Personal planning: Strategic Planning, HR planning, Job analysis

Question 1

Strategic planning (characteristic)

Answer 1

-is a process by which top management determines overall organizational purposes and objectives and how they are achieved.

-is an ongoing process that is constantly changing to find a competitive advantage.

• attempts to position the organisation in term of the external environment.
• at all levels of the organisation can be divided into four steps.

Question 2

The four steps of strategic planning

Answer 2

1. Mission determination:
   Decide what is to be accomplished (purpose)
   Determine principles that will guide the effort

2.Environmental Assessment
External: Determining external conditions, threats, and opportunities
Internal: Determining competencies, strengths and weakness within the organization
=swot analyse

3. Objective Setting:
   Specifying corporate level objectives that are:
   -Challenging but attainable
   -Measurable
   -Time specific
   -Documented (written)
4. Strategy setting:
   -Specifying and documenting corporate level strategies and planning
5. Strategy implementation

Question 3

Core Strategic Definitions

Answer 3

Mission: The basic purpose of the organization as well as its scope of operations.

Vision: A statement about where the company is going and what it can become in the future; clarifies the long-term direction of the company and its strategic intent.

Strategy: The definition of business strategy is a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal or set of goals or objectives. It states how business should be conducted to achieve the desired goals.

Core values: The strong and enduring beliefs and principles that the company uses as a foundation for its decisions.

Question 4

What is a good mission statement?

Answer 4

1. A mission statement is a clear description of your company’s purpose, goals, and the type of products or services you offer to help your audience find solutions to their problems.
2. A good, effective mission statement will present this information in a powerful and simple statement.
3. Effective mission statements serve to illuminate the company’s culture and inform the most important and dramatic strategies.
4. In simple terms, a mission statement is a form of summary that explains:  What you do.
    How you do it.
    Why you do it.
5. A good mission statement can surprise, inspire and transform your company.
6. The clearly defined purpose of your business and the goals you have set for success.
7. The best mission statements fit into the company’s philosophy and culture and help guide the company from the present to the future.

Question 5

HR needs to be involved in strategy setting

Answer 5

• Strategies should be developed to take advantage of the company’s strengths and minimise its weaknesses to grasp opportunities and avoid threats.

− HR professionals should be highly involved in these activities because the composition of the workforce will certainly influence the strategies chosen.

Question 6

Levels of strategy

Answer 6

Corporate strategy: In which areas can and should the company be active? Product-market combinations, business fields. Diversification, investment and co-operation strategy.

Business area strategy: How should competition be tackled in the individual business units? How to address competition in certain product-market combinations: cost leadership, differentiation, niche-strategy

Functional sub-strategy: How can the implementation of higher-level strategies be supported? e.g. personnel strategy: e.g. horizontal diversification –> personnel expansion; dis-investment –> personnel reduction; cooperation –> expert exchange; cost leadership –> low personnel costs, etc.

Question 7

Relationship between corporate strategy and HRM strategy

Answer 7

-Derived HR Strategy: Corporate strategy –> HRM strategy
= Market-oriented

-Non-derivative HR strategy: HRM strategy –> Corporate Strategy
= Ressource oriented

-Interactive alignments:
HR= market = Corporate strategy
=integrative

Question 8

HRM is crucial for strategy implementation (change in the organizational dimensions)

Answer 8

Strategy implementation requires changes in the organization’s behaviour, which can be brought about by changing one or more organizational dimensions, including:
- Leadership style
− Organizational structure (structure follows strategy)
− Information and control systems
− Technology
− Human resources

Question 9

Strategic Planning (definition)

Answer 9

Process by which top management determines overall organizational purposes (mission & vision) and objectives (goals) and how they are achieved (strategy).

Question 10

Human resource planning

Answer 10

Systematic process of matching the internal and external supply of people with job openings anticipated in the organization over a specified period of time.

Question 11

Objective of Human resource planning

Answer 11

To ensure that currently and in the future
− the required number of employees (quantitative)
− with the necessary qualities (qualitative)
− is available at the right time
− in the right place
− as cost-effectively as possible.

Question 12

From strategic planning to human resource planning

Answer 12

framework page 21

Strategic planning
–> Human ressource planning:
-Forecasting human resource requirements
-Comparing requirements and availability
– > Surplus of workers –> Restricted hiring, reduced hours, early retirement, layoffs, downsizing
–> Shortage of workers –> Recruitment –> Selection
–> demand supply –> No action
-Forecasting human resource availability

Question 13

External factors influencing human resource requirements

Answer 13

Pesteled analysis

Question 14

Internal factors influencing human resource requirements

Answer 14

Size of enterprise
* Organisational structure
* Corporate goals and strategies
* Production methods, Degree of automation, productivity
* Financing options
* Technical specifications of products
* Amounts produced and sold
* Employee capabilities and skills
* Demographical structure
* Personnel policy

Question 15

Forecasting human resources: 4 dimensions
–> human resource requirements

Answer 15

qualitative: What competencies do we need?
quantitative: How many FTEs do we need?

short term
long term

Question 16

Requirements forecast:

Answer 16

Determining the number, skill, and location of employees the organization will need at future dates to meet its goals

Question 17

Quantitative requirement forecast:

Answer 17

-Determines the amount of employees that must be available to meet the current and planned
volume of services.
− The basis is the concrete quantity of work (measured in working time).

