The approaches to human resources planning in work organizations today are much more

different than what it was decades ago. Much of the debates reflecting this change in
emphasis center on the role that human resource planning plays in the core strategies of
small and large organizations. There has been a considerable deliberation among human
resource planners on what aspects of human resource planning and management should
be among the priority considerations in view of ongoing changes in almost all aspect of
life today. Changing social, technical, political, economic, spiritual, and business
environmental conditions have brought about these raging debates in planning and policy
discussions within organizations. The complexity in managing large work organizations
has largely increased due to several key considerations about the supply and demand of
HR practitioners and skilled personnel in the different industries. Smaller organizations
have been challenged to prepare for future human resources expansions.
While the structure and size of organizations will not determine choices about human
resources, research has shown that it can have a very strong influence on the way human
resources are managed, regulated, and planned (Newell and Scarborough, 2002, p. 26).
Human Resource Planning (HRP) for large organizations is quite different from smaller
organizations in different contexts and aspects. These major differences can be found in
the way these organizations cover the areas of Human Resource Management (HRM) like
recruitment, promotion, performance appraisal, compensation, training, and development,
labor relations, job designs, and career development.
Governments around the world have come to realize that human resources have a crucial
role in meeting the challenges of public service and global competition. According to
Canave (2003, p.41), in the Philippines for example, the thrust of the Civil Service
Commission (CSC) is to professionalize and humanize the bureaucracy. The CSC is a
central personnel agency and quasi-judicial tribunal responsible for recruitment,
maintenance and discipline of civil servants of the country's 1.4 million public servants.
Human resource planning for such a very large organization is not simple and easy.
It cannot be denied that HRM practices of an organization can be an important source of
competitive advantage. Kleiman (2001, p. 9) says that HRM practices enhance a firm's
competitive advantage by creating both cost leadership and product differentiation.
Employees are often viewed as the company's most valuable resource (Newell and
Scarborough, 2002, p. 24). If people are truly an organization’s greatest assets, then their
careful selection, development, and deployment can lead to a competitive advantage
(Price). Accordingly, an effective HRP strategy provides the best option for supply of
workers of organizations (Virtual University-Pakistan). But according to Thomas A
Kochan and Lee Dyer (2001), many human resource functions today within many
American corporations continue to be weak and relatively low in influence in relation to
other managerial functions such as finance, marketing, and manufacturing. They stress
that despite the outpouring of academic writing on strategic human resource
management, not much progress has been made in developing systematic theory on the
conditions under which human resources are elevated to a position where the firm sees
and treats these issues as a source of competitive advantage.
People that make up organisations are the most important components for success.
Internal and external factors that tend to influence the way people behave within the
organisation have contributed to a lot of changes in HRM policies and planning
techniques. The rapid changes in the field of work and working environments in recent
years have caused great concern to the workforce. According to Cane (1996), there is a
tendency for people going to work to get what they can out of it since that is the way they
feel their employers treat them. People sometimes feel that their employers don't
empathize with them about their economic and social plight. Miscommunications and
other forms of organisational conflicts stem from the fact that people are sometimes not
always considered and allowed to participate in the decision-making process. In the
aspect of managing the organisation workforce,� it is clear that where communication
between the different levels and systems breaks down, there can be little workforce
commitment to the organisation's goals (Cane, 1996, p.48).
The idea of change and why it is important for the organisation cannot always be
explained to the members of the organisation by management.� There is a genuine sense
of fear of change and it is natural for people to avoid change, at all costs. In these times
of uncertainty, people no longer feel secure working for a particular organisation or even
a particular industry, and therefore they tend to feel little loyalty to it.� Today,
organisations are not just trimming fat off the meat. They are trimming the muscle. Part
