Achieving Organization Success: Through Innovative Human Resource Strategies - Assignment Example

Introduction: Human resource planning concerns what companies do to ensure that they retain the right staff to carry out and realize the organizations goals. In an organizational planning exercise, a business plan guides the process and helps managers see where the organization lies and where it is headed to. There are many organizations that make the mistake of never getting to appreciate the role of human resource planning in their organizations. Dynamic is the word to describe today's organizational environment. More than ever before, high staff turn over and restlessness. Restlessness in the sense that human capital has become more aware of their freedoms and rights and is not ready to settle for any thing less than justice for services rendered. This has placed new challenges to organizations plans on human resource and necessitated more research in the area so as to offer fresh solutions for the emerging challenges. It can be argued that the realization of any organizational plans depends on the kind of human resource in the organization. Problem statement. Poor human resource planning has led to organizations having a work force which can not deliver often making organizations spend so much in remunerations at the expense of profits. This has led to the closure of companies which causes a myriad of other related problems such as loss of jobs and revenues to governments. Just how important and relevant is human resource planning important for organizations Does human resource planning affect the performance of an organization Does proper human resource planning contribute to the success of organizational planning process Is human resource planning a prerequisite for organizational planning The researcher will aim at engaging in a study to answer the above questions. The purpose of study. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the importance of human resource planning in organizational planning process. The study will seek to find out how lack of human resource planning can affect organizations. It will further seek to establish bottlenecks in human resource planning. Objectives of the study. i) To find out if human resource planning does contribute to the success of organizational planning process. ii) To establish factors which contribute to successful human resource planning. iii) To identify challenges faced in human resource planning. iv) To establish the contributions of human resource planning to organizational planning process. Research question. What is the importance of human resource planning in organizational planning process Significance of the study. Human capital is the most treasured asset of any organization. It interlinks all departments while ensuring coherence and oneness of purpose therefore contributing to an organizational failure or success. As the adage goes failing to plan to is planning to fail therefore there is no alternative to this issue, organizations must properly plan their human resource. Of signifance to this study are governments, private institutions and virtually every organization which is interested in improving its processes The study will become a vehicle for organizational planners who will be able to appreciate the role of human resource planning. To the planers, the study will provide a framework which will act as a guide in the implementation of changes. This is of significance since it is not uncommon for organizations to rush in to recruitment of staff without a prior evaluation of the organizations needs. The following assumptions will guide the study. i) Human resource managers will be cooperative and provide reliable responses. ii) There exists a gap in the knowledge of the importance of the human resource planning in organizational planning process. iii) There are possibilities for raising the level of awareness in organizations for the role played by human resource planning. Delimitations. The proposed study will confine itself to interviewing human resource managers in organizations. These may have an interest in the outcome of the study in that it may affect how their roles in Organizations will be affected. Chief executive officers are not targeted, as they may not answer the research question objectively. Limitations. i) The study is limited to only a random number and therefore the findings of this study cannot guarantee generalization for the entire business fraternity. ii) Due to financial constraints and time, the researcher is limited to only visiting a small number of organizations. iii) The study by its nature is susceptible to biased data, for example, the respondent may not be too open when it comes to matters of the challenges of the human resource management. Literature review. Hesselbein (1997) describes human resource planning as a traditional leaning discipline. Far from this, human resource planning is an important tool for a fast changing business world. For human resource to meet the ever upcoming organizational planning challenges it needs to be reactionary as opposed to being traditional. contrary to Hesselbein's idea, it is notable that organizations can not get far without proper human resource planning. Human resource needs to be integrated into organizational planning for the plans however good and well intentioned organizational plans are they will be a flop if they are not integral to the human resource hence a need for an well integrated system for business.Emphasising on the roles and importance of human resource planning, (Fay, 1994) argues that human beings are a very critical