Human Resource Planning And Job Design

Planning is a process in which managers forecast different issues for the company in the short term as well as for the long term objectives so that it can be achieved within a time frame efficiently and effectively. (Randall S. Schuler and Susan E. Jackson, 1987)

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: Human resource management is a process which gives design of formal system in an organization to ensure the effective and efficient use of human skills and competencies to achieve organizational goals. (Randall S. Schuler and Susan E. Jackson, 1987)

HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING:

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Human resource planning basically promotes strategic planning for organization which provides a clear picture of overall mission and vision of the company. For effective HR plan it should be matched with the organizations long tem plans and it is the job of HR department to match the right type of people which fits with the overall corporate planning of an organization. The HR demands and needs are basically derived from the organizations short and long term plans which identify what amount of human resource company needs in the short term and what amount of people they will be needed in near future for available vacancies. (James W. Dean, Jr. and David E. Bowen, 1994)

STEPS IN THE HR PLANNING PROCESS:

HR Planning consists of four basic steps that help to build strong and effective HR Planning.

Determine the impact of organizations objectives on individual or specific units in organization. Then define the skills, competencies, expertise and total number of employees needed to achieve the organizational strategic and operational objective of the company as well as of different departments.

Determine the additional human resource requirements in light of the organizations current human resources. Then finally develop the action plans needed to meet the anticipated human resource needs. When companies are developing their HR plans, they ask certain fundamental questions before developing and type of strategy. The first question is why does the organization exists the second question is what different and unique contributions does it make and the third question is what are the underlying values and motivations of owners and key managers. (James W. Dean, Jr. and David E. Bowen, 1994)

KEY ISSUES FACED BY HR MANAGERS:

DEVELOPING THE HR PLAN: First and the most important issue that HR managers have to face is Develop HR plans for the long and short term objectives. HR manages must consider allocation of people to jobs over longer periods of time. Not for one or two months but for next several years. The allocations of these peoples require lot of knowledge as they have to take care of any unforeseen event like expansion or reduction from the Human resource of the company.

On the basis of these, HR departments have to assign jobs and tasks to various people working for the organization, shift employees based on the skills required for various jobs, hire fresh people for new jobs in present or for future openings, reduction or cutting of human resource from various departments or retaining present employees. (Rosalie L. Tung, 1984)

HR plans provide a road map for the company as it defines from where employees can be obtained in future, when employees will be needed for specific jobs. (Rosalie L. Tung, 1984)

SCANNING THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT:

It is defined as the process of studying the environment of the organization to pinpoint opportunities and threats. Scanning the environment affects HR Planning because each company looks the Human resource from the same labor market. Scanning helps us to determine what amount of labor is available and what skills are present in them. (Susan C. Schneider, 1988)

FACTORS THAT EFFECT LABOR SUPPLY: The main factors that affect labor supply include Government policies, economic conditions, geographic conditions and competitive condition which include workforce compositions and workforce patterns.

FORECASTING: Forecasting is the process in which we identify expected future conditions based on the information from the past as well as from the present so that we can meet our future objectives. (Stephen P. Robbins and Mary Coulter, 2001).

Forecasting Periods: HR Forecasting should be done in three different stages that is Long term, Intermediate and short term. HR managers should identify their objectives according to the time frame defined. (Susan C. Schneider, 1988)

MANAGING THE HUMAN RESOURCE SURPLUS: There are certain techniques that managers can implement to manage the human resource surplus.

Downsizing: It is the process of reducing the size of organizational workforce. There are two main reasons why companies have to make decisions to downsize their workforce.

First is that many organizations have not been in competed effectively with foreign and domestic competition. Higher costs of Human resource and changing of technology continuously have forced to reduce the number of employees working for them as their financial performance is not been according to the costs they are giving. Another factor for downsizing in industries is due to mergers and acquisitions of different companies which ultimately increase their human resource capacity which forces the managers to lay offs employees that would not be needed in near future.

Downsizing can be in form of attrition and hiring freezes, early retirement buy outs, layoffs and etc. (Peter Ferdinand Drucker, 1999).

