HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING IN LIBRARIES

Garvita Jhamb
Research Scholar
Department of Library and Information Science, II Floor, Tutorial Building,
University of Delhi, Delhi- 110 007 (India)
Mobile: 8882023568
Email Id: [email protected]

Abstract
Human resource planning serves as a tool for identifying current and future human
resources requirements, developing and instigating plans to meet these
requirements and monitoring their overall value. This paper aims to provide the
view of LIS professionals in select libraries of Delhi regarding the human resource
planning facet of human resource management. A Likert scale questionnaire was
used to obtain responses from the professionals working in the eight libraries
which were categorized into four. It was found out that most of the staff is aware
about the human resource planning aspect of their libraries and also about the
factors involved while planning for manpower. Academic libraries (DU & JNU)
have scored best among all the categories

Keywords- human resource management, human resource planning, job analysis, job
description, manpower planning.
 1 Introduction

Human resource, or Manpower are an important asset of every organization including

libraries. They comprise of all types of personnel entering into organization at any
position. They alone are capable of converting all other resources to the full potential.
They possess the required knowledge, skills and abilities to produce qualitative work.
Investment in the development of this resource ensures a good chance of achieving
higher productivity along with quality.1

1.1 Human Resource Planning

According to Stainer, it is strategy for the requisition, utilization, improvement and

preservation of an enterprise’s human resource. It relates to establishing job
specifications or the quantitative requirements of jobs determining the number of
personnel required and developing sources of manpower.2

Manpower planning is regarded as a positive method to upgrade the employee’s

ability and capability enabling them to work towards the achievement of set goals and
objectives. The philosophy of manpower planning is to respect and value human
beings is the prime and invaluable contributors to higher productivity and quality of
products and services. To ensure optimum use of human resources currently employed
in the organization is the main objective of human resource planning. In order to
avoid imbalances in the allocation of manpower and to ensure that right number and
right kind of manpower is available at right time holding the right positions ought to
be another aim of human resource planning. It takes into account every action
involved in different aspects of human resource management right from the beginning
i.e recruitment and selection of employees, their training and development needs,
timely appraisal, and their retirement. It reduces the labor cost as excess or shortage of
manpower can be identified and thereby overstaffing or understaffing can be avoided,
and thereby balancing manpower. It provides with well qualified human resources
required to accomplish the goals and objectives of an organization. 3
1.2 Human Resource Planning Process

The very first step in the process of human resource planning is the prediction
of the kind and number of human resources needed. Manpower requirements are
forecasted annually or once in two years and alike by examining the current
manpower available at different positions, number of vacant posts-whether sanctioned
or not, requirement of new posts to be filled with reasons etc. After deciding how
many human resources would be needed next important step is planning job analysis
and job description. Each job is analyzed to find out duties to be performed and
responsibilities involved. It is a complete study of nature of job. On the other hand job
description is a written record of duties, skills, responsibilities and conditions of a
particular jobs.It contains number of statements describing a job in such terms as
title., location, duties, Working conditions, Hazards and relationship with other
departments, supervisions to be exercised, salary range, reporting procedure etc. after
analysis of job and preparation of job description, the recruitment & selection process
begins. Under this step origination looks for the sources to post their vacancies so that
they reach out to the people and hence help them to apply for the positions. The
sources include newspaper advertisements, posting on internet, employment exchange
etc. once the notification reaches to the desired aspirants they will apply accordingly.
After the organization will receive an adequate number of applications they will
further sort out the more desirable candidates and start the procedure for selection.4

