Developing and Improving the Staffing Plans - Essay Example

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Strategic Human Resource Management Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 0 Introduction 3 2.0 Identification and explanation of the main Human Resource challenges facing any organisation 3 2.1 Problems is fixing compensation 4 2.2 Problems in staffing and training 5 2.3 Problems in employee retention 6 3.0 Selection of two challenges in Human Resource management and use of specific strategies in overcoming the problems 7 3.1 Development of retention strategies 7 3.1.1 Training 7 3.1.2 Mentoring 7 3.1.3 Spreading positive culture 8 3.1.4 Effective communication to ease the transfer of information 8 3.2 Developing and improving the staffing plans 9 3.2.1 Supply forecasting 9 3.2.2 Demand forecast 9 4.0 Analysis of the gap 10 5.0 Identification of the strategy 10 5.1 Demand side strategies: 11 5.2 Supply side strategies 11 6.0 Conclusion 12 Reference 13 1.0 Introduction Strategic human resource management enables an organisation to tackle the problems associated with human resource development arising due to the external and internal interference effectively. The strategic human resource management (SHRM) is not bounded or guided by some definite of rules. Rather the whole idea is to develop a human resource development model that is dynamic in nature. That can be changed and recalibrated according to the need and wants of the current business situation. The present research topic details the problems and challenges faced by the human resource development and the strategies that can be adapted to overcome such challenges. 2.0 Identification and explanation of the main Human Resource challenges facing any organisation The number of challenges an organisation has to face depends on the size of the organization since size matters more than the effects of the internal and external interferences. As the size of the organization increases, the number of challenges and problems also increases (Boxall, 1982). There can be problems with staffing and succession planning, problems with learning and development, problem with staffing, problems like HR effectiveness measurement. And other problems like organizational effectiveness, proper measurement of the effectiveness of the HR. A discussion of the each and every kind of challenge will require substantial time and space, which is both, in short supply (Colling, 1995). So instead only few challenges and problems are discussed which are important in the present context. 2.1 Problems is fixing compensation Compensation planning is one of the problematic areas. The reasons associated with compensation problem are one and many. The managers are sometimes not able to understand the best way to measure the efficiency of the employees. Due to the wrong choice or methodology to measure the employee efficiency, the managers at times have trouble to understand, the exact compensation level which correlates with the level of efficiency (Guest, 1999). This is the one of the most acute problem in the compensation management area. The managers do not revise the methodology to check the level of efficiency of the employee for long period of times. So even after there is significant improvement in the employee performance and efficiency, the managers still tend to follow the unrevised version to measure the employee efficiency. So the compensation fixed does not correlate with the employee efficiency. The managers are sometimes unable to understand the factors that motivate the employees. The different level of employee working in the organisation may not have the same kind of motivational factors. The management sometimes tend to follow a general guideline, which considers that all most all employees have the same motivational factors. For example the employees at the bottom level are motivated by material benefits more than the employees at the higher level (Hyman, 1987). For employees at the higher level, the recognition and the power allotted and the status granted matter the most. During the budget preparations the managers forget to factor in the fact that the current budget may not be sufficient to do pay for the extra incentives. Due to this the managers face problem when the incentives are doled out. There is either shortage or over supply of incentives. In both the case, there is cost. In shortage of funds, there is nonmonetary cost like unwillingness and loss of trust of the employees on the management. Sometimes there is considerable gap between the current compensation planning of the organisation and the current business strategy. The business strategy keeps on changing, from one business strategy to another business strategy, from one phase in the business cycle to another phase in the business cycle (Miles and Snow, 1984). The managers at times do not realize the fact that the changed business strategy should also be followed by changed compensation planning. For example when an organisation moves from one good domain to the service domain there is not only change in the strategy, but the entire operations of the organisation get a face lift. Departments like the production department are removed altogether, since in service domain, there is nothing as such called production. Instead there is a service generation department (Child, 1972). If the management still decides to go ahead and follow the same pay structure for the service generation department then the chances are that old payment structure may prove to be unjustified. Since the parameters based on which the previous payment structure is made do not tally with the present parameters based on which the employee performance are measured. The previous payment structure is production driven and the present payment structure is service driven. 