Human resources management strategies and the planning process - Essay Example

? Human Resource Management (HRM) Strategies and the Planning Processes The planning of human resource management is very much essential for any organization. This fact is true whether it is expanding or contracting. This idea of planning process of human resource management is carried out form assessment of supply and demand for labour to employee retention. These strategies entirely depend upon the HR plan and upon the overall strategy of the business concerned. The most striking feature of this fact is that these two determinants again are interrelated. On one hand, the HR plan is affected by the overall business strategy and again the overall business strategy largely depends upon the HR plan of the business. Hence, it is evident that all the concepts are likely to be interconnected (Shackleton & Anderson, 1993, p. 5). This paper basically tries to explain these ideas in relation to the HRM strategy and the planning processes of any businesses, whether it is small, medium or large. Planning processes and strategies: Importance of Strategies: Every organization, whatever is its size, needs labour power who will work for the organization concerned. An entrepreneur just cannot do all the works alone. Hence, the need for the labour force is an essential concept. The question then arises that how an entrepreneur can hire or recruit people who are willing to work that entrepreneur and at the same time that entrepreneur is willing to hire them (Sharma, 2009, p. 71)? The answer of this question needs a detailed analysis of the theory of hiring process. Another question that is also very much important is that what are planning processes that the business entity or the entrepreneur should follow or adopt when it is either expanding its business or contracting. Again another important fact is that even though a company or business house has a large labour power, it is highly essential to take appropriate measurements or strategies to retain that labour force for a long time (Ijose, n.d. p. 5). Definition: There are two sides of defining the strategic planning for human resources. One is the technical side and the other is the managerial side (Bandt & Haines, 2004, p. 44). The technical side deals with the mathematical and behavioral methods of the process of forecasting the needs of human resource. The managerial side includes the processes of tackling the human resource issues by the decision-makers which are likely to affect the organization. Both these side are actually interconnected and essential for any organization. On one hand, any organization must consider a long term mathematical assessment of the needs of the human resources, and on the other side, the decision-makers must consider those processes which are absolutely necessary for the improvement of the organization (Rothwell & Kazanas, 2003, p. 2). Essentialities: There are many essentialities of proper human resources strategies (Varkkey & Desseler, n.d. p. 79). Firstly, a good human resource strategy must consider the fact that the business needs that strategy to work in favour of the organization. Secondly, it is essentially a strategy, not an outcome. Hence, appropriateness of the strategy is needed to be forecasted in a proper way (Durbin, 2011, p. 307). It is called a strategy because of the following reasons. The way businesses around the world are increasing their territory, it is highly necessary for any business to consider all the aspects while hiring people, including the policies that are chosen by other organizations. Again businesses are now expanding their range of products and services. They are increasingly trying to reach to diverse consumers around the world. Policies which are well suited for a single product or service might not be sufficient for multiple products. Again a particular product might be produced by another organization, and since that organization is also taking a particular set of policies, hence, it is not at all suitable for this organization to take those similar policies (Rothwell & Kazanas, 2003, p. 5). Conditions: These strategic planning for human resources is needed for the fulfillment of many conditions. According to the economic condition, when the business organization is expanding it is likely to be operating in a much larger market and likely to be earning much larger profit. Hence, it is highly necessary for the business to acquire more and more efficient labour force that will accelerate the business’s growth path. According to the technological condition, as the business expands or contracts, it becomes essential to use proper, developed and advanced technologies to use. And to use these technologies the organization must employ efficient people. The government or legal conditions deals with the fact that as the business of the organization expands the government tries to encourage that organization to employ more and more employees and since this scenario is true for each and every organization, hence it is most obvious that needs for the strategies arise. The geographical condition deals with the concepts that as businesses expand to more and more countries it becomes obvious that they will require more and more employees to support that expansion. The social condition explains that the total number educated people are much higher now than in the past. Hence, several new strategies should have to be taken in order to absorb that large potential labour force (Rothwell & Kazanas, 2003, pp. 7-19). The strategies adapted to the fulfillment of the conditions stated above are discussed now (Snell & Bohlander, 2009, p. 50). Economic conditions, technical conditions, legal conditions basically consider the standard hiring procedures of any organization. The social conditions require that the organization to take different varying human resource strategies to employ people, such as part time jobs and Work From Home, full time jobs etc. Geographical conditions require that the organization must learn the social, political, cultural and economic conditions of the countries where its business is expanding (Rothwell & Kazanas, 2003, pp. 7-19). Demand-Supply analysis: The strategic planning for human resource management also largely depends upon the interaction of demand and supply of labour. When demand for labour and supply of labour do not match instability in the labour market occurs. This instability leads to the rise or fall in the price of labour work, i.e. salaries. When the demand for labour is higher than the supply then salaries get higher and when the supply is higher than the demand the salaries get lower. Hence, the appropriate strategy for human resources must consider this demand-supply analysis. Again different types of businesses require different types of labour power that will enable them to grow and expand. This condition creates the necessity of the strategic planning for human resource management (Jackson & Mathis, 2010, p. 38). For instance, an IT company must be concerned about the demand and supply of the labour force those are efficient in working with computers. Similarly, an educational institute must be concerned about the number of teachers that it is getting. The most striking feature