2 Literature Review

Awasthy, in her thesis attempted to cover all the major aspects of HRM. She
covered five tyre manufacturing Apollo, Modi Rubber Ltd., JK tyres, Ceat and
Goodyear. The data was collected using a thorough questionnaire. 5 According to
Castley, unlike today human resource planning was merely manpower planning and
manpower plans are complex and require enormous amounts of data. 6 Chadzingwa
reviewed human resource management (HRM) in the academic libraries of Southern
Africa and it was found out that the HRM approach has been adopted in BLNSAS,
some librarians handle HRM issues unassisted, others jointly work with HR officers,
while some are still detached from HRM.7 Devi and Singh in their paper attempted to
define the terms manpower and development in the context of management as well as
general. They also enlightened the significance of manpower in the university
libraries working setup and the need of developing the same manpower in the
changing scenario.8 Ibojo in his paper has illuminated the various faces of manpower
planning, their variables and its effect in achieving the stated objectives of any
organization. The study recommends the need for more empirical study on the
manpower planning and organization objectives interconnection and recommended
that organizations must take into knowledge the lively nature of its environments. 9
According to Khoong, the human resource planning is a key supporting element in the
management of organizations as it is responsible for ensuring that the right people are
available at the right places and at the right times to execute plans with the highest
levels of quality.10 K P analysed the size and structure of the professional and non-
professional manpower, their staff pattern, pay scales, qualifications etc. in the five
university libraries of Kerala.11 Mangi reviewed the human resource management
(HRM) in apex institutes of India, to determine the level at, and manner by which,
HRM issues are handled in Indian libraries and their parent organisations. He
discussed the transition from the traditional personnel administration to an HRM
approach of focusing on humans as a valuable resource at workplace and the
implications.12 In his paper, Nawe mentioned that there is a problem of manpower in
libraries and everybody concerned with the staffing and operations of libraries as well
as many of their users would agree on this point. 13 Parmar stated that humans are
considered as the most crucial, volatile and potentially unpredictable resource which
an organization utilizes.14 Singh as a part of his study, surveyed 19 academic libraries
of Lucknow and found out through the survey that the working people in libraries are
not satisfied with their job, work culture and promotional aspects. 15 Warraich explored
the contemporary Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and function in
university libraries of Pakistan and to analyse the ways they are following the modern
trends of HRM. 20 interviews were conducted with library leaders from 16 ULs along
with survey through questionnaires.16
 3 Scope
Human resource management is a vast area of study. It involves many aspects like
human resource planning, recruitment and selection of employees, how they are
inducted in the new environment, their timely appraisal, training and development
needs ad practices and also the motivation of employees. In this articles I have
presented only human resource planning aspect of the management. Also under this
study, eight libraries were taken which are categorised as following:

a. Special: National Social Science Documentation Centre and National Institute

of Science Communication and Information Resources
b. Technical: Delhi Technological University and Indian Institute of Technology
c. Academic: Delhi University Library and Jawaharlal University Library
d. Public: Delhi Public Library and Dayal Singh Library

4Objectives

1. To study the awareness level of LIS professionals towards human resource

planning.
2. To compare the practice of human resource planning aspect of human resource
management in the four categories of libraries under study: special, technical,
academic and public.
3. To find out the problems in human resource planning system of these libraries.

5Hypothesis

For this study following hypothesis were formulated:

1. Majority of the staff is aware about the procedures of human resource planning.
2. Human resource planning is best followed in the special libraries.
6Methodology

A Likert scale questionnaire (comprising 8 questions) was used to obtain responses

from the professionals working in the eight libraries (categorized into four). These
professionals were holding positions equivalent to or greater than assistant librarian.
Total 58 questionnaires were distributed out of which 43 were completed and
returned with a response rate of 74.1%. The 5-point Likert scale has been scored as
follows: SA =5; A = 4; N=3; D=2; SD=1.

7Data Analysis
In the last two columns of table 7.1, WAM and percentage obtained by each
statement is mentioned. In the second table 7.2, percentage values of each
statement corresponding to all the eight libraries under study have been shown
along with their weighted average mean (WAM) score value within the brackets,
and also the percentage values (with WAM) of all the libraries corresponding to
each statement and for each library corresponding to all the statements have been
presented in the last vertical column and the last vertical row respectively.

Majority of the staff (53.5%) are aware about the policies and agree to the fact that
there is open communication between them and the HR department. From the table
7.1 it is found that 58.1% of the total respondents disagree with the fact that existing
man force strength fully commensurate the sanctioned strength. That means there is
less manpower as compared to the number approved. Overall, there is no consensus
(44.2% agree and 37.2% disagree) among the libraries that the short run manpower
planning is better than the long term planning.37.2% of the respondents agree that
while HR planning takes place in their library employee turnover is taken into account
while 34% are neutral towards this statement. So the response is neutral. Overall
76.7% (more than half) of employees agree that in all the libraries care is taken of
reducing the chances of mis-utilization of manpower. About 69.7% of staff agree that
technological changes, professional development and training are considered in every
library while HR planning while 74.2% which shows that all the libraries follow
combination of external and internal manpower sourcing by generating manpower
 internally through HR planning or arranging from external sources. Specific
techniques are used for job analysis and 53.4% (more than half) respondents agree
with this.

Overall we can observe that more than half (57.9%) respondents have agreed towards
the facet of ‘human resource planning’.