resource, in organizations, he notes that, no matter the relevance and usefulness of machines, they always will need a human assistance supported by expertise and more so dedication. Becker, (2001) argues that it is crucial to have an appropriate staffing approach in the start of any organizational planning process in line with the organizations objectives. He further elaborates on the significance of the role of human resource planning; he identifies poor human resource planning as the biggest cause of unprofitability in organizations. He notes that a lean human resource department is necessary for effective communication. Human resource approach assists all departments to make appropriate decisions. He continues to note that a harmonious industrial environment can only realized through proper human resource planning. If an organization manages to achieve a harmonious human resource force, cases of industrial disputes become significantly reduced in the organizations. To achieve proper human resource planning organizations will need to invest time and money in the recruitment and training process as well allocating enough budgets for the human resource departments. Research Methodology. Introduction. This chapter describes the methods that are to be employed to find answers to the research questions listed in chapter one. This description will be undertaken under the following sub-headings: research design, the locale, target population, sample and sampling procedures, research instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis. Locale. The study will be carried out in local organizations chosen because the researcher has prior knowledge and familiarity with their geographical areas. Besides this, most local organizations are faced with a human resource planning challenges largely due to lack appreciation of the role of planning in organizational planning process. There has been an upward trend in staff turnover in many organizations compounded with poor output performance. This dim scenario in this setting brings the need for this research. Other considerations for the locale are: the cost factor relating to research. Organizations here are easily accessible to the researcher, hence cutting on transport costs and the limited time for undertaking this research. The researcher will further draw parallels from other relevant researches as well as internet sources. Research design. Descriptive survey research design will be used in this proposed study. The purpose of this descriptive research is to secure evidence concerning the current situation and to identify standards with which to compare the viability of the existing needs, for proper resource planning in the organizational planning process in order to achieve efficiency.. The survey design is based on ex-post-facto (Mugenda, 2004) which is "a systematic, empirical inquiry whereby the researcher does not have direct control of the independent variables because their manifestations have already occurred or because they are inherently not manipulatable." In other words, the researcher does not manipulate any variables. The variables in this research are roles, and significance of human resource planning in organizational planning as well as the challenges experienced. Target population. The target population will be the human resource managers for local organizations. There are thousands of organizations in the country but for the purposes of this study a random sample which is representative will be used. Sample and sampling procedures. Stratified probability sampling method will be used to select a sample of organizations This is drawing elements from a population which is already in strata i.e. Towns. Steps to follow: i) Determine the sampling fraction, , ii) Multiply each strata by f; i.e. to get a sub-sample, for example, iii) Add all the sub-samples together to get the actual sample number. The human resource managers of the sampled organizations would then constitute the population that will play an integral role in the research. Research instruments. The research instruments consist of questionnaires (written) and oral interviews. Questionnaires. A questionnaire is a way of getting data about a person, an institution or event by asking them rather than watching them behave or by sampling a bit of the behavior. (Mugenda, 2004). In essence, the questionnaire as a research tool is in the hands of the respondent and is completed by him/her. The questionnaires to be administered to the human resource managers are of types: Written questionnaire. They are self explanatory and easy for respondents to fill with minimal problems. The researcher will explain and assist the respondent in deciding the correct level of agreement wherever there is a misunderstanding of the questionnaire questions. The questionnaires are advantageous because they afford the respondents enough time to give well thought out answers. The questionnaire is comprised of open ended questions that allow more freedom of response and close response type that required the response from a set of alternatives. The questionnaire items will try to extract information on the background of the organization, financial position, staff training programmes, and roles of the human resource departments, problems being experienced and solutions. Oral interview. The researcher will administer oral interview for human resource managers where the researcher may probe for answers. The interview will be guided by questions constructed in a friendly manner and will be administered after seeking the consent from the respondent. This will be carried out at a time it is