Environmental Factors Influencing Planning Process - Essay Example

Heading: Workforce planning Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: Date Introduction The human resource management is an important consideration in an organizational setting. This is also evident in sport management as identified and critically discussed in this analysis. Workforce planning has been identified as a vital aspect, good planning yields positive results while bad planning yields negative results. There are also a number of environmental factors influencing workforce planning. These factors ought to be considered in order to guarantee success. Analysis Literature review According to Armstrong (2000, p.8) the human resource is the most important resource that an organization has. Efforts to ensure low employee turnover have been fostered by managers and practitioners alike. The aim of the HRM is to ensure that organizations retain its skilled, committed and motivated workforce. It is also mandated with the task of enhancing as well as developing inherent capacities of its workforce through provision of learning and development opportunities. The human resource is responsible for the management of the most important resource that an organization has. According to Armstrong (2000, p.7) strategies have been created in order to ensure the efficiency of the human capital over the past five decades. Motivational strategies, training and education, development of communication skills (soft skills) and employee rewards scheme have been enhanced in order to ensure optimal performance of the human resource. As noted by Armstrong (2000. P.9) most organizations have developed different appraisal schemes that are used to determine the performance of each employee in the organization. The main purpose of this is to ensure fairness in reward and promotions as well as to motivate the existing workforce into performing beyond their expectations. Kwon, Hyungil & Koh (2010, p.35) notes that the company’s employees (the human capital) determine the level of performance of a company, in this sense, motivated employees performs better than less motivated employees. Ellen (2001, p.22) also notes that gaining sustainable competitive advantage is through effective organizational workforce that is determined and geared towards attaining organizational objectives. According to Dale & Alllen (2001, p.23) management of people even in sports borrows fundamental concepts from organizational management. The rationale for this is because sports work in a similar manner to an organization. The athletes need to have coaches and a body which provides the needed finances, motivation and direction to what is expected from all the athletes involved. Rogers (2000, p.3) notes that in order to organize a successful track and field program, a coach essentially should start by not emphasizing on winning but laying a sound foundation for success. This involves creating a positive environment through development of coaching philosophy that considers athletes interest. Equally important, having qualified coaches is important in the long term success of the athlete’s performance. Sustainability in athletics demand ensuring that the coaches maintain the level of success every year; this is achieved through critical planning and learning the best ways of promoting the program in order to recruit the best talent regularly. Huber (2012, p.34) notes the importance of ensuring a strong foundation and winning will be a natural by-product of this effort. As defined by Redmon (2001, p.3) workforce planning is a process of planning to meet the current and future demand and supply that exist. It therefore involves developing goals, strategies as well as objectives for the future development of workforce. In essence, workforce planning is a systematic process which involves identifying and addressing complex factors with implication of capabilities and sustainability of the workforce. The key purpose of workforce is to provide the right people with the needed experience and skills in the right places at the right time using the right infrastructure and technology. Workforce planning involves five main stages, i. Business strategy- at this level the main aim is to determine the objectives of the organization. ii. Workforce demand- this involves the expected workforce demands iii. Current workforce- this involves the current staff levels within the organization iv. Workforce risks- this involves the current workforce issues which influence organizational performance. v. Strategies- this stage involves development of plans in order to breach the gaps in labor, demand and labor supply future expectations. The three key steps in ensuring workforce planning is successful are: firstly demand forecasting, this involves good estimation of the quantity as well as the quality of the employees needed in order to meet the key organizational objectives. Secondly supply forecasting, this involves determining the number of employees that the organization will need in order to meet the demand. The third step involves filling the gaps between the expected demand and supply. The need for an effective workforce is evident in all the organizations including sporting bodies. Coaches need to have effective plans and strategies of ensuring that athletes have sound training, motivation and right