Define and discuss the need of human resource planning.

Define and discuss the need of human resource planning. Take an account of the human resource planning in your organization or an organization you are familiar with and give a brief note on that. Describe the organization you are referring to.


Sol:3 When it concerns human resources, there are the more specific criticisms that it is over-quantitative and neglects the qualitative aspects of contribution. The issue has become not how many people should be employed, but ensuring that all members of staff are making an effective contribution. And for the future, the questions are what are the skills that will be required, and how will they be acquired.
There are others, though, that still regard the quantitative planning of resources as important. They do not see its value in trying to predict events, be they wars or takeovers. Rather, they believe there is a benefit from using planning to challenge assumptions about the future, to stimulate thinking. For some there is, moreover, an implicit or explicit wish to get better integration of decision making and resourcing across the whole organization, or greater influence by the centre over devolved operating units.
Cynics would say this is all very well, but the assertion of corporate control has been tried and rejected. And is it not the talk of the process benefits to be derived self indulgent nonsense? Can we really afford this kind of intellectual dilettantism? Whether these criticisms are fair or not, supporters of human resource planning point to its practical benefits in optimizing the use of resources and identifying ways of making them more flexible. For some organizations, the need to acquire and grow skills which take time to develop is paramount. If they fail to identify the business demand, both numerically and in the skills required, and secure the appropriate supply, then the capacity of the organization to fulfill its function will be endangered.
Why human resource planning?
Human Resource Planning: an Introduction was written to draw these issues to the attention of HR or line managers. We address such questions as:
• what is human resource planning?
• how do organizations undertake this sort of exercise?
• what specific uses does it have?
In dealing with the last point we need to be able to say to hard pressed managers: why spend time on this activity rather than the other issues bulging your in tray? The report tries to meet this need by illustrating how human resource planning techniques can be applied to four key problems. It then concludes by considering the circumstances is which human resourcing can be used.
EXAMPLE - HR FUNCTIONS AT CENTER FOR ASTROPHYSICS
Introduction
The Center for Astrophysics combines the resources and research facilities of the Harvard College Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory under a single director to pursue studies of those basic physical processes that determine the nature and evolution of the universe. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) is a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution, founded in 1890. The Harvard College Observatory (HCO), founded in 1839, is a research institution of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, and provides facilities and substantial other support for teaching activities of the Department of Astronomy. The long relationship between the two organizations, which began when the SAO moved its headquarters to Cambridge in 1955, was formalized by the establishment of a joint center in 1973.

Today, some 300 Smithsonian and Harvard scientists cooperate in broad programs of astrophysical research supported by Federal appropriations and University funds as well as contracts and grants from government agencies. These scientific investigations, touching on almost all major topics in astronomy, are organized into six divisions.

HR: Functions
• Hiring
• Promotions
• Reassignments
• Position classification and grading
• Salary determination
• Performance appraisal review and processing
• Awards review and processing
• Personnel data entry and records maintenance
• Consultation and advisory services to management and employees
• Conduct problems
• Performance problems
• Policy development
• Technical policy interpretation
• Work Permitting Immigration Visa Program
• Benefits
• Health care insurance
• Life insurance
• Disability insurance
• Retirement
• Voluntary accidental death and dismemberment insurance
• Leave Transfer Program
• Tuition Assistance Plan
• Training opportunities
• Combined Federal Campaign
• Employee assistance referral
• Workers' compensation

New Roles of the Human Resources Manager
The role of the HR manager is to perform complete human resources planning. And there being followed the system based on some points which are as follows.
1. Determining the numbers to be employed at a new location
If organizations overdo the size of their workforce it will carry surplus or underutilized staff. Alternatively, if the opposite misjudgment is made, staff may be overstretched, making it hard or impossible to meet production or service deadlines at the quality level expected. So the questions we ask are:
• How can output be improved your through understanding the interrelation between productivity, work organization and technological development? What does this mean for staff numbers?
• What techniques can be used to establish workforce requirements?
• Have more flexible work arrangements been considered?
• How are the staff you need to be acquired?
The principles can be applied to any exercise to define workforce requirements, whether it be a business start-up, a relocation, or the opening of new factory or office.

2. Retaining your highly skilled staff
Issues about retention may not have been to the fore in recent years, but all it needs is for organizations to lose key staff to realize that an understanding of the pattern of resignation is needed. Thus organizations should:
• monitor the extent of resignation
• discover the reasons for it
• establish what it is costing the organization
• compare loss rates with other similar organisations.
Without this understanding, management may be unaware of how many good quality staff are being lost. This will cost the organization directly through the bill for separation, recruitment and induction, but also through a loss of long-term capability.
Having understood the nature and extent of resignation steps can be taken to rectify the situation. These may be relatively cheap and simple solutions once the reasons for the departure of employees have been identified. But it will depend on whether the problem is peculiar to your own organization, and whether it is concentrated in particular groups (eg by age, gender, grade or skill).

3. Managing an effective downsizing programmed
This is an all too common issue for managers. How is the workforce to be cut painlessly, while at the same time protecting the long-term interests of the organization? A question made all the harder by the time pressures management is under, both because of business necessities and employee anxieties. HRP helps by considering:
• the sort of workforce envisaged at the end of the exercise
• the pros and cons of the different routes to get there
• how the nature and extent of wastage will change during the run-down
• the utility of retraining, redeployment and transfers
• what the appropriate recruitment levels might be.
Such an analysis can be presented to senior managers so that the cost benefit of various methods of reduction can be assessed, and the time taken to meet targets established.
If instead the CEO announces on day one that there will be no compulsory redundancies and voluntary severance is open to all staff, the danger is that an unbalanced workforce will result, reflecting the take-up of the severance offer. It is often difficult and expensive to replace lost quality and experience.

4. Where will the next generation of managers come from?
Many senior managers are troubled by this issue. They have seen traditional career paths disappear. They have had to bring in senior staff from elsewhere. But they recognize that while this may have dealt with a short-term skills shortage, it has not solved the longer term question of managerial supply: what sort, how many, and where will they come from? To address these questions you need to understand:
• the present career system (including patterns of promotion and movement, of recruitment and wastage)
• the characteristics of those who currently occupy senior positions
• the organization’s future supply of talent.
This then can be compared with future requirements, in number and type. These will of course be affected by internal structural changes and external business or political changes. Comparing your current supply to this revised demand will show surpluses and shortages which will allow you to take corrective action such as:
• recruiting to meet a shortage of those with senior management potential
• allowing faster promotion to fill immediate gaps
• developing cross functional transfers for high fliers
• hiring on fixed-term contracts to meet short-term skills/experience deficits
• reducing staff numbers to remove blockages or forthcoming surpluses.
Thus appropriate recruitment, deployment and severance policies can be pursued to meet business needs. Otherwise processes are likely to be haphazard and inconsistent. The wrong sort of staff are engaged at the wrong time on the wrong contract. It is expensive and embarrassing to put such matters right