2.2 Problems in staffing and training Managers face a range of problems in staffing and training. Sometimes the managers may not have the requisite amount of cash to support the cost involved in staffing. In other times the managers may not have enough money but are burdened with too many employees. This is one kind of problems. At times managers may not have the required amount of money to carry out the recruitment initiatives (Freidman, 1997). The recruitment initiatives involve strategic planning. Sometimes the managers may not have the required experience and expertise, to carry out the strategic planning. In that case the managers have to rely upon a different third party to carry out such strategic planning. If the size of the organisation is very large then the managers have to face an even bigger problem. For example, in a large organisation there are various levels of employees at various levels of departments. And in any one department or in any one level there are various employees differed by years of experience as well as skill set. It then becomes a cumber some task to map each and every type of employees according to skill set as well as experience to match the strategic need of the business (Hendry, 2000). At times there are huge gap between the strategic need of the organisation and the skill set of the employees. So the managers are faced with dilemma whether to go for fresh staffing or whether to go for retraining of the employees in order to close the gap between strategic need of the business and the present skill set of the employees. 2.3 Problems in employee retention One of the challenges of the strategic human resource management is employee retention. An organisation may not have the requirement of the same number of employees all throughout the year. The needs of employees are based more on the need of the business. During the boom phase, the business demands more employees and during the slack phase, the demand for the number of employees decrease. In order to address the need of increased number of employees, the company sometimes resorts to staffing on temporary basis (Kydd and Oppenheion, 1990). The temporary period staffing solution are characterised by various kind of staffing methodology. Sometimes the organisations resort to contract based staffing and at times they resort to ad-hoc based staffing. The problem with the ad hoc based staffing and contract based staffing is that the organisation sometimes discriminates between the permanent employees and the temporary employees on various grounds, starting from the recognition of the excellence, to the payment of incentives and salary and even chances of promotion. Even centrally funded organisations sometimes resort to various kinds of discrimination in salary. This aggravates the employees and they tend to leave the organisation. Thus all the expenses that are incurred in the process like the expenses of the selection, recruitment and training fail to create any payoff. 3.0 Selection of two challenges in Human Resource management and use of specific strategies in overcoming the problems The research project mentioned the existence of various kinds of challenges and problems in the human resource development. Among them only two issues are selected, based on the importance of the problem. They are retention problems and the problem with staffing and recruitment. 3.1 Development of retention strategies 3.1.1 Training The selection of the right retention strategy is all about striking the right balance between choosing between the need for fresh recruitment and investing more time and money in training the present employees. Through training the management can reinforce the sense of value within the employees (Truss, 1999). As employees start to get old working in an organisation, they at times start feel that they are losing out to the employees who are fresh and young in terms of skill and knowledge. Thus fearing that the management may at any time make them redundant, they start to lose encouragement. Training will improve the sense of importance and feeling of being needed and helpful. 3.1.2 Mentoring Sometimes the organisation does very little to decrease the distance between an employee and the management. Specific mentoring programmes can be developed integrated with a goal-integrated feedback system. This solidifies the relationship between the organisation and the employees. Mentoring programmes can be formed where someone experienced can be paired with someone who is not experienced. This kind of mentoring programmes improves the specific competencies. Through regular feedbacks the performances of the employees are tracked. 3.1.3 Spreading positive culture Sometimes the employees distance themselves since they fail to identify themselves with the organisational values and cultures. If an organisation establishes the basis of culture such as excellence, honesty, attitude, respect, and teamwork, then the employees can easily associate themselves with such values and ideals. This also improves the self images of the employees (Hyman, 1987). For example an employee who is hard working and honest can easily identify and associate himself/herself with the organisation if the managers also uphold the virtues of honesty and integrity. 3.1.4 Effective communication to ease the transfer of information Sometimes employees feel that they are neglected when their requests go unheard and unnoticed. This kind of feeling alienates the employees from the organisation. The organisation can have several level of bureaucracy which makes the flow of information from one level to another level very difficult. The request submitted by the employee can take time to get processed and finally executed since it may need several authorizations from several level of the organisation (Freidman, 1997). So instead of making the communication too much complicated, the communication channel should be freed from the clutters to make the flow of information as smooth as possible. 3.2 Developing and improving the staffing plans If retention problem is one of the highest occurring problems in most of the organisation, there is another problem that can be considered having the same kind of chances of occurring or occur in most of the organisation. It is the staffing problem. 3.2.1 Supply forecasting The demand forecasting can be done at 3 different levels which are internal availability, external availability, future labour supply and current training and development. The internal availability of the employees indicates the ability of the organisation to cater to the need for extra staffing from the present employee base before considering external sources. This kind of focus uses the internal sources before going for the external sources. Since external sourcing involves considerable cost (Hendry, 2000). Forecasting of the future labour supply is another strategy. This kind of forecast also indicates the different types of sources that can be used and up to what extent the sources can be used. The different types of forecast also indicate if the sources can be sufficient to meet the demand of extra labour and staff. The knowledge and skill loss forecast indicate if the present employees have the right kind of knowledge to meet the strategic need of the business (Kydd and Oppenheion, 1990). And before how long the knowledge and the skill set of the employees will become out dated. If an employee base is characterised by outdated skill set is bound to create results that will simply make the organisation loose out in competition. 