philosophies of winning medals (USA Gymnastics 2011). The process of winning is started by laying sound foundation that attracts talents just like a company that has good culture and reputation attracts high performing employees from time to time. Positive aspects of workforce planning Workforce planning has a number of advantages especially in sporting activities and overall organizational management. Planning is basically the process of outlining what needs to be done within certain time limits and setting objectives that need to be achieved. In every successful undertaking, planning is the first step, without planning, no results can be achieved. Albrecht (2013, p.45) notes that planning of athletics activities in the US through effective strategies that are sustainable is the reason why the US is one of the leading sporting countries in the world in nearly all the sporting activities. Consistency in planning the workforce is important because it determines the success of the entire process. Sustainability of the planning process is therefore a main contributor of success from time to time. Since planning involves consideration of the current and future demands versus supply, planning brings about sharing of resources efficiently in order to optimize results. American Sport Education Program (2007, p.46) notes that the fundamental aspect of coaching a baseball team is consideration of balancing of energies throughout the entire workforce. This is achieved by working on the potential human kinematics, determining the strength as well as the weakness of the team in order to optimize resource allocation and usage. Planning therefore contributes to an effective budgeting process. According to Gilbert & Cynthia (2007, p.25) planning allows strategic business planning process, this is the case in sports planning. As noted by American Sport Education Program (2009, p.56) strategic workforce planning is essentially embedded part of the annual sporting activity. Planning helps in ensuring attainment of strategic objectives within the planned period of time. More so, Boyle (2012, p.44) identifies that workforce planning helps in identifying shortage of qualified talent needed to fill critical roles. Strategic planning is important in identifying shortages and speeding up the process of determining sources of new talents that could upon hire make significant impact on the business or sporting activity. As Ellen (2001, p.22) states, besides identifying shortage of talents, planning is a mechanism which identifies critical talent. With proper integration, workforce planning enhances communication between the human capital and the business units which subsequently leads to the ability to identify and retain the most imperative talent. Workforce planning comes in handy in identification of skill gaps in workforce and hence making more feasible planning possible. Feltz & Maier (2006, p. 11) notes that it is imperative to determine the talent needed in any sporting activity. It is the task of the head coach to determine the gaps in any sporting activity. This is important, as an example, in England, the English Premier League manager of Manchester United Sir Alex Fergusson has been a successful manager in the EPL because of his ability to identify gaps in his squad. In the 2012-2013 season, he purchased a talented forward Dutchman Robin Van Persie from rival club Arsenal and Manchester United was able to secure a 19th premier league title, this success could not have been possible without the identifying of this gap and filling it in time. Lastly, workforce planning helps in determining critical roles; this is achieved though identification of critical roles that if unfilled, could damage the foundation of an organization but could lead to greater returns if properly filled. In a sporting relay in athletics, it is important to have a good starter and a good finisher; coaches need to determine this effectively in order to fill this gap. In the recent years, Jamaica has been successful in winning gold medals in both genders 4 x 100 meter relays by putting world-class talent as their finishers in Hussein Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. This is an example of how an effective gap identification and talent can fill the gap and lead to great achievements. Negative aspects of workforce planning Despite the positive aspects of workforce planning, there are a number of shortcomings in this area. Plans that that too broad and narrow are limiting. While both are serious problems, of the two, too ambitious is a more serious fault. This is particularly common in most large scale efforts of assessing factors such as leadership assessment, competency studies and skills. Sophisticated succession-planning charts aimed at filling the gaps often backfire. This is normally evident in sporting activities, wrong planning by coaches through ineffective philosophies derail the focus of the sporting activities. In Kenya, despite their success in the recent past, the Kenyan Olympic team performed dismally in the London Olympic Games because the coaching staff plans were ineffective and post-dated. Despite the country’s reputation in long distance races, their performance raised fundamental questions about their planning and general preparation. While planning is required for any sporting activity, poor planning impedes the