Human Resource Planning - Chapter 3

Question 1

Human Resource Planning

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Relationship Between Strategic and Human Resource Plans

Question 3

Human Resource Planning

Answer 3

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

Question 4

The Workforce Planning Process

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Forecasting: Identifying the Causes that will Drive Demand

Answer 5

Strategic Plan

Demographic Impacts

Turnover

Legal Changes

Technological Changes

Competitors

Budgets and Revenue

Forecasts

New Ventures

Organizational and Job Design

Question 6

Forecasting Techniques for Estimating Human Resource Demand

Question 7

Expert Projection Forecasts

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Trend Projection Forecasts

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Other Forecasting Methods

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Overview of HR Tools used to Estimate Internal and External Supply of Labour

Answer 10

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

Question 11

The Supply of Human Resources: External Supply Estimates

Answer 11

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)

Question 12

Constant Balancing Act

Question 13

Strategies to Manage an Oversupply of Human Resources

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Strategies to Manage an Oversupply of Human Resources

Answer 14

Attrition
* Hiring freeze
* Early and phased retirement officers

Alternative Work Arrangements
* Job sharing
* Using part-time employees

Question 15

Strategies to Manage a Shortage of Employees

Question 16

Staffing Option #1:Hire Employees

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Staffing Option #2: Contract Out the Work

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Staffing Option #3:Develop Employees Internally

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Staffing Option #4:Creating Flexible Work Arrangements

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Program Measurement and Evaluation

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Human Resource Information Systems

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

HRIS Functions

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Components of a Human Resource Information System with Relational Features

Question 24

Access to HRIS Information

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

HRIS –An Important Tool for Strategic HRM

Answer 25

Increased efficiency
* Enhanced service delivery
Increased effectiveness
* Helping stakeholders make better decisions
Increased contribution to organizational sustainability
* Talent management
Increased visibility
* Enhanced HR competencies

Question 26

Human Resource Accounting

Answer 26

Human Resource Accounting (HRA)
A process to measure the present cost and value of human resources as well as their future worth to the organization.