convenient to the respondent. Further, the oral interview schedule is to be used as an instrument for counter-checking human resource managers' responses in the questionnaire and to get additional information that is not covered in the questionnaire. Observation guide. In order to minimize any bias and cheating by the respondents, the researcher will visit the selected organizations to see for himself, since "seeing is believing". This will give him/her a better understanding of the status quo. Observation provides precise, numerical results, which are amenable to statistical analysis and can be repeated to monitor behavioral change over time. (Orodho, 1998) Piloting. Piloting is a process of subjecting the research instrument into pre-testing and bench-mark test. In order to ensure the reliability and validity of the questionnaires, piloting will be done in four organizations not included in the selected sample. Piloting will help to correct the deficiencies in the questionnaire, for example, wrong phrasing of questions, insufficient space to write response, unclear directions; and do help here in the drawing up of coding framework for any open-ended questions. Reliability. This is the degree to which a particular measuring procedure gives similar results over a number of repeated trials. To test reliability, test-retest method will be used. This involves administering of the same instrument twice to the same group of the respondents. The second test will be administered after a two week period. The Pearson's product moment formula for the test-retest will be employed to compute the correlation coefficient in order to establish the extent to which the contents of the questionnaire are consistent in eliciting the same responses. The instrumentations are considered reliable if the correlation between the two is high. The range of correlation measure is, where r is the coefficient of correlation. Validity. Validity is the degree to which a test is able to measure what it purports to be measuring. The validity of these instruments is to be achieved through submission of the draft to the experts or research supervisor to check its clarity and relevance. Corrections/omissions will therefore be made and hence the final instrument for this study. Data collection permission to carry out research will be obtained from the organizations chief executive officers. On being granted the permission from the organization by the organizations top board, the researcher will then proceed to make final preparations for the actual research process. A letter of introduction is to be written to the CEO's of the sample organizations informing them that their organizations are selected for the purposes of this study and hence seek their approval and cooperation. Data analysis. Total for each item will be calculated by use of a computer package SPSS-X. This will involve scoring the questionnaire first. Frequency distribution tables will be prepared and be displayed in tabular form for one to be able to find the sum total of the weight of views given to each alternative in the closed ended items in the questionnaire using percentages and mean scores. Various statistics will be computed, both descriptive statistics such as frequencies, mean, standard deviation, etc and inferential statistics such as the chi-square (x2). Results from the analyses would help the researcher to draw conclusions and make recommendations about this study on importance of human resource planning in organizational planning process. These questionnaires will be of a mixed format, whereby some will have dichotomous sections, multiple choice segments and open ended segments. The interviews will be recorded to facilitate further analysis. Appendices. Activity schedule. The study is expected to take 10 months as illustrated in the Gantt chart below. A. - Problem identification B. - Discussion of problem C. - Problem statement D. - Literature review E. - Designing questionnaire. F. - Collection of data G. - Data analysis and interpretation. H. - Report writing and presentation. Source: Researcher. Budget. ITEM DESCRIPTION QUALITY COST PER UNIT ($) TOTAL ($) 1 Wages and allowances. Research assistants 2-7 months $200.00 per month $1,400.00 2 Supportive services and other materials Stationery 10 rims of printing paper $20.00 $20 3 Telephone calling costs. $60.00 $60.00 4 Laptop $500.00 5 Binding, Typing services. $100.00 6 Travelling $1,800.00 7 Other overheads $700.00 8 Miscellaneous expenses. Contingencies $400.00 TOTAL $5,280.00 Source: Researcher. Bibliography. Becker, B. E. and Ulrich, D.( 2001). "The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy and Performance." Harvard Business Press. Boston. CIPD (2002) Training and Development 2002: Survey report, London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. CIPD (2003a) Training and development 2003: Survey report, London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. CIPD (2003b) the Change Agenda, London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Fay, C.H. (1994) Achieving Organization Success: Through Innovative Human Resource Strategies. Princeton Academic Press. New York. General Services Administration, Office of Government wide Policy, Office of Real Property, Innovative Workplaces Division. (June 2002) Strategic Planning: Aligning Workplace Services Creates Value. Hesselbein, F and Goldsmith, M. (1997) the Organization for the Future. Jossey-Bass Publishers. SanFrancisco. Mugenda F. (2004) Research Methods 2nd Ed.Longhorn Publishers. Nairobi. Orodho. S.A. (1998). Research tools for social scientists. Macmillan publishers. Dar esalaam. Read More