Human Resource Planning (Human Resource Management)

Human resource planning is vital function in organizations which is performed to make certain that they have the appropriate and the right kind of people at proper place and at the right time. It assists managers to reduce ambiguity and equip them to adjust with technological, social, authoritarian and environmental change. Effective human resource planning is a process of analysing an organization's human resource needs under changing conditions and developing the activities necessary to gratify these needs (Biswajeet 2010). The basic intent of human resource planning is to make best use of the Human Resources and make certain their ongoing development, to secure the Production Capacity required to support Organizational objectives, to coordinate human resources activities with the organizational objectives and to enhance the organization's productivity.

If Human resource team do this process effectively, it can lead to huge success of companies. Fajana (2002) stated that Human resource planning is the systematic and continual process of analysing organization's human resource needs under mutating conditions and developing personnel policies appropriate for long-term effectiveness of the organization. It is an essential part of business planning and budgeting procedures since, human resource costs and forecasts both influence and are affected by longer term corporate plans. Quoting Mondy et (1996) explained planning as a systematic analysis of human resource needs in order to ensure that correct number of employees with the necessary skills are available when they are required. Planning involves the forecasting of human resource requirements in organizations and developing appropriate actions such as recruitment, training and career development based on identified needs. Planning is performed within the goals and general policy framework of the firm or organization. It is also impacted by public policies, transformations in technology and availability of manpower. Human resource planning will be triumphant to the extent that it accurately coordinates each of specified elements and it is basically organizing proper resources to business needs in the longer term or short term goal of company.

In order to make effective human resource planning in the long term, there are procedures to be followed by an organization which guarantees that it has the right number and kind of people at the right place and time to accomplish its objectives. Employers need to observe the attraction and retention of employees as a part of the employment relationship based on a mutual understanding of expectations as well as make effort to foresee how a potential employee might behave in future and make a contribution to the organization's needs (Newill and Shackleton, 2000). Forecasting of future manpower requirement is the most significant part of manpower planning. It is performed on the basis of production and sales budgets, work load analysis, work force analysis, estimated absenteeism and turnover.

The future manpower requirements should be forecasted quantitatively and qualitatively. There are several factors which must be considered before forecasting. Employment Trend is major factor in forecasting manpower. The manpower planning committee must compare and analyse the trend of last five year to forecast manpower requirements. Productivity also impact manpower requirements. Major features in productivity are better utilization of existing manpower, improvement in technology and matching of skills with job requirement. In human resource planning, absenteeism is a situation when a person could not attend the office when he is scheduled to work. While estimating demand for manpower the prevailing rate of absenteeism in the organisation should be considered. Expansion and growth plans of the organisation should be vigilantly analysed to judge their impact on manpower requirement in future. After forecasting about suitable candidates required, the next stage is to plan, how the organisation can obtain these people. Programmers and strategies must be developed for recruitment, selection, training, internal transfers, promotions and appraisal so that the future manpower requirement are fulfilled. Management experts emphasizes that development plans must be designed to ensure a continuing supply of trained people to take over jobs as they fall vacant either by promotion or recruitment or through training. In this way, shortages can be avoided in the long run. A major issue in manpower forecasting is accuracy of forecasts. If the forecast are not precise, planning will not be accurate. Inaccuracy increases when departmental forecasts are just prepared without critical review. There is another issue of identity crisis. Many human resource managers do not understand the whole manpower planning process. This creates an identity crisis. Other problem in manpower forecasting is resistance from Employees. Employees and trade unions resist manpower planning. They believe that this planning increases their overall workload and regulates them through productivity bargaining. They also feel that it would lead to unemployment. Usefulness of the planning depends upon the dependability of the information system. In majority of Indian industries, human resource information system has not well developed. In the absence of reliable data, it is possible to do effective planning. Many professionals stated that Manpower planning is an expensive and time consuming process. Employers may resist manpower planning because it will increase the cost of manpower.

Another planning process is succession planning in which senior executives review their top executives and lower level officers to determine several backups for each senior position. Succession planning is the methodical process of defining future management requirements and identifying candidates who best meet those requirements. Succession planning involves using the supply of labour within the organization for future employment needs. With succession planning, the skills and abilities of existing employees are assessed to perceive which future positions they may take within the organization when other employees leave their positions. Organization needs to create pool of candidates with high leadership potential.

Succession planning provides specific relation to business and strategic planning. A formal succession plan also offers a framework that allows companies to institute mentorship and training programs. Such programs offer future business leaders the opportunity to learn about and ideally emulate the traits and habits that leads to business success. The objective of succession planning is to promote individuals within the organization and thus makes use of internal selection. Succession planning is typically useful to the organization in its human resource planning, and when done properly, can be beneficial to organizational performance. Though there are many benefits of succession planning, theorists observed possible problems associated with the use of succession planning such as the crowned prince syndrome, the talent drain, and difficulties associated with managing large amounts of human resources information. To implement succession planning model, it is necessary to determine resource needs for implementation, identify barriers to implementation, update or develop job descriptions, Prepare organization for change, Establish communication plan, Connect with stakeholders and get their buy in, Identify and establish peer and leadership champions of change, If needed, implement strategies on pilot basis, Link succession strategies with HR, Recognition, Workforce planning, Assessment strategies, Recruitment strategies, Train staff as necessary.

Failure of HR Planning

According to deep analysis of HR Planning, it is said that poor HR planning and lack of it in the Organization may increase cost and there will be financial deficit. It may result in filling post of needed people. This increases costs and impedes effective work performance because employees are requested to work needless overtime and may not put more effort due to exhaustion. Employees are put on a disadvantage because their live programmes are disrupted and they are not given the chance to plan for their career development. When there is staff scarcity, the organization should not just appoint discriminately, because of the costs implications of the other options, such as training and transferring of staff have to be considered.

To summarize, Human resource planning meet the objectives of manpower requirement. It assists to organize the recruited resources for the productive activities. Basically, human resource planning intended to gather information, making objectives, and making decisions to enable the organization achieve its objectives. Human resource planning provides information about how many people will be needed, what skills, knowledge and competencies will they require, will existing human resource meet the identified needs, is further training and development needed and is recruitment necessary. The human resource planning is vital process to link business strategy and its operation. It identifies the skill requirements for various levels of jobs.