
allocated enough funds to carry out the
plans as desired.
 Challenges facing HRP
(3) Shortage of experts
• There is a general shortage of HR
practitioners who have specialized in
human resources planning.
• In these organisations, this problem is
compounded by the problem of recruiting
people who are not trained in HRM to
perform specialized jobs in HR
departments.
 Challenges facing HRP
• Where the employees in a human
resources department are graduates in
sociology, mathematics, law, or political
science, they are unlikely to be of use in a
highly specialised field of human
resources management, like human
resources planning.
 Challenges facing HRP
(4) Inactive HR department
• The HR occupation in many African
organisations has not been assigned
sufficient professional status.
• Many organisations have not fully
appreciated the key role of human
resources to the effectiveness and survival
of their organisations.
 Challenges facing HRP
(5) Poor Information base
• Accurate HRP must be based on accurate
and up to date data.
• Most organisations do not maintain
accurate and up to date information about
their HR.
 Challenges facing HRP
(6) Integration with organisational plans.
• Human resources plans in organizations
are treated separate to other
organisation’s plans.
• This is due to poor co-ordination of the
effort of line managers and HR department