Table 7.1: Opinion of respondents

S. WA
STATEMENT SA A N D SD %
No. M
Staffs are aware about the
HR policies and there is
10 13 10 9 0
1 open communication to and 3.5 69.4
(23.3) (30.2) (23.3) (20.9) (0)
from the HR department or
the head.
Existing manforce strength
5 9 3 14 11
2 fully commensurate the 2.5 50.7
(11.6) (20.9) (6.9) (32.5) (25.5)
sanctioned strength.
Short run HR planning is
4 15 6 8 8
3 better than long term 2.8 56.7
(9.3) (34.8) (13.9) (18.6) (18.6)
manpower planning.
Employee turnover is taken
into account for HR
Planning and trouble spots 8 8 15 9 1
4 2.2 63.3
are foreseen early enough (18.6) (18.6) (34.8) (20.9) (2.3)
to take preventive
measures.
HR Planning takes care of
reducing the chances of 3 30 4 5 0
5 3.7 73.0
mis-utilisation of (6.9) (69.7) (9.3) (11.6) (0)
manpower.
Technological changes,
professional development
and training and other 10 20 0 7 0
6 3.4 66.9
developments are (23.2) (46.5) (0) (16.2) (0)
considered while HR
planning.
7 Combination of external 2 30 7 2 1 3.6 72.6
and internal sources as per (4.6) (69.7) (16.2) (4.6) (2.3)
the requirement forms the
sources of manpower
 supply.
Techniques like
observation, interview and
questionnaire are used for 4 19 10 8 0
8 3.3 66.0
analysing the tasks and (9.3) (44.1) (23.2) (18.6) (0)
responsibilities related to a
particular post.
46 144 55 62 21
Average 3.2 64.8
(14.0) (43.9) (16.7) (18.9) (6.4)

Following figure shows the average response from all the respondents towards
‘human resource planning’ facet. X-Axis is showing the responses from the table 7.1
and Y-Axis the corresponding percentages from the same table.

50
45
40
35
30
PERCENTAGE

25
20
15
10
5
0
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
Disagree

OPINION

Figure 7.1: Respondents’ opinion

Table 7.2 shows that regarding awareness level, overall percentage score is 69.4%
and WAM is 3.5 which means that respondents are aware about the HR policies and
there is open communication to and from the HR head. From the table we can say that
staff of special libraries (NASSDOC & NSL) are most aware with 80.6%.

For manforce strength, the percentage value came out to be 50.7% with
WAM is 2.5 which means that overall, there is no consensus that all the libraries are
having the staff according to the number approved by the organization with lowest
manpower being in the DTU central library as its score is 20%, least of all. Technical
libraries (IIT & DTU) scored lowest (27.5%) with highest disagreement followed by
public libraries (DPL & DSL) having 45%. The score for NSL is 80% which means
that there is adequate staff but for NASSDOC is 40% which shows disagreement,
however, overall score for special libraries (NASSDOC & NSL) came out to be in
‘agree’ zone because of average value of 60%.

Short run manpower planning is better than the long term planning as
interpreted from the score for 3rd statement which is 56.7%. Technical libraries (IIT &
DTU) show strong disagreement to this with score of 35%.

The value obtained for 4th statement is 63.3% which agrees to that while HR
planning takes place in their library employee turnover is taken into account. WAM
is 3.2 but the Technical libraries (IIT & DTU) show disagreement to this with score of
45%.In all the libraries care is taken of reducing the chances of mis-utilization of
manpower as interpreted from the score of 73% and WAM of 3.7. Academic (DU &
JNU) libraries strongly agree with this statement whereas technical libraries (IIT &
DTU) have neutral response (50%).

The technological changes, professional development and training has scored

about 66.9% which shows that these facets considered in every library while HR
planning, and out of all highly considered in academic libraries (DU & JNU) in JNU
score comes out to be 90%. It is also observed that libraries follow combination of
external and internal manpower sources by generating manpower internally
through HR planning or arranging from external sources. This is supported by the
score of 72.6% and WAM of 3.6 both of which lie in ‘agree’ zone. Specific
techniques are used for job analysis for a particular post in all the libraries (average
score is 66%) except in DTU which got a score of 40%.

Overall score of HRP facet is 64.8% and WAM 3.2 which shows that aspects
of HRP are quite clear among the employees of all the libraries. Among the libraries,
staff of JNU is having most clear picture of HRP of their library (78.3%) while that of
DTU has least clear picture (37.5%). And in case of category, academic library staff
has most clear picture with the percentage score of 71.8%.It is found that five out of
eight libraries professionals get the human resource policy either in print or through
the website.
 Table 7.2: Category-wise response

S. No. STATEMENT SPECIAL TECHNICAL ACADEMIC PUBLIC TOTAL

%
(WAM)

NASSDOC NSL TOTAL IIT DTU TOTAL DU JNU TOTAL DPL DSL TOTAL

1 Staffs are aware about the HR policies and 68 93.3 80.6 65 60 62.5 75.5 76 75.7 67.5 50 58.7 69.4
there is open communication to and from the (3.4) (4.7) (4.0) (3.3) (3) (3.2) (3.8) (3.8) (3.8) (3.4) (2.5) (2.9) (3.5)
HR department or the head.