of today's mass layoffs caused by the need to cut down on redundant jobs and production
costs is that organisations measure costs in terms of salaries, benefits, and overhead
rather than in terms of the quality and quantity of work that people do.
Different organisations, whether large or small, have different attitudes and approaches to
deadlines and quality of work, handling of information, communication, leadership, and
understanding of their organisational objectives.� In today's HR practices, organisations
tend to measure these approaches based on how new and emerging technologies and
other government and industry regulations are currently affecting the business
environment and job market. In human resource planning, new emphasis are placed on
these attitudes and approaches in order to plan for change in the human resource aspect.
Human Resource Planning (HRP)
The effectiveness and efficiency of people within an organisation is often dependent on
its operations.� The goal of forecasting and planning is to keep and improve on the
human resource assets of the organisation in order to meet their needs and objectives.
Planning involves being able to provide the different manpower, economic, social, and
business requirements of the organisation in future situations. Planning provides a sense
of purpose and direction (Virtual University-Pakistan).� The planning process forces
organisations to make a thorough analysis and study of the current situation in terms of
internal resources and how these resources are utilised. It is making a decision in advance
on the different concerns and future actions of the organisation.� It is related to how
these aspects are organised and controlled under certain conditions that may arise in the
future.
Human resource planning considers the current state of manpower resources and how this
resource can be utilised for future adaptation to changes in the environment. It also
provides a more effective and efficient use of manpower skills and knowledge. A good
human resource plan creates more satisfied and more developed employees and provides
an effective equal employment opportunity. Human resource planning is the process of
systematically forecasting human resource requirements of an organisation such as skills,
salaries, hiring needs, layoffs, and other human resources concerns. It also involves
finding ways and means to reduce the number of employees if a surplus is projected. If
there is a projected shortfall of skilled personnel because of the acquisition of new
equipment or changes in business processes, then the human resource plan should be able
to attract prospective employees from outside of the organisation.
According to Milkovich and Boudreau (1997, p.142), planning is time consuming,
expensive, and uncertain. It often does not produce accurate predictions or guarantee
correct choices. They add that in a survey of general managers in large business units of
Fortune 500 firms, it was found out that 82 percent of these managers considered human
resource issues and costs in planning their business as important or very important. The
fact is, human resource functions are the centerpiece of managers' rating criteria.
Human Resource Activities
Different human resource activities should be integrated in order to enhance the value of
human resources. Planning should help ensure the balance of all the human resource
activities of the organisations. These sets of activities are based on the recruitment and
selection of the right candidates, pay scale determinants, employee appraisal, and many
more.� According to Milkovich and Boudreau (1997, p.1420, organisations that base
their pay on performance don't necessarily perform better than those that don't. and
organisations that select people very carefully don't necessarily perform better than those
that select less.
Benefits of HRP
There are a lot of benefits associated with good human resource planning techniques.
These benefits are primarily centered on the work quality or output and the general
welfare of the workforce of the organisation. It helps in the proper distribution and
assignment of jobs to the right personnel. It helps the organisation manage variations in
staffing and recruitment. It also provides other relevant information about how the
current human resources of the organisation are contributing to the successes or failures
of key business processes.
Milkovich and Boudreau (2002, p. 147) emphasizes the role of human resource planning
in the framework of organisational competitiveness by finding new ways to increase the
quality of human resources. According to them, sustainable competitive advantage
derives from a resource-based view of organisations. Organisations influence the quality
of the resources available to them and these resources do not necessarily move easily
between organisations. A good human resource plan which cannot be easily copied
sustains the competitiveness of organisations.
Steps in HRP
The entire human resource planning process can be defined in the following steps
(Virtual University-Pakistan):

