Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Planning
1
Introduction
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Introduction
If effective utilization of human resources is not a
significant goal for the organization:
Employment planning is likely to be informal and slipshod
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Introduction
The types of people employed and the tasks they
perform determine the kind of planning necessary
HR planning is critical for implementation of the
organization’s strategic plan
HR policies have direct effects on profitability
4
The HR Planning Process
The four phases or stages of HR planning:
Situation analysis or
environmental scanning
Forecasting demand
Analysis of the supply
Development of action plans
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Situation Analysis & Environmental
Scanning
The first stage of HR planning is the point at which
HRM and strategic planning first interact
The strategic plan must adapt to environmental
circumstances
HRM is one of the primary mechanisms an organization can
use during the adaptation process
Without a plan to support recruitment and selection, it
is impossible to stay competitive
The problems associated with changing environments are
greater today than ever before
Success now depends on being a “global scanner”
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Forecasting Demand for Employees
This phase of the process involves estimating:
How many employees will be needed
What kinds of employees will be needed
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Forecasting Demand for Employees
Techniques to help reduce the uncertainty inherent in
HR planning:
Expert estimates
Trend projections
Statistical modeling
Unit-demand forecasting
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The Expert Estimate
One or more “experts” provide the organization with
demand estimates based on:
Experience
Guesses
Intuition
Subjective assessments of
available economic and
labor force indicators
This is the least mathematically sophisticated approach
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Trend Projection
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Modeling & Multiple-Predictive
Techniques
This top-down approach uses the most sophisticated
forecasting and modeling techniques
Trend projections relate a single factor, such as sales, to
employment
Environmental factors could be gross national product or
discretionary income
Or, the organization may be mathematically modeled so that
simulations can be run
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Modeling & Multiple-Predictive
Techniques
Regression analysis is a mathematical procedure:
It predicts the dependent variable on the basis of factors
(independent variables)
With simple linear regression, one dependent and one
independent variable are studied
With multiple regression, more than one independent
variable is studied
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Unit Demand Forecasting
This is a bottom-up approach
Unit managers analyze current and
future needs person-by-person
and job-by-job
Headquarters totals the unit forecasts
The sum is the corporate employment forecast
If both bottom-up and top-down approaches are used,
the forecasts may conflict
This can be resolved by averaging the variances
The Delphi technique or NGT could also be used
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Analyzing the Current Supply of
Employees
This phase of HR planning should answer the
question:
“How many and what kinds of employees do I currently have,
in terms of the skills and training necessary for the future?”
This involves more than simply counting current
employees
The smaller and more centralized the organization, the easier
it is to conduct a skills inventory
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The Skills Inventory
Both a skills inventory and a management inventory:
Identify the skills, abilities, experiences, and training
employees currently have
Are useful for career planning, management development,
and related activities
In its simplest form, a skills inventory is a list of:
Names
Characteristics
Skills
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The Skills Inventory
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Contents of the Skills Inventory
The only data available to the organization for later
use is what was designed into the system
Name Employee number
Present location Date of birth
Date of employment Job classification
Skills, knowledge, education Foreign language skill
Professional qualifications Publications
Licenses and patents Hobbies
Supervisory evaluations Salary range
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Contents of the Skills Inventory
Often omitted, but increasingly important, are:
Employees’ stated career goals
Geographical preferences
Intended retirement date
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Maintaining the Skills Inventory
The two principal methods for gathering data:
the interview and the questionnaire
The questionnaire is faster and cheaper, but can be
inaccurate
Some contend that a trained interviewer can complete
questionnaires more quickly and accurately
Plans for keeping files updated must be made
The more often changes are made and the data is used, the
more often updates should be performed
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Maintaining the Skills Inventory
Should data be stored in a manual system or
on a computer?
How much does the computer system cost?
How frequently the data will be used?
A computer allows comparative analysis over time
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Action Decisions in HR Planning
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Action Decisions in HR Planning
If the supply of workers is less than the demand:
It can be filled with present employees who are willing to
work overtime
If there is a shortage of skilled employees:
Train and/or promote present employees
Recruit less-skilled employees
Recall employees who were previously laid off
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Action Decisions in HR Planning
Organizations are using more:
Part-time workers
Subcontractors
Independent professionals
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Action Decisions in HR Planning
Possible solutions to an employee surplus:
Attrition
Early retirements
Demotions
Layoffs
Terminations
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Action Decisions in HR Planning
Most organizations avoid layoffs by using attrition,
early retirement, creation of work, and so on
Attrition can be accelerated by encouraging employees to
leave early
Drawbacks to losing workers over the age of 50:
They tend to be healthier than younger workers
They have fewer work-related injuries
They are less likely to change jobs
They take critical skills and experience with them
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Action Decisions in HR Planning
By 2010, the median age of the
U.S. workforce will be 40.6 years
Over half the workforce will be
protected by the Age Discrimination
in Employment Act
Promises should not be made that can’t be kept
Once promised, it may be illegal to change them
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Action Decisions in HR Planning
If voluntary reductions don’t eliminate the gap
between supply and demand, layoffs may be necessary
Corporations too frequently and quickly turn to layoffs
They fail to consider the consequences
About one-third lay off too many workers
Poorly designed workforce reductions can kill morale
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Human Resource Information Systems
Information is the key to successful HR planning
A human resource information system (HRIS) is an
integrated way to acquire, store, analyze,
and control information flow through an organization
A highly developed HRIS can increase the efficiency
and response times of:
Tracking applicants
Skills inventory
Career planning
Employee service programs
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Human Resource Information Systems
Computer technology makes it possible to integrate
multiple HR needs into a single system:
Enrolling in benefits programs
Processing employee transactions (pay increases)
Using learning modules
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Human Resource Information Systems
Factors that make succession planning for executive
level positions more important than ever:
Large numbers of aging executives
Increasingly popular early retirement
Fortune 500 companies anticipate 33 percent turnover among their
executives over the next five years
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