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HRM Document 3

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18 views2 pages

HRM Document 3

Uploaded by

Zainab batool Batool
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Organizational Strategy and Human Resource Planning

Human resource planning is a key strategy for ensuring long-term business sustainability and resilience.

What Is Human Resource Planning (HRP)?


Human resource planning (HRP) is a process used to ensure that businesses have employees with the right
skills, at the right time, and with the appropriate capacity to meet strategic goals.

Some practical examples of HRP workflows for various businesses include:


 An e-commerce business forecasting the need for IT capacity increases according to seasonal trends and
scaling their infrastructure and support team.
 A design agency identifying higher demand for digital media through benchmarking and developing
strategies to upskill and reskill its employee pool.
 A law firm initiating a succession planning strategy for the impending employee retirements by developing
internal leadership candidates and recruiting external talent.

Why Is HRP Important?


According to research by the Work Institute, 78% of the reasons for voluntary turnover could have been
prevented by the employer if identified and addressed on time.

Human resource planning helps businesses increase employee engagement and drive various improvements
by:
1. Maintaining a Qualified Workforce
HRP aligns talent capabilities with organizational goals through talent acquisition, training, and
development initiatives. Ensuring you have a skilled workforce to meet future workforce requirements
reduces the risk of inefficient workflows and supports daily business operations (learn more about the
best operations strategy examples). Investing in employee talent and skills can also help increase employee
engagement and satisfaction.
2. Improving Risk and Change Management
HRP is a proactive approach that focuses on identifying issues before they occur. Analyzing trends and
forecasting future needs helps businesses create contingency plans for various scenarios. This can include
high-impact external changes, such as technological advancements, or internal disruptions, like leadership
transitions.
3. Ensuring Your Business Is Competitive
HRP keeps businesses competitive by helping them attract the right talent and ensuring that current
employees are skilled and engaged in the workplace. It helps companies adapt to changes quickly and
efficiently, fostering the agility and proactiveness needed to stay ahead of industry trends and competitors.
4. Optimizing Workforce Costs
HRP optimizes business costs by providing balanced employee utilization so that your agency isn’t
spending excess money on non-productive labor costs. It also ensures that your business can do more work
with adequate supply. Finally, HRP reduces the chance of unexpected resource gaps through effective
forecasting, minimizing the need for last-minute hiring or overtime work.

The Main Steps of Human Resources Planning


The key steps of HRP include:
 Workforce analysis to determine your company’s current human resource capacity.
 Demand forecasting to future resource demand based on industry trends and internal needs.
 Gap analysis includes finding potential roadblocks in your HRP process and developing strategies to
address them.
 Implementation and monitoring of your human resource strategies, usually by tracking key performance
indicators.
 Analyzing Current Availability
Workforce analysis involves a comprehensive evaluation of the current workforce’s size, skills, and
capabilities. It assesses aspects such as:
 Employee productivity
 Job satisfaction
 Skill sets, including technical and soft skills
 Seniority
 Turnover rates
Projecting Future Demand
Projecting future demand involves estimating the human resource requirements needed for an organization
to meet its future goals. This forecast considers factors such as business growth, market expansion,
technological advancements, and changes in operational processes.

Three tools that are used in this process are:


 Ratio analysis, where historical data on the relationship between business metrics and workforce
size is used to predict future staffing needs.
 Trend analysis, which examines patterns in the organization’s workforce data over time.
 Comparative analysis, whether by comparing internal resource planning practices across multiple
projects or benchmarking your performance against competitors.
 Gap Analysis
 Gap analysis compares future human resource needs against the current workforce’s capabilities to
identify discrepancies or gaps. A way to conduct gap analysis is to monitor where previous projects
went wrong to pinpoint inefficiencies in your workflows, such as miscommunication or a deficit of
specific skills. You can do this by checking estimated vs real completion times for various tasks
— ERP solutions can deliver these insights with time tracking features.

Types of HR Planning
There are different types or techniques associated with HR planning. Here are some common terms and
how you can differentiate them:
Hard vs Soft HR Planning
 Hard HR Planning focuses on quantitative aspects of human resource management, such as headcount,
costs, and labor allocation. This approach often involves in-depth data and forecasting for informed
decision-making.
 Soft HR Planning considers qualitative factors of workforce management, such as engagement,
development, and well-being. It’s less focused on data and more on fostering a committed and resilient
workforce.

Short-Term vs Strategic HRP


 Short-term HRP is more of a reactive approach that addresses immediate staffing needs and focuses on
resolving urgent issues. It typically spans a timeframe of up to one year.
 Strategic HRP is a long-term approach that aligns workforce planning with the organization’s future goals
and strategies. It involves forecasting workforce requirements, sustainable talent management, and other
proactive strategies for business success.

Employee Reskilling vs Upskilling


 Reskilling involves training employees in new skills and capabilities to help them transition to different
roles within the company.
 Upskilling focuses on enhancing the current skills and competencies to improve performance, stay
competitive, and meet job requirements.

The Challenges of Human Resource Planning


Now that we’ve gone through the main steps of the HRP, it’s time to address some of its main challenges:
 Accurate forecasting: Predicting future needs accurately can be a challenge in itself. Not only does it
require having an in-depth understanding of your business circumstances, but it’s also sensitive to changes
in market demand and economic conditions.
 Maintaining a flexible workforce: Maintaining a versatile and skilled workforce requires careful
management of work hours. This ensures that profitability isn’t compromised, and at the same time, avoids
situations where training is neglected entirely for billable work. This balance between billable vs non-
billable time is crucial for sustainable organizational success.
 Aligning HR Strategy with Business Goals: Keeping track of the overarching business strategy in HRP
can be hard, especially in large or rapidly evolving organizations. It requires transparent communication,
cross-functional collaboration, and a deep understanding of the organization’s long-term objectives and the
role of the workforce in achieving them.

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