Human Resource Planning is the process of anticipating and carrying out the movement of people into, within, and out of the organization. Human resources planning is done to achieve the optimum use of human use of human resources and to have the correct number and types of employees needed to meet organizational goals.
Importance of Human Resource Planning
• Ensures optimum use of man (woman, too nowadays?) • Forecast future requirements • Help determine recruitment/induction levels • To anticipate redundancies/surpluses • To determine training levels and works • Know the cost of manpower if there is a new project is being taken up
Key Elements of HRP Process
Prof. Geisler outlined the responsibilities of Human Resource Department in respect of manpower planning thus:
• Assist and counsel operating managers to plan and set objectives • Collect and summaries manpower data keeping long-run objectives and broad organizational interests in mind. • Monitor and measure performance against the plan and keep top management informed about it. • Provide proper research base for effective manpower and organizational planning.
Thus, the three key elements of the process are
• Forecasting the demand for labor, • Performing a supply analysis, and • Balancing supply and demand considerations.
Steps in Human Resource Planning
Step One: Prepare a forecast. - This is where you anticipate how many employees you'll need in the future. The longer you've been in business, the more accurate your number will be because you can look at your growth in the past and forecast based on those numbers. For example, if your business has grown by 25% in the past three years, there's a good chance that you'll need at least one employee in the very near future. However, if your experience in the industry suggests that this could be a quiet year, you may include that in your planning, too.