is that not only strategic planning depends upon the demand or supply of labour force these strategies also affect the demand and supply of labour. If an organization is likely to be very skeptical about the open strategies to take on to hire more and more people in short time span, then the supply of labour to that organization is most likely to fall. Again the demand and supply of labour also depend on specific economic or social conditions. In the event of economic crisis it is most likely to happen that the supply of labour will rise and the demand for labour will fall. This was happened during the global economic crisis of 2007-08 (Gold & Bratton, 2001, p. 47). Staff retention and Strategies: Again strategic planning for human resource management is related to the concept called staff retention. The policy of staff retention is the most important policy for any organization. This policy again depends upon the size of the organization on one hand and upon the business strategies of the organization too. The policy basically deals with the statistical measurement of the fact that total what percentage of employee that the organization is willing to retain in a given time period. This policy depends entirely upon the business strategy of that organization. If the organization is expanding rapidly, then it is most likely that it will try to retain most of its employees along with hiring new people. Accordingly the planning strategies of the organization will change automatically. It will most likely to take strategies in favour of the expansion of its business. Again in the periods of contraction of the business it is most likely to retain lower percentage of labour force. Again these retention strategies depend indirectly upon the policies that are taken by the organization to hold on to its employees. Good and healthy working-environment, good communications with the employees, good and efficient remuneration etc. will give the organization to retain large percentage of employees for a longer period of time (Jackson & Schuler, 2007, p. 23). HR strategy and Business strategy: The plan of human resource management and overall strategy of the business concerned are highly interconnected. If an organization plans to take steps to augment its volume of labour force, then the business strategy that it follows is that it wants to expand its business. Again if the plan of the organization shows that it is adapting some negative strategies to manage its human resources, such as firing too many people within a short time span or withdrawing its business from a specific geographical area, then it is evident that the business strategy of the organization is to contraction of the business. The nature of the strategies of human resource management is also likely to be affected by the overall business strategies of the organization. If the organization wants to expand its business, then it is more likely to use some positive strategies, such as hiring more people in a short time span, increasing salaries of new and existing employees etc. that will augment its expansion, otherwise it will take negative strategies (Price, 2007, p. 276). Strategies: The question still remains that what are the strategies that the organization need to take under both the situations of expansion and contraction. There are various human resource strategies that are adapted by any organization. Human capital management strategy is taken by the organization in order to manage the human capital for the benefit of its business for longer period of time. Thus this strategy has direct relation with the organization’s overall business strategies. High-performance strategy is mostly used by any organization to motivate its employees with high-performance benefits. The organization development strategies are taken by any organization in case of expansion or contraction of it business and also its overall development. Learning and development strategy is provided by the organization to augment the quality of work of its work force by giving them necessary and sufficient training. Again, the talent management strategy and the reward strategy are used by many organizations in order to motivate those employees without whom its business could have never grown. The employee resourcing strategy deals with the integration and the bundling resourcing strategies of the organization. Apart from these conventional strategies there are few new human resource strategies like use of job portals, doing on-campus recruitments, giving non-monetary allowances to the employees during festivals, engaging in reunions and parties etc. All these strategies are used to manage the work force even when the organization or expanding or contracting, but their directions get changed accordingly (Armstrong, 2008, p. 58). Conclusion: The need for the appropriate human resource strategy is inevitable for any organization. This fact was true in the past, but in modern world this necessity has just doubled. The main reason for this happening is that in today’s world businesses have become larger and their elasticity of expansion is higher as well. Hence, the strategies are needed to be modified as well. That is why inventions of new strategies are also in place now. Organizations, private or public are now investing in the development of their existing as well as new employees. They are doing everything in order to get positive results from their employees. They are giving them good salaries, good accommodations, good and easy way of transportations etc. These are all basically their part of business strategies, to earn more profits. Hence, it can easily be said that human resource strategies are nothing but the small part of the aggregate business strategies. References Anderson, N. & Shackleton, V. (1993), Hiring Employees, Reinholm, retrieved on November 24, 2011 from www.reinholm.com/hrm.pdf Armstrong, M. (2008). Strategic Human Resource Management: A Guide to Action. London: Kogan Page Limited Bandt, A. & Haines, S. G. (2004). Successful Strategic Human Resource Planning. San Diego: Centre for Strategic Management Bohlander, G. & Snell, S. (2009), Managing Human Resources. USA: Cengage Bratton, J. & Gold, J. (2001), Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice. London: Macmillan Durbin, A. J. (2011), Essentials of Management. USA: Cengage Ijose, O. (n.d.), Strategic human resource management, small and medium sized enterprises and strategic partnership capability, JMMR, retrieved on November 24, 2011 from http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/10430.pdf Mathis, R. L. & Jackson, J. H. (2010), Human Resource Management. USA: Cengage Schuler, R. S. & Jackson, S. E. (2007), Strategic Human Resource Managements. UK: Blackwell Varkkey, D. & Desseler, G. (n.d.), Human Resource Management. India: Pearson The Essentials of Strategies. (2006). USA: Harvard Business School Price, A. (2007). Human Resource Management in a Business Context. UK: Thomson Rothwell, W. J. & Kazanas, H. C. (2003), Planning and Managing Human Resources: Strategic Planning for Personal Management. Massachusetts: Human Resource Development Press. Inc. Sharma, S. K. (2009). Human Resource Management: A Strategic Approach to Employment. New Delhi: Global India Read More