The human resources department is a critical component for employees in any business, regardless of its size. This support system is responsible for everything from payroll to hiring a new employee. Human resource planning is an extended part of this system, and is used to ultimately structure and meet organizational goals.
Background
While a traditional human resource role serves as an administrative control function, human resource planning develops strategies for matching the skills and size of the workforce to organizational needs. In other words, the planning system specifically recruits, trains and restructures the staff/personnel needed to meet business objectives and any changes within the external environment.
Responsibilities
Three main responsibilities are important to complete in order to prepare for the planning process. These responsibilities include forecasting the demand for labor, performing a supply analysis, and balancing supply and demand considerations.
Process
The process of human resource planning involves assessing the already existing workforce by analyzing individual employee’s skills to see if they are a valuable part of the company future. Ultimately, this may include the development of training and retraining strategies. In order to keep up with a competitive market, organizations use human resource planning to create new and innovative strategies designed to recruit new talent and improve employee retention.
Effective Strategies
Human resource planning is often a part of a company business plan. It is important to develop strategies that will continue on with the organization in all environments. An effective human resource planning strategy will be set up to address hard economic times. For example, if an economic crash occurs, Company A may decide to let go of several staff members to save money because they do not have an effective strategy in place. Company B will keep their staff because they have developed a strategy and understand that, in the long run, it would take more money and time to rehire a new team versus temporarily saving money by losing staff members like Company A.
Goals
The goals of human resource planning are to ultimately improve how a company operates. Creating a stable team is an important goal based on recruiting and revised/new training methods. It is also important to include innovative strategies that fall in line with the company business objectives. Finally, the ability to adapt to any changes within the external and internal environment appropriately is critical to effective human resource planning.
