Human resource planning is a process which anticipates and maps out the consequences of business strategies on an organisation human resource planning. This is reflected in planning of skill and competence needs as well as total headcounts. For resources techniques to be implemented they must be translated into practical action. The technique can be organised logically and for these decisions to be taken, information must be obtained, consequences determined (Price, 2007). It is clear that many techniques are fundamental to an organisation. If the insinuations are major, strategic decisions are taken at the centre of the business. The role of the human resource technique is in two main purposes. Firstly it is to contribute in the decision process by providing information and opinion on each option such as recruitment cost, availability of skilled staff in the organisation. Availability of suitable people in the job market, time constraints, development/training needs/schedule and management requirements and secondly to support line mangers dealing with the people consequences of executing the decision. This includes people as numbers which addresses questions such as:
How many staff do we have/need?
How are they distributed?
What is the age profile?
How many will leave in each of the next five years (due to e.g. retirement)?
How many will be required in the next five years (due to e.g. replacement)?
Another technique for human recourses is called soft planning which entails trust, teamwork and skill developments. In simpler terms it is about commitment and partnership towards an organisation. As well as employee turnover as it covers the whole input and output process from recruitment to dismissal or retirement and takes the consequences of promotion and transfers into an organisation (Tuss, 1997) A key component of human resource planning is forecasting the number and type of people needed to meet organisational objectives. This makes human resource planners have a choice of techniques open to them such as extrapolation (of past trends), competitive strategy, technology, structure and projected production/sales as well as employee analysis. Human resources techniques can be improved in the future by three main categories.
External which include economic developments, social-political legal challenges, technical changes and competitors
Organisational which include strategic plans, budgets, sales and production forecasts and new ventures
Workforce which includes retirements, resignations, terminations, death and leave of absence
Recruitment selection in an organisation (Paddison, 1990)
Recruitment is all activities directed towards locating potential employees and attracting applications from suitable candidates. The main aims of recruitment are
To obtain a pool of suitable candidates for vacant posts
To use a fair process and be able to demonstrate that the process was fair
To ensure that all recruitment activities contribute to organisational goals and a desirable organisation image
To conduct recruitment activities in an efficient and cost-effective manner
As well as the above statements legal, moral and business facts are of great importance about how recruitment is carried out. Recruitment is likely to involve a wide range of people within an organisation, it is important to have a systematic approach so that all step of the recruitment and selection process are conducted in line with the organisation's human resource strategy and equal opportunities goals. To ensure that the recruitment process is a success in a coordinated manner the organisation has to develop and implement appropriate policies and procedures.
The policies will outline the approach in which everyone in the organisation is expected to adopt and the standards they should achieve. A recruitment policy enables all employees involved in the process to direct their efforts towards achieving the organisation's goals and to know that they are acting in the sprit intended by the organisation. The basic recruitment policy should at the very least include statements about the organisation's stance on the overall goal of recruitment and equal opportunities. For the organisation to show that it values its employees it may adopt a policy of giving preference to suitable qualified internal applicants over external applicants, this too would need to be stated clearly in the organisation's recruitment policy. The other fact about this type of policy is that if for example when an employee moves up to manger positions there is bound to be a vacancy which would lead to an external applicant being employee.
Equal opportunities are very important in recruitment. They exist to protect the interests of groups of people who have historically been discriminated against in terms of employment and services. Types of discrimination include harassment, sexual orientation, religion or belief and disability which can be classified as either directly, indirectly or victimisation. Equal opportunities classifies acts against discrimination which for example Disability Discrimination Act 1995. A good practice in equal opportunities is to operate within the spirit of the equality legislation, all actions and documents involved in the recruitment process must be free of any criteria that could be interpreted as being discriminatory within the terms of the legislation. (ACAs 2004a and 2004b)
The recruitment procedures have been preceded by the discussion of equal opportunities issues as these issues should guide the organisation's actions at every stage of the recruitment process. The first step in the recruitment process is to decide that the organisation has a vacancy it wishes to fill. The vacancy may be a new post that has been identified through the corporate strategic plan, or it may have risen because an employee has resigned, retired or been dismissed. The latter are sometimes are referred to as replacement posts to distinguish them from new posts. The organisation may also decide to recruit a job-share partner for an established employee who no longer wishes to work full time. Recruitment procedures include job descriptions, job advisements, targeted recruitment (IRS 2003a), application forms and administrative procedures.
Personnel Interviewing and Selection
Personnel selection is usually expressed as 'to choose the best person for the job'. Selectors attempt to predict performance on the job, but they also need to ensure that the candidates fully understand all major aspects of the job so that new recruits are not likely to become disappointed and leave within a short period of time. This is done by assessment of each candidate, organising and evaluating the information as well as gathering as much relevant information as possible. It is important as it helps give information to applicants, predicting performance on the job and judgement on whether or not they wish to accept an offer of employment according to the information given. Gathering and evaluating information in order to make the selection decision can be done in a number of stages. The most common methods used include:
Tests
References
Interviews
Assessment centre
Shortlisting from information on CVs
Biographical/extended application form
Shortlisting from information on application forms
From the list above the most important ones are probably shortlisting and interviewing. Personnel selection has policies and procedures which should address issues like administrative processes, who is to be involved in assessing candidates and the stages and techniques that should be used this could be to demonstrate something as easy as team work by activities planned. Several factors would be decided on for each of these issues and relevant guidelines provided. Shortlisting involve screening written applications, a shortlisting checklist and telephone interviewing.
