Human Resource Planning

Manpower is a common term for people at work or ‘labour’; labour is one of the
resources of an organization which management must control. It is relatively difficult one
to control because it is not only subject to environmental factors which cause fluctuations
in supply and demand but also due to the complexities of human behaviour at individual
and group level. For example, Manager must be flexible in balancing of manpower
according to supply and demand in the external employment market which the
Management will set the Human Resource Goals & Objectives for the next five years
period.

The manpower planning process starts with Organizational Goals & Objectives which
the particular organization will hold a annual meeting within the Management and Board
of Directors to discuss the organization future plans and cost allocation for individual
function of the operations for both short and long goals(to increase company profit by
40% next year) and the various objectives for individual function within the
organization(expanding sales to existing customers or introduce existing products into
new market for Sales & Marketing Department).

For each individual function, it is given a particular goals and objectives to achieve for
the next coming year including Human Resource Department (HR). Human Resources
function will work toward its Human Resource Goals & Objectives based on the cost
allocation allocated to this function. For example, one of the HR goals is to bring in new
employees by 10% and cut redundancy manpower by 30%. One of the objectives is to
provide retraining for remaining operatives to perform job enlargement (multi-skill the
operatives), job rotation (maximize existing manpower to learn and take over other
operatives’ job responsibility) and job design (review, assess & re-design the various job
scopes and responsibilities which inline with HR objectives). Here, labour flexibility is a
major issue means that the career and retraining potential of staff are at least as important
as their actual qualifications and skills and need to be assessed in advance of
requirements [adv].

Therefore, the complexity of balancing supply and demand with regard to the vital human
resource of an organization lies in the following systematic approach is the Human
Resource Demand Forecast. The forecasting manpower requirements are by grades and
skills to meet both long & short term needs of the organization (the manpower strategy-
fully automation of the manufacturing plant will require more knowledge and skill
operatives which requires lead time to train and familiar with the job). The forecast will
be based on the objectives of the organization (including any likely changes-the shock
news of Iraq War in the Gulf caused dramatic dropped in export to America), present
(including anticipated future) manpower utilization (sunset industry will lead to dieing of
the trade and sunrise industry will lead to new kind of manpower to operate the trade),
many others and any external factors which will influence demand for labour
(technology, market expansion or recession). The demand of labour must be forecast by
considering the objectives of the organization both in the long and short term plans in
operation to achieve those objectives. Due to the constant changing environment, plans
are constantly change where the effect of the changes must be estimated in-order to
achieve a successful strategy planning. For example, the organization will proposed
expansion or contraction of the organization’s activities diversification will obviously
affect the demand for labour or particular skills and may be estimated by market
research , competitive analysis, trends in technological advances (adv: Rapid
technological change is leading to a requirement for manpower which is both more
highly skilled and more adaptable, in response to replacement of human labour by
technology in routine areas of activity, change in work practices) ; [adv]computer
technology has made available techniques which facilities the monitoring and planning of
manpower(using of Microsoft Spreadsheet) manipulation of manpower statistic, trend
analysis or 3D modeling (3D AutoCAD software). Organization can also look into
manpower utilization (how much labour required based on the organization growth
needs), the cost of labour (including overtime, training cost or financial constraint on the
organization’s manpower levels) and environmental factors & trends in technology &
markets that will require organizational change (Global container and logistics Group
NOL dedicated its new global service centre in Western China metropolis from Shanghai
to Chongqing due to cost-effectiveness, high-tech industrial park near the airport and pro-
active government policy to help them access facilities and recruit good people).

Apart from demand forecast, organization must look into Internal Human Resource
Supply Protection by forecasting the available supply of labour to meet the requirement
of manpower for the organization. This is taking into account labour turnover, the
potential capacity of the existing labour and the ‘pool’ of labour (for specific trade or
industry) in the environment. The supply of labour will be forecast by considering
wastage (turnover through resignations, retirement or other reasons), promotion, absentee
and productivity levels. We will have to gather require information on these following
factors such as the age structure of staff (forthcoming retirement or family start-up; [adv]
this is particular differentia during the recession period where the highlight problems of
productivity and manpower costs and the need to make efficient use of labour.
Organisation will normally perform manpower headcount on older or redundancy
operatives but will need to rethink its policies on job security, promotion and other means
of retraining staff under the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) by
Singapore Workforce Development Agency(WDA), labour turnover for a comparable
period (adv: Jobs often require experience and skills which cannot easily be brought in
the marketplace, and the more complex the organization, the more difficult to supply or
replace highly specialized staff quickly. It takes time to train and develop technical or
specialist personnel like Fighter-Jet pilot so there will be a lead time to fill any vacancy).
The production potential of the existing workforce & its structure (age distribution,
grades, location, sex, skills, hour of work and rates of pay) had [adv]reflected in the lack
of manpower from specific skill shortages from recent globally shortage of nurses, there
is increasing of matured adults(both sexes) which had changed their occupation to
nursing as their new career. This is so-called ‘demographic downturn’ falling birthrate
have meant that although the labour force will still be growing in the coming decade
(mainly with the continuing entry of women into the workforce), it will not be growing
fast enough to meet a steeply rising demand for labour among the higher skilled
occupations. Skill shortage also create a tendency to greater career mobility, which
complicates the manpower planners’ assumptions about labour ‘wastage’ rates’(people
leaving the organization for any reason like joining another organization for much higher
pay & benefits).
The potential supply of new labour with the relevant skills from the environment which
the human resource trained operatives can join the shortage of social workers in
Singapore based on its related skill set required for the job with instill of retraining of
required skills can put the operatives on the job within a shorten time-frame.

