A Strategic Approach to Employment - Essay Example

 Labor market is a kind of a mechanism where human input can either be bought or sold as labor demands or supply respectively. Labor demand refers to the number and job types available while its supply refers to the number and categories of available workers. Labor market bridges the gap between the workers and employment organizations. Human resource, on the other hand, is the organizational department that is concerned with workers related issues like recruitment, their promotions, and retrenchments among other responsibilities (Taylor, 2009). Planning and better management of human resources is an issue that cannot be ignored in a country’s development strategies. Human resource planning is the critical evaluation as well as identification of labor requirements for planed projects to meet the social and economic targets in the society. The most efficient approach to good human resource planning starts with attaining information on a particular human resource function, the selection or recruitment of workers, training, motivations, work place diversity, and compensations when need rise. Human resource planning is indicated by sufficient man power, comprising of all categories of workers and diverse skill and talents. The workers should be available in specific locations and perform their duties when required. This discourse is about the importance of attaining labor market prevailing conditions before human resource planning. There is need to observe the labor market trends to correct the in balance between its demand and supply. Labor market can be categorized as either internal or external. Internal labor market refers to a pool of workers within a certain organization. It could also mean a mechanism through which employees are assigned to certain roles within the organization. The number of employees is determined by the human resource policy put in place like job security, investment levels, sophistication levels in the organization departments, and the business approach adopted. Available internal labor market information can assist the human resource planning team in greater ways (Pilbeam, 2010). Prior to annual recruitments, the company may decide to retain the existing workers and offer trainings to meet the current demands. The retained employees can be motivated further by developments, creation of better employment terms, and salary reviews. This would increase their productivity hence increase turn over to the company. This would be cheaper than hiring new employees who may require time to adjust to the company’s environment and working policies. Classical model of internal labor market is associated with sophisticated and structured pool of workers. Such employees have established experiences and complex technological skills that are ideal to the daily operations of a certain organizations’ department. Such pool of workers have limited interactions with the out side stake holders due to fears that they could be lured to join other organizations at higher salary hence they are motivated by annual incentives, job promotions, and securities so that they stick to their companies. Having full knowledge of such workers is a great deal to the human resource planning team to assist in their retention within the company. Having full knowledge of existing employees may determine who to be out sourced to external companies and generate more income to the company. A company may cut the annual expenses by reducing the existing labor. It will be wise for the human resource planning team to evaluate the existing employees before the retrenchment operations. It would be a great loss to the company to lose a vital team member due lack of internal labor market information. Internal labor market information is much easier and cheaper to be obtained than the external labor pool. External labor market represents the pool of workers available outside (externally) a certain organizations. The type of workers required by a firm is determined by the general size, operations, and sectors within the company. A firm’s external labor pool entails local, regional, national, and international workers. A multi billion company may resort to seek senior executive professional internationally to provide a wider pool of applicants then pick the best in terms of experience, skills, as well as knowledge. However it would be wise for the human resource to do a thorough research on existing available work pool before seeking international workers to cut on costs and reduce the time for recruitments. Middle class organizations should at all costs stick on national or regionally available labor to cut on labor costs. Research indicates that local working pool is much cheaper than recruiting or hiring international professionals or consultants. There are many ways through which labor market can be categorized other than the geographical difference (Lawler, 2006). Such include distribution of skills, educational backgrounds, age, gender, ethnicity, cultural diversity, work attitude, and occupational category. Human resource planning team is therefore required to understand the labor market diversity since the market’s experiences of different work groups differs and their access to a specific job may not be the same. Such differences are attributed to different legitimate sources of labor power, different human capital, and other factors. Workers’ individual characteristics are another important element before any recruitment process. Different occupational groups of workers pose different motivational approaches and career developments. Professionals tend to enjoy non supervision environment. Such behaviors should be known by the human resource planning team for effective management. Different generations of workers in terms of age and gender may be associated by different working environments and risks. Selecting a diverse labor market from the outside world may grant the company competitive advantage due to the flexibility that comes with it (Kumar, 2010). There are several ways through which information of existing labor market can be attained. In developing a Human resource plan, both composition and number of available workers is considered. Recent population census data can be used to ascertain specific number of workers in a specific region. Such data would include sex, academic levels, as well as the employment status of individual. Population projectile techniques can be used to determine the future number of workers to be available in the coming years depending on the time frame of the plan. Some factors to be considered in the plan are the rate at which young men and women come to age, since working ability of the young and old men and women differs. Research indicates that young men and women are more productive in technological oriented organizations. Overseas migration for employment rates is another factor of great importance when doing human resource planning. Such migrations are likely to cause inadequacy of skilled and talented workers (Hammel, 2009). Data analysis companies of good reputation can be contracted to collect and analyze data related to available working group in a certain region. Questionnaires together with interviews are some of the best data collection techniques to be used. For accurate and non bias results, the region is to be divided into clusters and each is to be considered in the analysis. Employment status, age, sex, education levels, chances of seeking employment in different nations, talents and skills, among other information should be included in the data collected to assist in human resource planning. Human resources as well as development planners have to come up with comprehensive microeconomic plans that would reinforce rather than negate the existing economy. The planners need to consider the availability of cheap and skilled labor before initiating any business project in a certain region. The project may seem to be of great out come as far as socio-economy is concerned. The same project may entail outsourcing of expensive specialized professionals that may ruin the project success