intended success of winning medals in Olympic Games. According to Mohan (2012, p.1) India poor performance of the 2012 Olympic Games was due to poor planning. As Manisha a former tennis Olympian claimed, many aspects of the Indian Sports Administration is not well planned. In fact, long-term planning is alien to the federation, Indian sports administration and government agencies. The administration has a habit of last minute rush planning which has disadvantages Indian athletes over the years. Workforce planning also demands budgeting, if the talent required is outside the scope of the budget, then despite the effective planning process, it would not be possible to fill the identified gap effectively. Environmental factors influencing planning process Both internal and external environmental factors affecting the workforce planning process; this is evident in organizational setting and sporting activity. For an organization to grow, it must anticipate these environmental factors and be able to deal with these changes. Internal factors includes finances, staff attitudes, skills available, participation numbers, assets and structures, external factors includes, technology, legal constraints, economic status, social trends, politics and the market place. In sporting activities, staff attitudes is critical as bad attitudes ruin the planning process, the members participation also determines the level of success, finances available have a big influence as it determines the available resources, the skills available also influence the planning and ultimately the success or the failure. Member’s participation and the existing structure also influence the workforce planning process. For instance, according to Mohan (2012), the existing Indian Olympic planning committee structure is ineffective and thus the reason why India was unable to perform well in the London Olympic Games. External environmental factors such as politics also affect the workforce planning process. This is evident in Nigeria as Wakili (2012, p.3) notes that sport woes in Nigeria are marked by poor planning and corruption. Wakili (2012, p.3) notes that Nigeria experiences huge tardiness in preparations marked by mismanagement, degradation and inadequate maintenance and vandalisation of national assets. More so, the country experiences absence of rigor and thoroughness in the workforce planning process, a factor that impedes its performance as was evident in the London Summer Olympics. Conclusion As discussed, HRM plays a vital role in ensuring success in an organizational setting as well as a sporting activity focused on winning an Olympic medal. Workforce planning helps in resource allocation, identification of talent and filling of critical roles in an organization. On the contrary poor planning of workforce results in failure, financial constrain also limit the planning process. In sporting activities, both internal and external environmental factors influence the success of the sporting activities. Countries that optimize on their structure and financial muscle perform better in Olympics as compared to countries with limited resources and poor planning. Definition of terms used Human kinematics- the study of human dynamics especially in sports HRM- Human Resource Management body References Albrecht, R 2013, Coaching Myths: Fifteen Wrong Ideas in Youth Sports, McFarland, Michigan.pp.45-56. American Sport Education Program 2007, Coaching Youth Baseball, Human Kinetics, New Jersey. Pp.46-49. American Sport Education Program 2009, Coaching Tennis Technical and Tactical Skills, Human Kinetics, New York. P.56-67. Armstrong, M 2000, Strategic Human Resource Management: A Guide to Action, Kogan Page Publishers, New York. Pp. 8-14. Boyle, M 2012, Advances in Functional Training: Training Techniques for Coaches, Personal Trainers and Athletes, On Target Publications, New York. P.44-56. Dale, MS & Alllen, JW 2001, Youth Coaching Preferences of Adolescent Athletes and Their Parents, Journal of Sport Behavior, vol. 24, no2. pp. 23-34. Ellen, G 2001, Coaching Isn't Just for Athletes: The Role of Teacher Leaders, Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 82, No. 10. P. 22-32. Feltz, MND & Maier, DL 2006, Athletes' Evaluations of Their Head Coach's Coaching Competency, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, Vol. 77, No. 1, pp. 11-18. Gilbert, GJ& Cynthia, WM 2007, Coaching Strategies for Helping Adolescent Athletes Cope with Stress: Reduce the Stress about Reducing Stress in Your Athletes, JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, Vol. 78, No. 2, pp.23-43. Huber, J 2012, Applying Educational Psychology in Coaching Athletes, Human Kinetics, New Jersey.p.34-43 Kwon, PY, Hyungil & Koh, H 2010, Perceived Coaching Leadership of Youth Athletes in Singapore, Journal of Sport Behavior, vol.33, no.1. pp.34-45. Mohan, KP 2012, Poor planning has let many athletes down, The Hindu 13 July, p. 1 Redmon, WR 2001, Coaching Critical Thinking: Tutoring Athletes toward Self-Sufficiency, Journal of College Reading and Learning, Vol. 31, No. 2. P. 3 Rogers, JL 2000, USA Track & Field Coaching Manual, Human Kinetics, New York. Pp.3-4 USA Gymnastics 2011, Coaching Youth Gymnastics, American Sport Education Program, New York. Wakili, I 2012, Nigeria: Mark Blames Sports Woes On Corruption, Poor Planning, Daily Trust 20 September p.3. Read More