Almost every employer includes a face-to -face interview as part of the selection process. At times initial selection interview might take place by means of a recruitment agency or a local job centre, but most employers would be reluctant to take on new employees without having met them in person (Makin and Robertson, 1986). Most interviewers make errors unknowingly this is because when one is interviewed they are not tested upon the job they will be doing but tested upon how they behave when they are being interviewed this might include the way they have dressed or even the tone in which they answer certain questions.
There are so many interview errors including making snap decisions, hiring in one's own image, stereotyping, contrast effect and gathering insufficient or irrelevant information. Ways of eliminating interviewer errors are gathering sufficient information, allow adequate time, structured interviews as in gathering the same information from all candidates, more than one interviewer, only trained people involved in interviews if job applied for needs experience and also giving candidates every opportunity to present themselves and making an effort by not making decisions because of the way they present themselves.
Personnel development
People are an organisation's most precious resource and therefore it is extremely important that they work t their optimum level of performance. Learning and development makes an important contribution to this, but in order to be most effective it should be part of the strategic plan for the organisation and must very clearly relate to the organisation's objectives. Inductions (Fowler, 1999) are the first step for new employees to develop in an organisation because they help a new employee to settle quickly into their job so that they soon become an efficient and productive employee. New employees are each likely to have their own individual learning needs and establishing what these are during the induction process is important. Starting individual personal development reviews during the induction period and setting times for individual interviews to review progress regularly is also important. However, they all have to learn certain things about the organisation and its culture. This could be even more important if the person is working in another country or using a second language. Intervention to help awareness of cross-cultural differences or in language skill may also be needed as part of the induction. New employees need to learn a great deal of information when they join an organisation.
Personnel development (Reid, Barrington and Brown, 2004) in simple is a process of the development of others as well as oneself. The concepts of personnel development includes motivation as without it the job becomes boring and therefore kills the training and the development for the organisation, developing strengths which helps improve self awareness and knowledge. The most important fact about personnel development is the personal development plan which refers to the conception of an action plan based on awareness, reflection and goal-setting.
CONTINUED
Performance organisation is about creating a custom in which individuals take responsibility for the continuous improvement of the organisation process and of their own skills, behaviour and contributions. Managers (Coghlan, 2004) can clarify what they expect individuals to do; likewise the individuals should be able to communicate their expectations of how they should be managed and what they need to do for their jobs. Analysis of individual performance is mostly about improving the quality of relationships all around the organisation. This also helps with development needs as the progress is monitored. For this progress to be monitored the organisation needs some sort of arrangement to support it. Support provides a structure to help the individual to operate better but it should be a reasonable degree of flexibility to allow freedom to operate. It is a continuous cycle between the employer and the employee. This eventually leads to the drawing up of developments within the organisation. Appraisals in which an individual and a manager regularly (usually annually) records performance, potential and development needs in a top-down process is one of the ways in which an individual is noticed to move up in their job to a higher positions. In this case the individual will be recognised for their development needs within organisation.
Development vehicles (Fineman, 2000) to meet the needs of an individual are mostly developed within the training process. The most important questions to consider when dealing with development vehicles is how complex is the training that is needed which puts training purpose the most important decision for the organisation, how much time do learners have to learn the new knowledge and skills, how much money is available to pay for the training and how capable are the employees to undertake the developing training? The training process has some necessary steps that need to consider which are need of assessing the trainee, training purpose, selection of trainees and training method and mode, some means of evaluation, manage the training. The training process is very important as it creates a group of readily available and sufficient replacements for personnel who may leave or move up in the organisation. It also enhances the organisation's ability to adopt and use advances in technology because of a sufficient knowledgeable staff as well as building a more efficient, effective and highly motivated team which would enhance the organisation's competitive position and improve employee morale. Employees commonly develop a greater sense of self-worth and well-being as they become more valuable to the organisation and to society. From their increased productivity they will tend to appreciate, a sense of satisfactory through the achievement of personal and organisation goals. Development vehicles of an organisation benefits it in developing its employees by decreased need for supervision which saves the organisation time and money as the supervisors can get on with other aspects of the company that are important. They help increase productivity as well efficient results in financial gains.
A development plan includes advanced information on support to the employer in the needs of development. A motivation for commitment from both the employer and the employee to the new job role or position in the organisation is needed in the plan as this helps the organisation to recognise when its not working at its best. Example of this could be employer not paying too much attention to the needs of the employee therefore the motivation of the employee will then decrease and the ability to work.
As an organisation, a strategy and policy framework for the developed employees needs to be monitored and quality enhancement should be an important task in the organisation. Steps to be taken over this is an appropriate institutional recording and support systems, the range for modified training across the plan provision, the flexibility of policy requirements when extended to employees, the focus for senior management commitment and support. Development needs can be monitored by making clear approved documentation and communication between the employee and the employer in the organisation. The more practise the employee gets in the new role the better the benefit for the organisation as well as the value of the employee as time goes on. The best way to monitor development needs at first involves both the employer and the employee engaging on a task together mostly to do with the job role, this helps as both employer and employee can get used to each other which makes the professional relationship stronger and will make the organisation successful. This also helps as the employee will be comfortable enough to give feedback on anything that could either be avoided as the organisation may be not reaching its targeted peak or give feedback on what could be added on to the organisation to help it reach its targeted peak and beyond.