due to high labor expenses. Project alternatives should be critically evaluated using various yard sticks to determine the best in terms of labor availabity and expenses. Government policies ought to be put into consideration. For instance, different nations has got different migration policies hence outsourcing specialized workers from other nations would be time consuming or even impossible with some nations’ policies (Kleynhans, 2009). It would be better to have project with ready and available workers within its locality to cut on labor costs in terms of communication and transport. Research indicates productive workers are those closer to their work places. Education is one of the dominant factors to be considered in human resource planning. Education levels among labor demands determine their productivity, health, and nutrition habits of a certain population (Sharma, 2009). Education levels also go hand in hand with skills diversity among available workers. With correct information on education levels of available labor demand, human resource planners can plan on the diversity of work force to be adopted in a certain organization. A good employment policy is that that offers equal chances to the skilled and unskilled working class. Such diversity increases organizational productivity due to increased flexibility. Furthermore, the two working groups are dependent on each other. Education levels can also determine the kind of business to be ventured into. A population dominated by computer literate young men and women is viable for technological oriented companies like cell phones, communication, software development, and programming companies among others (Turner, 2007). Human resource management approaches can also be determined by the level of education of workers. For instance, virtual company strategy is well embraced with young and computer literate men and women. Education and labor departments are known to work collaterally. For instance, curricula of various education levels can be adjusted to meet the current labor requirements upon researches done by the human resources departments to ascertain the suitability of the available workforce. Some organizations may like to incorporate various workers trainings in their routines to boost their productivity. This would be unnecessary if the human resource management team knows the education and skills of their workers. Some business projects are government sponsored to reduce unemployment rates and in turn increase the country’s economy. Such projects would require a comprehensive human resource study planning so that they can be initiated where they are needed most (Price, 2011). Such projects can assist the government reduce chances of citizens migrations from remote to urban centers in search of employment. Therefore, this results to reduced competition for social amenities in towns. Even population distribution implies good usage of government resources to boost its economy. This will also reduce chances of skilled unemployed worker traveling to other nations to seek employment opportunities. Partnership with various organizations is a common strategy in the current business era. A good human resource planning team should know the labor availability to ascertain the gap to be filled with organization to be partnered with. Such information can only be got with keen evaluation of locally available labor demand. Research indicates that labor demand with sophisticated diverse skills can perform better and at cheaper costs than foreign workers who are not only expensive but require some time to adjust to the new environment. Human resource with the correct knowledge of available labor demand will always make the correct decisions as far as labor costs are concerned (Barbara, 2012). For instance, it would be cheaper to recruit unemployed engineers then offer some training before being a complete member of the company other than hiring a consultant from a different competitor firm. However, the human resource planning team may be forced to enter into business partnerships with other organizations, departments, nations due to several benefits that come with partnership business. Labor demand characteristics directly translate to the nature of demand expected. Any business oriented organization usually aims at making gain at a faster rate as possible. This is directly determined by the demand pool for the products or services. The human resource team can use the labor statistics to predict the local market available. For instance, a labor demand dominated by technology smart individuals would mean the region is occupied be technological minded people and products like software, computer systems, or even computer programs will be of great benefit to the community hence high returns (Mathis, 2011) . The work force flexibility is another vital factor that determines company productivity. The human resource team ought to have full knowledge in terms of flexibility and adaptability among workers. Labor flexibility means the worker can switch to other duties without problems while adaptability means the workers can cope with changes in the organization. Such changes include environmental changes, policy changes and product changes. Workers without these qualities should undergo training and motivational schemes to boost their productivity (Collings, 2011). However, labor flexibility in the management context would mean easy recruit and disposal of workers depending on the market needs. For this, the company human resource planning team should know the ability of every worker to avoid losing vital employees and picking incompetence workers. Both external and internal labor market is subject to change. Labor supply and demand can be altered due to several factors. Labor market supply is likely to change due to differences in societal attitudes towards work like increased female participation in engineering and technological sectors. Economic conditions like international interest rates and rising living expenses may determine employment rates in a certain society (Sims, 2005). Labor market demand is likely to change due to changes in the external business environment. Increased consumer demands could mean increased supply hence more workers recruited. Changes in the internal business environment have got diverse effects on internal labor market (Reddy, 2007). Production alteration may mea recruit or dispose of some workers in an organization. Changing company strategies like communication and technological modifications could lead to retrenchment and recruiting incompetent and competent workers respectively. Political changes within the organization may also determine the labor set up. The human resource planning team should understand such factors that may change the labor market within a company. Bibliography Barbara J. Y. 2012. HR: The Business Partner. London: Routledge. . Collings, G. W. 2011. Human resource management: a critical approach. New york: Taylor & Francis. Hammel, L. 2009. Growing Local Value: How to Build Business Partnerships That. USA: Accesible publishing system. Kleynhans, L. M. 2009. Human resource management: fresh perspectives. USA: Square one publishers. Kumar, R. 2010. Human Resource Management: Strategic Analysis. New Delhi: Partners press. Lawler, J. B. 2006. Achieving Strategic Excellence: An Assessment of Human Resource . London: Routledge. Mathis, J. H. 2011. Human Resource Management: Essential Perspectives. New York: Cengage Learning. Pilbeam, M. C. 2010. People Resourcing and talent planning. USA: Pearson Education. Price, A. 2011. Human Resource Management. USA: Cengage Learning. Reddy, M. 2007. Human Resource Planning. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House. . Sharma, S. K. 2009. Human Resource Management: A Strategic Approach to Employment. New Delhi: Global India publication. Sims, R. R. 2005. Organizational Success Through Effective Human Resources Management. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Taylor, S. 2009. People resourcing. London: Oxford University press. Turner, P. 2007. HR forecasting and planning. New York: Routledge. Read More