Objectives of Human Resource Planning

  Objectives of Human Resource Planning

1.               To ensure optimum utilization of human resources currently available in the organization.

2.               To assess or forecast the future skill requirement of the organization.

3.               To provide control measures to ensure that necessary resources are available as and when required.

4.               A series of specified reasons are there that attach importance to manpower planning and forecasting exercises. They are elaborated below:

        To link manpower planning with organizational planning 
        To determine recruitment levels.
        To anticipate redundancies.
                  To determine optimum training levels.
                  To provide a basis for management development programs.
                   To cost the manpower.

  To assist productivity bargaining.
  To assess future accommodation requirements.
  To study the cost of overheads and the value of service functions.
  To decide whether certain activity needs to be subcontracted, etc.

 

HRP exists as a part of the planning process of business. This is the activity that aims to coordinate the requirements for the availability of the different types of employers. The major activities are forecasting, (future requirements), inventorying (present strength), anticipating (comparison of present and future requirements), and planning (necessary program to meet the requirements).

The HR forecasts are responsible for estimating the number of people and the jobs needed by an organization to achieve its objectives and realize its plans most efficiently and effectively.

HR needs are computed by subtracting HR supplies or the number of employees available from expected HR demands or the number of people required to produce a desired level of outcome. The objective of HR is to provide the right personnel for the right work and optimum utilization of the existing human resources.

The objectives of human resource planning may be summarized as below:

•          Forecasting Human Resources Requirements: HRP is essential to determine the future needs of HR in an organization. In the absence of this plan, it is very difficult to provide the right kind of people at the right time.

•          Effective Management of Change: Proper planning is required to cope with changes in the different aspects which affect the organization. These changes need continuation of allocation/ reallocation and effective utilization of HR in an organization.

•          Realizing the Organizational Goals: To meet the expansion and other organizational activities organizational HR planning is essential.

•          Promoting Employees: HRP gives feedback in the form of employee data which can be used in decision-making in promotional opportunities to be made available for the organization.

•          Effective Utilization of HR: The database will provide useful information in identifying surplus and deficiency in human resources. The objective of HRP is to maintain and improve the organizational capacity to reach its goals by developing appropriate strategies that will result in the maximum contribution of HR.

    Need for HRP in Organizations

Major reasons for the emphasis on HRP at the Macro level:

1)       Employment-Unemployment Situation: Though in general, the number of educated unemployed is on the rise, there is an acute shortage of a variety of skills. This emphasizes the need for more effective recruitment and employee retention.

2)       Technological Change: The changes in production technologies, marketing methods, and management techniques have been extensive and rapid. Their effect has been profound on the job contents and job contexts. These changes have caused problems relating to redundancies, retention, and redeployment. All these suggest the need to plan manpower needs intensively and systematically.

3)       Demographic Change: The changing profile of the workforce in terms of age, sex, literacy, technical inputs, and social background has implications for HRP.

4)       Skill Shortage: Unemployment does not mean that the labor market is a buyer’s market. Organizations generally become more complex and require a wide range of specialist skills that are rare and scarce. A problem arises in an organization when employees with such specialized skills leave.

5)       Governmental Influences: Government control and changes in legislation about affirmative action for disadvantaged groups, working conditions and hours of work, restrictions on women and child employment, causal and contract labor, etc. have stimulated the organizations to become involved in systematic HRP.

6)       Legislative Control: The policies of “hire and fire” have gone. Now the legislation makes it difficult to reduce the size of an organization quickly and cheaply. It is easy to increase but difficult to shed the fat in terms of the numbers employed because of recent changes in labor law relating to lay-offs and closures. Those responsible for managing manpower must look far ahead and thus attempt to foresee manpower problems.

7)       Impact of the Pressure Group: Pressure groups such as unions, politicians, and persons displaced from land by the location of giant enterprises have been raising contradictory pressure on enterprise management such as internal recruitment and promotion, preference for employees’ children, displaced person, sons of the soil, etc.

8)       Systems Approach: The spread of system thinking and the advent of the macro computer as part of the ongoing revolution in information technology which emphasizes planning and newer ways of handling voluminous personnel records.