2 Existing manforce strength fully commensurate 40 80 60 35 20 27.5 37.7 74 55.8 50 40 45 50.7

the sanctioned strength. (2) (4) (3) (1.8) (1) (1.3) (1.9) (3.7) (2.8) (2.5) (2) (2.3) (2.5)

3 Short run HR planning is better than long term 40 60 50 50 20 35 51.1 68 59.5 77.5 40 58.7 56.7
manpower planning. (2) (3) (2.5) (2.5) (1) (1.7) (2.6) (3.4) (2.9) (3.8) (2) (2.9) (2.8)

4 Employee turnover is taken into account for HR 60 66.6 63.3 50 40 45 66.6 82 74.3 60 40 50 63.3
Planning and trouble spots are foreseen early (3) (3.4) (3.2) (2.5) (2) (2.2) (3.3) (4.1) (3.7) (3) (2) (2.5) (3.2)
enough to take preventive measures.

5 HR Planning takes care of reducing the chances 76 80 78 60 40 50 82.2 78 80.1 80 40 60 73

of mis-utilisation of manpower. (3.8) (4) (3.9) (3) (2) (2.5) (4.1) (3.9) (4.0) (4) (2) (3.0) (3.7)

6 Technological changes, professional 80 80 80 60 40 50 75.5 90 82.8 87.5 40 63.7 66.9

development and training are well taken care (4) (4) (4) (3) (2) (2.5) (3.8) (4.5) (4.2) (4.3) (2) (3.2) (3.3)
while HR planning.

7 Combination of external and internal sources as 76 73.3 74.6 60 40 50 71.1 80 75.5 80 60 70 72.6
per the requirement forms the sources of (3.8) (3.7) (3.7) (3) (2) (2.5) (3.6) (4.0) (3.8) (4) (3) (3.5) (3.6)
manpower supply.

8 Techniques like observation, interview and 72 66.6 69.3 55 40 47.5 62.2 78 70.1 80 60 70 66
questionnaire are used for analysing the tasks (3.6) (3.4) (3.4) (2.7) (2) (2.3) (3.1) (3.9) (3.5) (4) (3) (3.5) (3.3)
and responsibilities related to a particular post.

Total 64 74.9 69.5 54.4 37.5 45.9 65.2 78.3 71.8 72.8 46.3 59.5 64.8
(3.2) (3.7) (3.5) (2.7) (1.9) (2.3) (3.3) (3.9) (3.6) (3.6) (2.3) (2.9) (3.2)
NOTE: Figures indicates percentage and those within brackets represent weighted average mean (WAM)
 Percentage

80.6
62.5

1
58.7
69.4

60
27.5

2
45
50.7

50
35

3
58.7
56.7
SPECIAL

63.3
45
4

50
63.3
TECHNICAL

78
Statement number
PUBLIC

50
5

60
Figure 7.2: Category-wise response

73
OVERALL

80
50
6

63.7
66.9

74.6
50
7

70
72.6

69.3
47.5
8

70
66
8 Hypothesis Testing

a. From the table 7.1 & 7.2 it is evident that the first hypothesis “Majority of the staff is
aware about the procedures of human resource planning” stands supported as the
majority of the respondents (53.5%) agreed to the statement with 69.4% and WAM of
3.5.
b. From the table 7.2 it is evident that the second hypothesis “Human resource
planning is best followed in the special libraries” stands rejected as the total
percentage score obtained by special libraries (NASSDOC & NSL) is 69.5 % with
WAM of 3.5 which is less than that obtained by academic libraries (DU & JNU) i.e.
71.8% and 3.6 WAM. It is also evident from the figure 7.2.

9 Conclusion
From the survey conducted in the eight libraries it is found out that the practice of
human resource planning is best known by the staff of academic libraries (DU &
JNU) followed by special libraries (NASSDOC & NSL). It is also found that the
strength of staff working in the libraries is not equal to the approved strength which
can hinder the quality as well as the quantity of services provided by the respective
libraries. Every library under study follows techniques like observation, interview and
questionnaire for job analysis. Human resource planning is the main key in
determining the right number of people required for the current or vacant-to-be posts
at the right time. All other aspects of the human resource management depends upon
effective human resource planning which sets the due course of the effective
management.
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