• Determine the impact of organisational objectives on specific organizational

units. By looking at the general objectives and how it affects the different entities
and departments of the organisation, firms can start to identify the manpower
concerns and needs in different departments and set their priorities.
• Determine the skills required to meet objectives. Changing business processes
influenced by technological advances require new sets of skills in order to fulfill
some of the organisation's objectives. It is important to determine which skills are
more appropriate for future HR expansions and ulitisations.
• Determine additional human resource requirements in light of current
requirements. It is not only appropriate to determine the labour supply and demand.
There are intangible requirements for today's diverse workforce. Workers demand
new benefits and compensation packages. Businesses demand new sets of skills
and commitments from their employees. Determining these requirements for the
formulation of the HR plan needs to consider both sides of the labour relationship.
Trade unions demand new provisions in their collective bargaining agreements.
• Develop action plans to meet the anticipated HR needs. Should there be
emergencies and unexpected disruptions, the HR plan should be able to provide the
appropriate actions to meet these crises as they arise. Organisations in general are
not complacent about events that might occur in the future. Workers should be able
to provide the immediate needs of the organisation and the organisation should be
able to provide the right remuneration packages to their workers.
Importance of HRP
According to Newell and Scarborough (2002, p. 83), there is little evidence to suggest
that many organisations actually operate strategically rather than making resource
decisions on an informal basis. They view the role of human resource functions within
organisations as one of the most importance factors that influence certain strategies and
decisions. They add that for human resource planning to be strategic, it need to take place
within an organisation where human resource issues are seen as central to business
strategy, which is closely related to issues to do with the status and power of the human
resource functions within the organisation.
There has been a marked increase on emphasis on HRP in recent years. Recent global
developments in the economic and political front calls for the need to adapt to new
requirements in skills, labor costs, labor demands and supplies, and business practices.
The liberalization of trade and globalization of businesses has been one of the key factors
pushing for the need to concentrate on adapting the human resource management and
policies to the needs and trends of the world economy. New technologies and how these
are slowly being incorporated into the overall corporate plans of large and small
organisations are changing the face of planning approaches at a rate where planning is no
longer confined to traditional methods for achieving results.
In relation to changing technologies are the changing skill levels and� types. Certain
skills are no longer viable nowadays while new areas of developing skills are emerging.
Training to improve on current skills need to be incorporated into the strategic plans of
organisations. This would help ensure the continuity and acclimatization of� skills with
new global requirements.
The reason for adapting HR policies and practices to emphasize more on HRP is to make
sure that the organisation remains competitive in a global setting. This has come to light
in recent years because of the need to make changes in the overall organisational
structure and culture.
Approaches to Human Resource Planning
In view of this new emphasis on human resource planning in work organisations, there
are different models by which they analyze what approach to take. According to Henry
(1995), one useful model for analyzing what approach an organisation has to human
resource planning can be described in the four main types of employment systems
namely:

• The internal labour market

• The external labour market
• The occupational labour market
• The technical/industrial labour market

The internal labour market refers to the structure of jobs within an organisation where it
is characterized by the development of firm-specific skills, jobs are flexible and broadly
defined, where long service is highly regarded, where employment security is high, and
where there are few entry points into the firm. Usually, because long service is valued
and staff turnover is kept at a minimum, this market provides a structure for promotions
via a well-defined career ladder. Job satisfaction is usually high because the staff feels
secured and well taken cared of. While most of what happens in the internal labour
market is true to large work organisations, it is not usually the case to small firms.
Henry (1995) argues that firms are not really in a good position to maintain staff
satisfaction to the highest level possible. They are less likely to provide long term
employment security to their staff because they are less likely to sustain the internal
labour market. In reality, small firms are often vulnerable to external market forces that
often results to movements in labour demands and needs. Small firms are also usually not
in the position to match employment incentives and wages offered by larger firms.
The external labour market is characterized by narrow jobs and lack of skills. There is
usually a surplus of skills in the labour market. In view of this surplus, there is a minimal
need for training. Deployment is tightly controlled by the employer. These contributing
factors often results to low job security and low employee morale.
The occupational labour market often focuses on the external labour market where skills
are sought after. Jobs are controlled by occupation agreements and development activities
are usually valued. The technical and industrial labour markets are often characterized by
detailed agreements with trade unions through collective bargaining agreements or
CBAs. Jobs are narrow and tightly defined by employers and CBAs.
Traditional Emphasis of HRP