9)       Lead Time: The long lead time is necessary for the selection process and training and deployment of the employee to handle new knowledge and skills successfully.

Importance of Human resource planning(HRP)

HRP is the subsystem in the total organizational planning. Organizational planning includes managerial activities that set the company’s objective for the future and determine the appropriate means for achieving those objectives. The importance of HRP is elaborated based on the key roles that it is playing in the organization.

1.       Future Personnel Needs: Human resource planning is significant because it helps to determine the future personnel needs of the organization. If an organization is facing the problem of either surplus or deficiency in staff strength, then it is the result of the absence of effective HR planning. All public sector enterprises find themselves overstaffed now as they never had any planning for personnel requirements and went on a recruitment spree till the late 1980s. The problem of excess staff has become such a prominent problem that many private sector units are resorting to VRS's‘ voluntary retirement scheme’. The excess of labor problem would have been there if the organization had a good HRP system. An effective HRP system will also enable the organization to have good succession planning.

2.       Part of Strategic Planning:  HRP has become an integral part of strategic planning. HRP provides inputs in the strategy formulation process in terms of deciding whether the organization has got the right kind of human resources to carry out the given strategy. HRP is also necessary during the implementation stage in the form of deciding to make resource allocation decisions related to organization structure, process, and human resources. In some organizations, HRP plays a significant role as strategic planning and HR issues are perceived as inherent in business management.

3.       Creating Highly Talented Personnel: Even though India has a great pool of educated unemployed, it is the discretion of the HR manager that will enable the company to recruit the right person with the right skills for the organization. Even the existing staff hope the job so frequently that organization faces a frequent shortage of manpower. Manpower planning in the form of skill development is required to help the organization in dealing with this problem of skilled manpower shortage

4.       International Strategies: An international expansion strategy of an organization is facilitated to a great extent by HR planning. The HR department’s ability to fill key jobs with foreign nationals and reassignment of employees from within or across national borders is a major challenge that is being faced by international business. With the growing trend toward global operation, the need for HRP will as well be the need to integrate HRP more closely with the organization's strategic plans. Without effective HRP and subsequent attention to employee recruitment, selection, placement, development, and career planning, the growing competition for foreign executives may lead to expensive and strategically descriptive turnover among key decision-makers.

5.       Foundation for Personnel Functions: HRP provides essential information for designing and implementing personnel functions, such as recruitment, selection, training, and development, personnel movements like transfers, promotions, and layoffs.

6.       Increasing Investments in Human Resources: Organizations are making increasing investments in human resource development compelling the increased need for HRP. Organizations are realizing

that human assets can increase in value more than physical assets. An employee who gradually develops his/ her skills and abilities becomes a valuable asset to the organization. Organizations can make investments in their personnel either through direct training or job assignment and the rupee value of such a trained, flexible, motivated productive workforce is difficult to determine. Top officials have started acknowledging that the quality of the workforce is responsible for both the short-term and long-term performance of the organization.

7.       Resistance to Change: Employees are always reluctant whenever they hear about change and even about job rotation.  Organizations cannot shift one employee from one department to another without any specific planning. Even for carrying out job rotation (shifting one employee from one department to another), there is a need to plan well ahead and match the skills required and existing skills of the employees.

8.       Uniting the Viewpoint of Line and Staff Managers: HRP helps to unite the viewpoints of line and staff managers. Though HRP is initiated and executed by the corporate staff, it requires the input and cooperation of all managers within an organization. Each department manager knows about the issues faced by his department more than anyone else. So communication between HR staff and line managers is essential for the success of HR Planning and development.

9.       Succession Planning: Human Resource Planning prepares people for future challenges. The ‘stars’ are picked up, trained, assessed, and assisted continuously so that when the time comes such trained employees can quickly take the responsibilities and position of their boss or seniors as and when the situation arrives.

10.    Other Benefits:
(a) HRP helps in judging the effectiveness of manpower policies and programs of management.
(b) It develops awareness of the effective utilization of human resources for the overall development of an organization.
(c) It facilitates the selection and training of employees with adequate knowledge, experience, and aptitudes to carry on and achieve the organizational objectives
(d) HRP encourages the company to review and modify its human resource policies and practices and to examine the way of utilizing the human resources for better utilization.