Requisites for Successful Human Resource Planning

Requisites for Successful Human Resource Planning 

1.               HRP must be recognized as an integral part of corporate planning

2.               Support of top management is essential

3.               There should be some centralization concerning HRP responsibilities to have coordination between different levels of management.

4.               Organization records must be complete, up to date and readily available.

5.               Techniques used for HR planning should be those best suited to the data available and the degree of accuracy required.

6.               Data collection, analysis, techniques of planning, and the plan themselves need to be constantly revised and improved in the light of experience.

Barriers to Human Resource Planning

Human Resource Planners face significant barriers while formulating an HRP. The major barriers are elaborated below:

1)       HR practitioners are perceived as experts in handling personnel matters but are not experts in managing a business. The personnel plan conceived and formulated by the HR practitioners when enmeshed with the organizational plan might make the overall strategic plan of the organization ineffective.

2)       HR information often is incompatible with other information used in strategy formulation. Strategic planning efforts have long been oriented towards financial forecasting, often to the exclusion of other types of information. Financial forecasting takes precedence over HRP.

4)       Conflict may exist between short-term and long-term HR needs. For example, there can be a conflict between the pressure to get the work done on time and long-term needs, such as preparing people for assuming greater responsibilities. Many managers believe that HR needs can be met immediately because skills are available on the market as long as wages and salaries are competitive. Therefore, long times plans are not required, short planning is only needed.

5)       There is a conflict between quantitative and qualitative approaches to HRP. Some people view HRP as a number game designed to track the flow of people across the department. Others take a qualitative approach and focus on individual employee concerns such as promotion and career development. The best result can be achieved if there is a balance between the quantitative and qualitative approaches.

6)       Non-involvement of operating managers renders HRP ineffective. HRP is not strictly an HR department function. Successful planning needs a coordinated effort on the part of operating managers and HR personnel.

Requisites for Successful Human Resource Planning 

 Summary

Today, human resource planning is viewed as the way management comes to grasp the ill-defined and tough-to-solve human resource problems facing an organization. Human resource planning is the process of determining the human resources required by the organization to achieve its goals. Human resource planning also looks at broader issues relating to how people are employed and developed, to improve organizational effectiveness. HRP is a decision-making process that combines activities such as identifying and acquiring the right number of people with the proper skills, motivating them to achieve high performance, and creating interactive links between business objectives are resource planning activities. HRP sets out requirements in both quantitative and qualitative terms. An accurate manpower plan is a dream. A common error of many managers is to focus on the organization’s short-term replacement needs. Any human resource plan, if it is to be effective, must be derived from the long-term plans and strategies of the organization.

The various approaches to human resource planning under which several major issues and trends in today’s work plan that will affect organizations and employees are
(1) Examine external and internal issues,
(2) Determining future organizations capabilities,
(3) Determining future organizational needs, and
(4) Implementing human resources programs to address anticipated problems.

Although change is occurring very rapidly in the work world it is important for both organizations and employees to monitor issues and events continuously and consider their potential effects.

	Self Assessment Questions
1.	Explain the role of HR professionals in the human resource planning process in organizations.
2	Describe the various forecasting techniques and how these techniques are being used in human resource planning.
3	Explain the barriers to HRP. Bring out the requisites for effective planning.