Unilever Case Study Hrm
Management Planning
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CHAPTER 20 numbers and categories of suitable employees to undertake the task of producing the organisation’s goods or services to the standards expected by the end-users. Even organisations that rarely plan far ahead usually have to make some assessment of their present employee situation, so as to ensure that an appropriate range of skills is available for all the mainstream activities of the organisation. This chapter assumes that a systematic and planned view of HRP is the norm.
2. Whatever the nature of the organisation, if it is of a size where changes in the workforce will have a significant effect on business results, then it will need some kind of human resource planning activity. In this book human resource planning is defined as:
‘a rational approach to the effective recruitment, retention, and deployment of people within an organisation, including, when necessary, arrangements for dismissing staff.’
HRP is, therefore, concerned with the flow of people through and sometimes out of the organisation. It is, however, not a mere numbers game. On the contrary, effective HRP is considerably more concerned with the optimum deployment of people’s knowledge and skills, ie quality is even more important than quantity.
3. Before moving on to look at the various stages of HRP, it is worth considering the questions which such planning aims to answer. These can be summarised as follows:
• What kind of people does the organisation require and in what numbers?
• Over what time-span are these people required?
• How many of them are employed by the organisation currently?
• How can the organisation meet any shortfall in requirements from internal sources?
• How can the organisation meet the shortfall from external sources?
• What changes are taking place in the external labour market which might affect the supply of human resources?
4. In responding to these questions, HRP is essentially concerned with four major
168
CHAPTER 20 numbers and categories of suitable employees to undertake the task of producing the organisation’s goods or services to the standards expected by the end-users. Even organisations that rarely plan far ahead usually have to make some assessment of their present employee situation, so as to ensure that an appropriate range of skills is available for all the mainstream activities of the organisation. This chapter assumes that a systematic and planned view of HRP is the norm.
2. Whatever the nature of the organisation, if it is of a size where changes in the workforce will have a significant effect on business results, then it will need some kind of human resource planning activity. In this book human resource planning is defined as:
‘a rational approach to the effective recruitment, retention, and deployment of people within an organisation, including, when necessary, arrangements for dismissing staff.’
HRP is, therefore, concerned with the flow of people through and sometimes out of the organisation. It is, however, not a mere numbers game. On the contrary, effective HRP is considerably more concerned with the optimum deployment of people’s knowledge and skills, ie quality is even more important than quantity.
3. Before moving on to look at the various stages of HRP, it is worth considering the questions which such planning aims to answer. These can be summarised as follows:
• What kind of people does the organisation require and in what numbers?
• Over what time-span are these people required?
• How many of them are employed by the organisation currently?
• How can the organisation meet any shortfall in requirements from internal sources?
• How can the organisation meet the shortfall from external sources?
• What changes are taking place in the external labour market which might affect the supply of human resources?
4. In responding to these questions, HRP is essentially concerned with four major