Human Resource Planning - Chapter 3 Flashcards
Human Resource Planning
Forecasts an organization’s future demand for and supply of employees, and matches supply with demand
HR department contributes to success:
* Proper staffing is critical
- Different strategies require varying HR plans
- HR planning facilitates proactive responses
- Successful tactical plans require HR plans
- HR planning can vary from capturing basic information to live-time predictive analytics
Relationship Between Strategic and Human Resource Plans
Human Resource Planning
Human resource planning can vary in sophistication across organizations:
- No formal planning –small companies where HR activities may be done in a reactionary way
- Basic planning –companies recognizing the need to plan for HR activities and may engage in a mix of proactive and reactionary planning focus on the short term (1-2 years)
- Advanced planning –direct tie between strategy and HR planning anticipating needs 3-5 years in advance
- Sophisticated planning –Senior HR professionals are integral to the strategic process with planning for 5+years out relying on strong expertise and technologies to support planning
The Workforce Planning Process
Step 1: Forecast Demand for Resources
Step 2: Assess supply of Resources
Step 3: Develop HR Objectives
Step 4: Design and Implement Workforce Systems to Balance Demand and Supply
Step 5: Establish and Conduct Evaluation
Forecasting: Identifying the Causes that will Drive Demand
Strategic Plan
Demographic Impacts
Turnover
Legal Changes
Technological Changes
Competitors
Budgets and Revenue
Forecasts
New Ventures
Organizational and Job Design
Forecasting Techniques for Estimating Human Resource Demand
Expert Projection Forecasts
Informal and Instant Decisions
* Expert forecasts of future HR needs
Nominal Group Technique
* Groups of managers are asked to make forecasts and the manager’s ideas are discussed by the group and ranked
Delphi Technique
* Surveys of groups of experts, summaries are shared back with the group, and they are surveyed again until opinions converge
Trend Projection Forecasts
Extrapolation
* Extending past rates of change into the future
Indexation
* Matching employment growth with an index (e.g. ratio of production employees to sales)
Statistical Analysis
*More sophisticated statistical analyses allow for changes in the underlying causes of demand
Other Forecasting Methods
Budget and Planning Analysis
* Organizations that need HR planning generally have detailed budgets and long-range plans
New Venture Analysis
* Planners estimate human resource needs by making comparisons with similar operations
Simulation and Predictive Models
* More sophisticated approaches
Overview of HR Tools used to Estimate Internal and External Supply of Labour
HR Audits
* Skills Inventories - Summary of worker skills and abilities
- Management and Leadership Inventories - Reports of management capabilities
*Replacement Charts - Lists of likely replacements for each job
- Replacement Summaries - Lists of likely replacements for each job and their relative strengths and weaknesses.
Transition Matrices & Markov Analysis (see Schwind Figure 3-7
The Supply of Human Resources: External Supply Estimates
Labour Market Analysis
* Study of the firm’s labour market to evaluate the present or future availability
Community Attitudes
* Affects nature of the labour market
Demographic Trends
* Affects the availability of external supply
* ESDC publishes labour force projections
* Statistics Canada publishes reports
* Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS)
Constant Balancing Act
Strategies to Manage an Oversupply of Human Resources
When the internal supply of workers exceeds the firm’s demand, a surplus exists. There are various HR strategies:
Headcount reduction
* Layoffs
* Leave without pay
* Incentives for voluntary separation
* Termination
Strategies to Manage an Oversupply of Human Resources
Attrition
* Hiring freeze
* Early and phased retirement officers
Alternative Work Arrangements
* Job sharing
* Using part-time employees
Strategies to Manage a Shortage of Employees
Staffing Option #1:Hire Employees
Hire full-time employees
* Where internal transfer or promotion is not feasible, hiring full-time employees may be required
* Results in additional fixed cost
Hire part-time workers
* Popular strategy for meeting human resource needs
Staffing Option #2: Contract Out the Work
Source service providers
* Independent contractor: freelancer (self-employed)
- Consultants: hired to provide expert advice and counsel in a particular area
- Outsource: contracting tasks to outside agencies or persons
- Crowdsource: takes a function once performed by employees and outsources it to an undefined network of people as an open call
- Co-source: a form of contracting that brings an external team to support and work with an internal team
Staffing Option #3:Develop Employees Internally
Promotions
* Movement of an employee from one job to another that is higher in pay, responsibility, and/or organizational level
Succession and career plans
Training and development
Staffing Option #4:Creating Flexible Work Arrangements
Overtime
* Employees work beyond the normal hours
Flexible retirement
* Target those employees close to retirement to extend their contributions (e.g., retiree return)
Float and transfer
* Movement of an employee from one job to another that is relatively equal in pay, responsibility, and organizational level
Program Measurement and Evaluation
The final step in the planning process is to evaluate workforce planning activities against organizational goals
* E.g., were vacancies in key roles reduced? Was the target of internal or external recruits achieved?
- Improvement should be measured year over year
Human Resource Information Systems
A Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is used to collect record, store, analyze, and retrieve data concerning an organization’s human resources
The major stakeholders who use the information from an HRIS are HR professionals, managers, and employees.
HRIS Functions
There are many different systems to choose depending on organizational requirements
Key considerations:
* Size
* Information that needs to be captured
* Volume of information transmitted
* Firm’s objectives
* Technical capabilities
*Reporting capabilities
Components of a Human Resource Information System with Relational Features
Access to HRIS Information
Access to HRIS Information
* Determining who should have access and who should have the right to change input data with consideration for privacy
Security
* Concerns about unauthorized disclosure of information, viruses, etc.