In comparison between demand and supply forecast, there will be a Differences of

Human Resource and No Difference of Human Resource. If there is no difference in
demand and supply of manpower, there will be no adjustment in manpower arrangement.
In most cases, there will be difference in demand and supply forecast which will result in
two situations as Human Resource Surplus or Human Resource Shortage that Policies
& Programmes will be derived for counter-measured. The strategy in human resource
shortage is called deficiency that can be overcome by internal transfers (job-rotation) and
promotions (job-enlargement & job enrichment) & training and development, external
recruitment by head-hunter agencies(expensive but normally for Management level
position), reducing labour turnover by reviewing possible causes including offer or
increase pay and offer better conditions with perks and benefits. Organization can
implement Pay Bonus Reward (PBR) scheme in increased the hourly rate of the job and
increased overtime rate to motivate operatives to work overtime. On top of that, with
PBR scheme which the operatives in a group can share the saving of finishing the job
before the expected deadline and this is one of the strategies for productivity bargaining.
By introducing Mechanize or automate tools and equipments like drills or CNC
Machining in assisting labour intensive job like manufacturing of moulds, it will greatly
improve the productivity of finishing the job more efficiently too. For human resource
surplus strategies, most organization will suspend recruitment; reduce working hours,
reducing job satisfaction, pay or other incentives to make operatives to leave the
organization by its own. The last resort to manage surplus is retrenchment for those
redundancies like under-performance operatives or older employees especially those near
retirement age [adv] which is under employment protection legislation and general
expectations of social responsibilities (Organization may hire operatives for emergency in
filling up temporary post and sack them when the post is not required as and when they
wish to do it).
Before the implementation of manpower strategy, the integration of policies for pays and
conditions of employment, promotion, recruitment, training and industrial relations
(increasingly being called Employment Relations) had the best tactical plans to adopt the
best of both world of surplus and shortage policies & programmes for the organization.
For example, Singapore International Airline (SIA) adopted reducing of flights in
recession times and reduces a great significant number of pilots and air-service personnel
in their operation. After recovery from recession, SIA had progressively resumed to its
normal operation level in increasing more flight arrangement to meet resuming demand
in increasing the operatives in their operation. It had also increased more flight time for
its operation and recruit more pilots & air-service personnel for its 20 new Boeing 787-9
Dreamliners flight routes.
Once a manpower plan had been established, the process of Implementation of plan will
be implemented and Monitoring & Adjustment process will change either the policies
& programmes or made adjustment to the organizational goals & objectives. Monitoring
will be based on regular control reports producing information like actual numbers
recruited , leaving and being promoted should be compared with planned numbers. If
actual levels seem too high, action can be taken by stopping recruitment temporarily. If
levels seem too low, recruitment, promotions or retaining activity should be stepped up.
Organisation may use actual pay, conditions of employment and training compared with
assumptions in the manpower plan. This comparison of numbers will be either ‘Target
Sets’ where they will no adjustment required or ‘Targets Not Set’ which they will be
adjustment made in policies & programmes and organizational goals & objectives
respectively. Periodically, the manpower plan itself should be reviewed and up-to-date.

In conclusion[limiting], manpower planning can be difficult and often inaccurate due to

the type of industry as some industry depend on new product development in an
extremely competitive environment like Information Technology industry (mobile device
operating system like Android & latest is Window 7) and others work on a tendering
basis like construction industry. If manpower planning can’t convince all operatives of
its benefits to them, then it may not be a success. This may due to conventionalize
thinking that the outcome will be firing, demotion and the fear of unable to adapt to
unfamiliar environment. The resistance to the changes expresses in the plan may reflect
the fear of learning new skills or new technology as part of their work by operatives that
is not prone to new challenges. Otherwise, manpower planning may department their
operation into individual functions to increase productivity and efficiency which may
lead to specialize skill become process skill and eventually de-skilling the operatives’
skill as useless tools which they may lose their job. Manpower planning may need to
have very complete and accurate employee skill inventory and performance records
maintained for at least the last five years for individual job competitiveness assessment as
to produce more accurate analysis. In the macro environment, it is difficult of making
accurate forecasts of social and economic changes as the environment is constantly
changing dramatically as reference to the America Housing Crisis in 2007 which evolved
into a global economic crisis till now. The most highly limiting factor is organisation may
not have budget to finance its recruitment and training programmes even it will give
competitive advantages to them.