Question 18

Qualitative requirement forecast:

Answer 18

− Records the competences, knowledge, skills and behaviour that staff must possess in order to
fulfil the service volume.
− The basis for the determination are the requirement profiles of current and future tasks and the required knowledge, skills and behaviour derived from them.

Question 19

Approaches for forecasting quantitative human resource requirements

Answer 19

− Zero-based forecast (estimation)
− Bottom-up forecast (estimation)
− Relationship between volume of sales and number of workers required (mathematical)
− Big data / AI / Analytics (predicitive)

Question 20

Simple mathematical model to estimate personnel requirement

Answer 20

PR= m x t/ T x LTF

PR= Personnel Requirement

m=Number of Work Orders / Units t = Time used per work order / unit

T= Workload per Full Time Employee

LTF= Loss of Time Factor (Time not worked: vacation, offical holidays, sick leave, military service, etc.)

Question 21

Big data and AI provide work force planning with new predictive options

Answer 21

Descriptive Analysis: Reporting of simple backward looking metrics including the findings deducted from them (e.g. FTEs, sick days, etc.)

–> voir le framework

Question 22

Availability forecast is the determination of

Answer 22

-whether the firm will be able to secure employees
with the necessary skills and
− from what sources (internal and external).

Question 23

Shortage of employees forecasted

Answer 23

When companies are faced with a shortage of employees, organizations should intensify their efforts to recruit the necessary people to meet the needs of the company. Some possible actions are:
− Innovative recruitment
− Compensation incentives
− Alternatives to layoffs/retirement

Question 24

Surplus of employees forecasted

Answer 24

When companies are faced with a surplus of employees, most companies look to alternatives to layoffs but downsizing may ultimately be required. Alternatives could be:
- Restricted hiring
− Reduced hours
− Early retirement

Question 25

Succession planning

Answer 25

− Process of ensuring that qualified persons are available to assume key managerial positions once the positions are vacant.
− Goal is to help ensure a smooth transition and operational efficiency.

Question 26

Job analysis

Answer 26

Is the systematic process of determining the skills, duties, and knowledge required for performing jobs in an organization.

Question 27

Job analysis is performed on three occasions:

Answer 27

− When the organisation is founded and a job analysis program is initiated for the first time.
− When new jobs are created.
− When jobs are changed significantly.

From job analysis information, job descriptions and job specifications can be prepared.

Question 28

Job analysis methods

Answer 28

− Questionnaires
− Observation
− Interviews (e.g. with line managers, employees in identical or similar position)
− Employee recording
− Existing job or function descriptions (check if still up-to-date)
− Critical incidents technique (CIT)
− Combination of methods

Question 29

Job description:

Answer 29

Document that provides information regarding the essential tasks, duties, and responsibilities of a job (… what is expected to be done).

Question 30

Job specification:

Answer 30

A document that outlines the minimum acceptable qualifications a person should possess to perform a job (… what is required to be able to do the job).

Question 31

Job description and job specification

Answer 31

in practice, both the job description and job specification are combined into one document, the job profile (also called role profile or job advertisement).

Question 32

Components of a job profile

Answer 32

Job description:
− Job title / function
− Reporting line, supervisory activities
− Purpose, main objectives of job
− Competence areas, responsibilities
− Main tasks, duties (-> Inventory of tasks)
− Working conditions
− Working time (%)
− Working location

Job specification
− Knowledge
− Competencies (-> critical incident technique)
− Skills and experiences required
− Professional/technical qualifications
− Educational background
− Other characteristics

Question 33

Inventory of tasks

Answer 33

All identifiable and describable activities and elements of activities which a specific job involves are listed. It can be helpful to further define:
* the extent to which the activities occur (as a % of working time)
* how difficult they are
* how relevant they are (indispensable/desirable).

Question 33

Critical incidents technique (CIT)

Answer 33

is based on the assumption that successful and less successful employees differ primarily in how they behave in situations that are of particular importance for the success of the respective job.

Question 34

CIT procedures:

Answer 34

− Collating critical incidents: What situations are critical to be managed for success in this job?
− Assessment of the collated incidents: Which of these situations occur particularly frequently or are especially important?
− Making a checklist with behaviours which are critical for success: How do particularly successful and less successful employees behave in these situations?
–> Criteria for the job specification and selection procedure

Question 35

Competencies:

Answer 35

Refer to an individual’s capability to orchestrate and apply combinations of knowledge, skills, and abilities consistently over time to perform work successfully in the required work situations.

Question 36

example of competency

Answer 36

-Technical competency
-Methodological / problem solving competency: applying know-how, project mgt skills, structuring & processing, etc.
-Social competency:
communication, collaboration, empathy, influence, conflict resolution, etc.
-Personal competency:
attitudes, values, integrity, creativity, ability to learn, etc.

Question 37

competency modelling:

Answer 37

Specifies and defines all the competencies necessary for success in a group of jobs that are set within an industry context.