Managing People
October 2014
Lecture objectives
To define and outline the importance of HR planning
To identify key considerations and stages in the HR
planning process
To outline labour market influences on HR decisionmaking
To introduce concepts of talent management and
succession planning
To discuss issues surrounding labour turnover,
retention and terminating the employment
relationship
Defining HR planning
Process of assessing current HR
capabilities and forecasting future
labour supply and demand, to
produce HR plans that will enable an
organisation to achieve its strategic
objectives.
Ensuring the right people in the
right place at the right time
The importance of HR
Planning
Marchington and Wilkinson (2005) suggest four
sets of reasons for the continued importance of
HRP:
It encourages employers to develop clear and
open links between their business and HR plans
It allows for better control over staffing costs and
numbers employed
It enables employers to make more informed
judgements about the skills and attitude mix in
the organisation
It provides a profile of current staf
Key considerations in
HRP
How best to arrange people and processes to achieve
sustained competitive advantage
Whether required capacity can be sourced internally or
externally
Future demand for labour
hard and soft attributes
Issues in HR planning
Value of HR planning in times of uncertainty or in
unpredictable markets?
Grand HR planning unfeasible and impractical for
decentralised and flexible organisations
HR planning remains important, particularly for organisations
with the following characteristics (Taylor 2008) :
Large enough to have dedicated HRP function, such as public
sector organisations
Operating in reasonable stable product and labour markets
Having key staf groups who require lengthy or expensive training
Competing in industries in which decisions concerning future
investment are made years ahead
Push factors
Employee dissatisfaction with:
organisational practices or
policies
the nature of the work
personal relationships at
work
Low levels of commitment
Terminating the
employment relationship
Resignation, dismissal or retirement
Voluntary and compulsory redundancy
Related to factors external to the individual
Importance of retention of knowledge and skill
Summary Points
HR planning is the process of forecasting future labour
supply and demand involving the assessment of hard
and soft dimensions of HR capability and current
practices and policies
Range of HR responses to the planning process
The feasibility of HR planning in unpredictable
environments has been questioned
Labour turnover a critical concern in many but not all
firms
Terminating the employment relationship creates a
number of responsibilities for managers
References
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Beardwell, J. (2006) Recruitment and Selection in, Beardwell, J. and Claydon, T. (2006) Human Resource
Management: A contemporary approach, Harlow: FT Prentice Hall
Cunningham, I. (2007) Talent Management: Making it real, Development and Learning in Organizations,
21, 4-8
Farnham and Stevens (2000) Developing and implementing competence-based recruitment and selection
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Marchington, M. and Wilkinson, A. (2005) Human Resource Management at Work (3rd Edition), London:
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
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