Human Resource Planning - Essay Example

Human Resource Planning Student Name Institution Human Resource Planning Globally, a lot of organizations are facing challenges due to their rapid of expansion of business activities. It is thus a enormous challenge for human resource managers to manage workforce concentrated in local markets as well as in international markets. Such challenges have led to the concept of Human Resource Planning which is widely perceived as an effective tool for establishing the human resource needs within an organization. Human Resource Planning may be regarded as a procedural evaluation of the human resource needs so as to warrant that, at any given period, an organization has the required number of employees who have relevant technical skills to carry out various activities within a business (Dom et al., 2012). As such, human resource aims at ensuring that human resource needs of an organization are clearly identified and/or developed so as to fill the gap within the human resource needs of an organization. Therefore, the human resources department within an organization have to institute measures for recruiting and enhancing its workforce. Proper management of an organization’s human resources comes in handy at ensuring continuity of its workforce until retirement without creating a gap at any time. Consequently according to Purwadi (2012) the type and quantity of the workforce employed within an organization determines the quality of employees as well as services offered. There are various objectives of human resources planning and are dependent on the industry within which an organization is. However, it is characteristically similar to all firms to experience significant costs such as administrative and salaries. What is common to such costs is that they are mostly incurred in management of the workforce. As such, it is necessary for business to have proper planning strategies in terms of recruiting and maintaining lean workforce so as to achieve competitive advantage over other competitors. According to Ali et al. (2012), human resources planning should put an emphasis on recruiting employees for an organization rather than for a specific job title. In other words, the employees recruited by an organization should not only fit for job portfolios but as well fit within the general culture of an organization. In the same regard, the hiring practices of any organization influences financial costs incurred in hiring and ultimately the overall financial performance of an organization. In that case, as defined in the first paragraph, human resources manager needs only to hire individuals with accurate skills at the right places and within accurate periods. For instance, Ali et al. (2012) gives an example of Mark and Spencer, a renown retailer that despite building a remarkable reputation in United Kingdom, it failed become sustainable in the international market. The main reason was because the retailer was incapable of adapting to changes in the global marketplace in terms of the complex nature of the workforce and human resource needs. Therefore, it is crucial for management to institute strategic human resource plans or strategies that are proactive to both external and internal environment. It is worth noting that human resource programs and activities for instance training and development, staffing, feedback and performance management, and compensation should be concentrated on the overall mission and goals of the business. Such a move should be the main objective an effective human resource planning. Therefore, the most significant objective of human resources planning is that the entire workforce must be positive towards the goals and objectives of an organization (Boxall & Purcell, 2003). The main advantage of human resource planning is that it identifies the future human resource needs as well as their availability proportionate to the skills required within an organization. As opposed to traditional frameworks that do not focus on business plans, effective human resource planning puts into consideration organization objectives. This means that organizational plans are sufficiently transformed into human resource plans. For instance Ali et al. (2012), explains the importance of human resource planning in which case he notes that in the year 1988, the share price of Dell Company was $ 8.50 but later in the year 2000 it increased to $ 4812. The management at Dell executives attributed the credit of success to the company strategic method to human resources planning. Translating the strategic objectives of an organization into specific human resource planning is rather a proactive approach than a reactive approach. This means that all initiatives relating to human resource planning need to be flexible in nature in order to facilitate an organization to handle external changes within the business environment. By aligning a human resource planning with both the objectives of an organization and on the other with the dynamic external environment, an optimal external and internal fit of human resource planning is created (Boxall & Purcell, 2003). As such, it is crucial for human resource managers to understand that putting into place effective human resources planning so as to build a sustainable competitive advantage. For instance, organizations that ventures in overseas markets, multinationals, are obliged to adopt strategic human resource plans and practices (Hafeez & Aburawi, 2013). This is because of the complexity of business activities for such organizations in controlling and coordinating their business activities in an international scale. Some of the challenges faced by organizations is in the provision of coordinated processes of recruitment, training and promotion of their employees. Besides, predicting future competency needs as it comes in handy at creating a linkage between a firm’s long-term business goals and human resource planning. Human resource managers are as well faced by the challenge of ensuring that in case an organisations staff is absent, internal organization efficiency is attained. In summary, having a centralised database of workforce within an organization and their competencies would come in handy at making it easier for human resource planning (Purwadi, 2012; Hafeez & Aburawi, 2013). There are various external factors that affects the implementation of human resource planning, and they include economic changes, technology changes and demographic changes. First, in regard to economic changes, the human resource managers should be aware of the dynamics of skilled labor and level of demand. In booming and robust economies, the demand for qualified and skilled labor is usually high. Besides, such economic growth may impact heavily on the daily expenditure of most employees as a result of price increases. In another aspect, during human resource planning, the human resource managers should ensure that the wage system is aligned to existing economy within a nation. On the other hand, global economic crisis may render an organization to fail to achieve required growth rates thereby affecting any strategic approaches to human resources planning (Dom et al., 2012). Second factor is technological changes, and in this regard, human resource managers needs to evaluate whether the existing labor force is conversant with technological changes or not. Besides, the workforce need to be at par with technological advancements and managers needs to establish the training needs of its organization. Besides, ensuring that new technology is adopted within an organization to assist employees in their job portfolios. On the other hand, having particular professional training also influences the amount of salary one is paid, and it influences the budgets of human resource departments. Third factor that managers require to consider is the demographic changes. In some instances, some jobs are highly dominated by male gender. In some industries, young generations are rarely recruited into some organizations. Such disparities based on age, age, social status and/or level of education should be considered by the human resource manager when recruiting (Dom et al., 2012). As discussed in the above review, human resource planning is increasingly becoming popular for an organization that wants to achieve competitive advantage in the challenging economic environments. It is clear that human resource planning entails systematic evaluation of human resource needs within an organization, at any given time, in order to ensure that, at various workplaces, there is a sufficient number of employees to execute concerned activities. The concept can be adopted by all human resource managers irrespective of the industry of their organizations. As explained above, human resource planning is advantageous in that it incorporates the objectives of the organization into human resource plans. This ensures –that the organization moves along in its business activities holistically to achieve competitive advantage. However, as there are various factors that affect proper implementation of human resource planning as discussed above and they are for instance economic changes, technology changes and demographic changes. It has been argued that with the ever fluctuating financial and economic environments globally, the human resource manager need to incorporate such factors in their human resource planning. Besides, with the globalisation being driven by rapid technological changes, the human resource plans have to consider the impact of technology on the nature of their business activities. Finally, demographic changes that affects employees direct are as well worthy to be considered when instituting human resources plans. It is prudent to argue that for an organization to achieve sustainable and a cutting edge against its competitors, its crucial to institute an all inclusive human resource plan. References Ali, M., Ahmad, Z., & Iqbal, J. (2012). Human resource planning: A key to internal and. African Journal of Business Management, 6(27), 7938-7941. Boxall, P. & Purcell, J. (2003). Strategy and human resources management. Industrial and labour Relations Review, 57(1), p. 84. Dom, N. M., Kasim, N., & Shamsudin, A. (2012). Framework of human resource planning (HRP) influencing factors for local workforce supply in Malaysian construction industry. Journal of Technology Management in China , 7(2), 177-197. Hafeez, K., & Aburawi, I. (2013). Planning human resource requirements to meet target customer service levels. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, 5(2), 230-252. Purwadi, D. (2012). The Role of Japanese Human Resource Planning Practices for Increasing Industrial Competitiveness. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 65, 253-259. Read More