MANPOWER PLANNING Manpower Planning is quite an old term used in the HR jargon.

John Abraham, views manpower planning as quantitative, involving forecasting of demand and supply of labour. By definition Manpower Planning is: a process through which management determines how an organisation moves from its current manpower position to its desired manpower position However, manpower planning would also mean putting the right people in the right place at the right time at the right price, and has been mainly concerned with the forecasting, control and matching supply and demand of human resources involving various steps. Manpower Planning has generally been thought as tactical rather than a long term strategic activity, requiring rational, utilitarian approach (Legge 1995), where people tend to be regarded as costs to the organisation. It was basically involved in reconciling an organisations need for labour with the available supply in the local and national labour market. However, with changing organisational and market conditions, the term Manpower Planning shifted to a more complex term involving lots of other issues than mere reconciliation of demand and supply of labour. Through the evolution of Personnel Management to Human Resource Management, labour was not looked upon as being a cost, rather, a valuable asset to the organisation which, in a way should be nurtured and became popular as human resources Human resources have thus been defined as being: The efforts, skills or capabilities that people contribute to an employing organisation to enable it to continue in existence Although Marchington and Wilkinson argue that the adoption of new style human resource management led to merely an expansion of the scope of what was previously called the Manpower Planning , Bramham claims that manpower planning should not be confused with Human Resource Planning. According to him, HR Planning is a strategic activity that emphasises employee commitment, creativity, motivation and development. HR specialists have defined HR Planning as: the creation of explicit proposals by HR specialists, corporate and line managers (an sometimes other employees) using specific technologies to enable the supply or dispensation of human resources necessary for the acceptable performance and long term survival of an organisation . The Human Resourcing task would thus comprise of acquiring , selecting , supplying , shaping and sometimes dispensing with human resources in order to enable an organisation to survive and succeed in the long term.

Marchington and Wilkinson, having said that HR Planning is a mere expansion of Human Resource planning, have however demarcated between soft and hard Human Resource Planning. The table below gives a summary of their views:

HARD HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING Direct control of employees- regarded as factors which should be managed tightly. Akin to manpower planning : Meeting the demand of labour by identifying appropriate supplies of same in the market. Undertaken by personnel specialist in consultation with line management Related to HR strategies, aiming at improving utilisation of human resources. Getting employees accept that their interests coincide with those of the organisation.

SOFT HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING Indirect control of employees- they should be increasingly involved in how tasks should be carried out. Widened focus, shaping the culture of the organisation, fostering a clear integration between corporate goals and employee values, beliefs and behaviours. Involves HR specialists and line managers and also sometimes other employees Emphasises strategies and plans by gaining commitment through communication of company mission, vision, values, plans etc