3.2.2 Demand forecast The demand forecasting can be done at 3 different levels, which are staffing level, regular turnover, retirement turnover, and current training and development. The staffing level forecasts indicate the probable number of positions that will be needed to be filled in core job areas. This kind of forecast is to be done before conducting other kind of forecasts since the unexpected vacancy in core job areas the organisation ability to function properly. The second inline that is the second most important analysis is the forecast of the regular turnover. Any business faces turnover happening throughout the year. The forecast helps to know if the organisation needs to be on standby ready to supply the workforce with new employees in order to compensate for the regular turnover. Any kind of deviation from the regular turnover rate will help the organisation find out the actual causes of such deviation and take precautionary measure, before things go out of hand. Just like the regular turnover, an organisation also faces regular retirements (Hendry, 2000. If an organisation is not preparing to forecast the retirement turnover, then the organisation can face serious problems with staffing. The vacant positions need to be filled by employees next in line. This brings the discussion to succession planning. The succession planning should reflect the organisations preparedness to handle the unexpected change in the strategic positions. 4.0 Analysis of the gap The gap analysis should reflect the shortage between the projected demand and projected supply. If the organisation finds out that the difference between the supply forecast and the demand forecast is negative then there are some aspects in the supply forecast, which are getting over looked. It can also be other way around (Child, 1972). The organisation may have been less optimistic, or may have overestimated the need of the employees. Either way, whatever the reason is, it should be examined carefully. 5.0 Identification of the strategy The next step after projecting the supply and the demand and analysing between the projections is the formulation of the strategies. The strategies are also divided into 2 types, one is the demand side strategies and another one is the supply side strategies. 5.1 Demand side strategies: The demand side strategies include forming the right retention plan, performing a reorganisation, and redesigning the work process, and monitoring and managing the employee performance management. The controlling of all these factors influences the demand of the employees. If the right retention plan is selected, then the people are not going to leave the organisation. Reorganisation of the number of the management positions by expanding the supervisory span of control leads to better supervision (Hendry, 2000). The improvement in the work process redesign reduces the staffing needs by streamlining workflows and methods. If the performance of the employees are managed then the chances of being sacked reduces dramatically. This also reduces the need to induct new employees, and also reduces the need to invest in training the new recruits, thus reducing the expenses. 5.2 Supply side strategies The supply side strategies are recruitment strategies, modified qualification, workforce development strategies. Other kind of strategies are training and development, succession planning. The applicant pool needs to be expanded in order to increase the marketing of the organisation, so that the right kind of candidate is getting the right kind of information. The workforce development includes conducting training programmes in the school levels and the college levels, so that the candidates from these places may have some preconception about the work culture, work value of the organisation and what kind of work is done (Freidman, 1997). Through effective training and development strategies, the current staff can be up to date in their domain knowledge. Apart from that the on the job and other development trainings can also be done to train them. Developing proper succession planning makes sure that right people are promoted and assigned responsibilities once the positions are vacated. 6.0 Conclusion Organisations have faced severe inconveniences due to poor human resource management. The cost of poorly managed human resource has at times led to situations where a company has to resort to emergency recruitment. Poorly retention strategy, poor training and development programme and poor ability to forecast affects the ability to develop the right strategy affects the ability of the organisation from attaining the full potential of the human resources. Most of the organisations face these two problems which are retention and staffing. In order to get around these 2 problems, the organisations have to align the retention strategy and staffing strategy with the business strategy. Reference Boxall, P. F., 1982. Strategic HRM : a beginning a new theoretical direction, Human resource management journal, Vol.2(3), pp.61-79 Child, J., 1972. Organisational structure, environment and performance: the role of strategic choice, Sociology, Vol. 6(3), pp.1-22. Colling, T., 1995. Renewal or rigor motis ? union response to contracting in local government, Industrial relations journal, Vol. 26(2), pp. 134-145. Freidman, M., 1997. Nobel Lecture: Inflation and Unemployment, Journal of political economy, Vol. 85(3), pp. 51-72. Guest D.E., 1999. Human Resource Management: the workers verdict, Human Resource Management Journal, vol.9(2), pp.5-25 Hendry J., 2000. Strategic Decision Making, Discourse and strategy as social practice, Journal of management studies, Vol. 37(7), pp. 955-978. Hyman, R., 1987. Strategy or Structure: Capital, Labour and Control, Work employment and society, Vol. 1 (1), pp.25-55. Kydd C. T., and Oppenheion, L., 1990. Using human Resource Management to enhance competitiveness: Lessons from four excellent companies, Human resources management Vol. 29(2), pp. 145-06. Miles, R. and Snow, C. 1984. Designing Strategic Human Resources System, Organisational dynamics, summer, pp.36-52. Truss, C., 1999. Soft and hard model of HRM, In Gratton, V.H.,Haily, Stiles, P, Truss, C(Eds.) Strategic hrm : corporate rhetoric and human reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 40-58. Read More