Term Paper on "Human Resource Planning"

Term Paper 6 pages (2145 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Human Resource Planning

All organizations require employees to make them a success and it is considered as important as finance, machinery and land for running the organization successfully. The important point to note here is that individuals all have different temperaments and working methods, and some people in the organization have the responsibility of making them all work together. These people are the human resources department which is otherwise known as the personnel department. If an organization is not staffed correctly then it ends up loosing the economy of scale that it should have got as also the possible customers and profits. At the same time, if there are too many people then there are a lot of financial losses if they are retained, and at the same time if they are to be laid off then there are financial losses from redundancy payments. Again the organization must have its own staff to tackle this as other wise a lot of funds will be required for the needed consultation. The people to be removed cannot be removed immediately as there are some minimum periods of notice that has to be given. Thus there are a variety of problems.

Planning of manpower:

Staff requirements are planned with the total picture of the organization in mind. Manpower available should be enough to meet the present needs as also for future expansions considering the funds and other resources available to the organization and the predicted future of the industry. The final plan has to take all this into account. Then the existing staff has to be categorized in terms of total numbers, skills available with individuals, their ages, their flexibility, sex, their previous experience, character, potential and predicted capabilities. The future availability has then to be roughly planned in different time spans of one year, three years and ten years. For all this planning one has to take into account the usual turnover, general promotion of staff into other responsibilities, retirements and so on. The future plans for the business by the managers have to be taken into account along with this. With all this work, one is expected to reach an assessment of the situation as is likely to happen, if the human resources managers do not do any planning.

That is not expected to happen, though even to reach this situation requires a lot of hard work. The human resources manager then makes his own forecast, and that may be only very rough. In other organizations, the individual managers of departments will make their own rough estimates, and it will be the responsibility of the human resources department only to finalize them. This approach is taken as personnel requirements come from sales and production forecast, technological changes, predicted changes in efficiency, productivity, or flexibility due to technological changes; the introduction of sub-contractors or other agencies for doing part of the job; variations caused by new laws on payroll, health and safety laws; and changes in government policies. Finally with all this, one can reach a plan which is better than just an educated guess. Then the predicted situation has to be balanced with staff available, and then the plans will have to be made for recruitment, training, retraining, and even labor reduction. The result of all this effort is to get labor available and required into some sort of equilibrium. The final aim of all this is to get the organization to reach the planned objectives. (Manpower planning)

Recruitment and selection of employees:

The first major task in manpower planning of any organization is to get people for working in the organization, and this may be getting them for the first time, or for replacement purposes. To do this first the job has to be analyzed and the essential requirements of any individual for the job is to be determined. This is to be put down into job description so that the requirements for the job in terms of physical and mental characteristics are well-known. When the recruitment is for replacement of existing staff, a question should be asked as to why there should be any recruitment; most of the time, replacement should be through the process of promotion. It has to be remembered that selection of employees is a costly exercise as the employee will have to be paid for some years. For this purpose, it is easier for some organizations to get outside organizations with good reputation to be involved in getting employees, or use consultants for the purpose. At the same time, the recruitment person should be well conversant with the job.

The main sources of getting staff should be internal promotion, careers officers in universities, appointment boards in universities, agencies for the jobless or through advertising. It may be required for the organization to do some advertising for staff, and there the advertising should not end up being offensive to any group. There will be a requirement for different forms for different levels of appointment. Again in many of these forms, the potential staff will make claims about experience and qualifications, but these should be thoroughly checked. As a part of the form, there should be a questionnaire about the individual's health, and this aspect should be finally checked by medical examination. After all forms are received, there has to be a judgment of the suitability of the candidate for the job, and this has to be resolved through interviews. The interviews may be by a board of people from different areas or with different people in sequence. The length of interviews can be different for different positions. In the process of selection, one has to carefully judge the aptitudes of the candidates, their attainments, and overall intelligence at the worker levels. For senior positions, one has to judge the performance in leaderless groups, command exercises, and solving of problems of the group. (Recruitment and selection of employees)

Employee motivation:

We have just ended the process of selection of employees and the next natural step is to consider how they can be encouraged to perform their best when they are employed by the organization. This requires a continuous study and review of the financial, psychological and physiological rewards that the employees receive when they are working. Hours of work are determined by the national level agreements or government decisions. A lot of other factors in the salaries and working hours of the workers are decided through local negotiations and similar matters. To the workers these are probably as important as the other part of the compensation. It has to be understood that the number of employees needed depends on the production that is achieved by individual workers and that is the reason why goods personnel policies are beneficial for the organization. The production also depends on other conditions like environment, welfare, employee benefits, etc., but first and foremost is that the wages must be accepted as fair and just. The development of behavioral science is leading to a situation where the limitations of money as being the prime motivator are being questioned, and this is leading to the mobile and multi-skilled employees laying more stress on things like job satisfaction, involvement, participation, etc. (Employee motivation)

Job Analysis:

It is clear that for motivating the employees, the essentials of the job have to be obtained and that is job specification. This is generally brought out in the form of a written statement of needed requirements for a job in terms of needed qualifications, duties, responsibilities and the authority to be exercised by the person doing the job. Job analysis helps for establishing the criteria for selection and evaluation of performance, for training and development programs of the people in the job, for job evaluation, determining the remuneration to be paid to the job holder, helping in the design of the job, and finally for restructuring the organization. Once a job is analyzed, it helps in the establishment of fair employment. It should be remembered that job analysis concentrates on the job and not on the individual performing the job. This also means that the job analysis would help in obtaining optimum productivity. (Job Analysis)

Employee Evaluation for team development:

In today's world, a lot of work is done as teams and not individuals. For these jobs, one has to first clarify the requirements for a job and then select a person with the required capacities for the job. The concerned individuals selected may be promoted from within the organization, trained or developed from other functions within the organization. While building a team, it is important to consider team members having the needed skills, knowledge and experience. For this purpose, it may be needed to have employee surveys, and this can be done by good managers from the employees when they are talking to them informally during short trips around the organization while the person is just doing the job. This sort of a manager can build up a key profile of the workers using the methods of profile… READ MORE

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