JOB DESIGN: It is the process if organizing tasks, duties and responsibilities into a productive unit of work. A job liked by one person doesn’t likely to be liked by other person. It also depends upon how jobs are designed, because if jobs are not designed effectively and efficiently then individuals might get distracted from doing that job or they may not continue that job for a longer period. (James P. Lewis, 2007).

Job design is given a high priority in different companies for certain factors which includes Job design can influence performance on various jobs, especially were employee motivations plays an important factor. Lower cost of HR planning and controlling of absenteeism and turnover of employees are also directly related with effective job design. Job design also effects job satisfaction because different people need different job characteristics for the same job. (Patrick J. Montana and Bruce H. Charnov, 2000).

ISSUES FACED BY HR MANAGERS IN JOB DESIGNING:

Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment: Job enlargement is defined as the scope of broadening job by expanding the number of tasks that has to be performed in a single job. Where as Job enrichment is defined as increasing the depth of the job by giving additional duties of planning, organizing, Leading and controlling. Managers have to decide that what amount of jobs needs to be Enlarge and Enriched within the organization. Some examples of job enlargement and job enrichment include giving full authority to subordinates so that he or she can perform his job in his own manner. Giving feedback reports directly to managers rather than to top management. (James P. Lewis, 2007).

Job Rotation: It is the process of shifting of person from one job to another so that they can learn variety of work under different departments. This technique is used for Management Trainee and Internees when they join the company at initial level. (Patrick J. Montana and Bruce H. Charnov, 2000).

Job Characteristics: Job characteristics are very important factor when designing jobs. It is the picture of job that represents the characteristics of job and from which managers design jobs accordingly. Factors include skill variety, Task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback. (Richard L. Daft, 1999)

Reengineering Jobs is also a very useful technique that HR managers use which states rethinking and redesigning jobs to improve cost, accuracy, service and effectiveness. This technique helps managers to improve their chances of getting the job on the right track with minimum time and maximum efficiency. (Augustine A. Lado and Mary C. Wilson, 1994)

ABSENTEEISM: It is now a day’s one of the most important thing that manager have concern that how they can reduce the employees absenteeism from work. Job design are made by keeping this factor in mind as one of the key issues.

Measuring Absenteeism can be calculated as (No of Persons – Days lost through job absence during period/Average No of employees * No of work days) * 100.

Controlling absenteeism is an important task that managers should control that. Voluntary absenteeism is controllable easily is managers understand its causes and try to figure out its solution. We can control under three different categories which includes Disciplinary Approach, Positive Reinforcement, or Combination Approach. (Richard L. Daft, 1999)

EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: It is the process in which employees leave the organization at middle of their jobs and their vacancies will be replaced by other persons either from within the organization and outside the organization. Turnover is also classified as voluntary or involuntary. Involuntary occurs when employees are fired whereas voluntary turnover occurs when employee leaves the company by it own choice.

Turnover of employees can be controlled by giving them realistic job previews so that the realities of job match with the expectations of new employees of a particular job. (Richard L. Daft, 1999)

REFERENCES

Randall S. Schuler and Susan E. Jackson. (1987) Linking Competitive Strategies with Human Resource Management Practices. The Academy of Management Executive [Internet], Aug 1987 10 (4) pp. 207-219. Available from http://www.jstor.org [Accessed 20 April 2009].
James W. Dean, Jr. and David E. Bowen. (1994) Management Theory and Total Quality: Improving Research and Practice through Theory Development. The Academy of Management Review [Internet], July 1994, 19 (3) pp. 392-418. Available from http://www.jstor.org [Accessed 20 April 2009].

Augustine A. Lado and Mary C. Wilson. (1994) Human Resource Systems and Sustained Competitive Advantage: A Competency-Based Perspective. The Academy of Management Executive [Internet], Aug 1994 19 (4) pp. 699-727. Available from http://www.jstor.org [Accessed 20 April 2009].
Rosalie L. Tung. (1984) Strategic management of human resources in the multinational enterprise. Wiley Periodicals, Inc [Internet], Sep 1984 23 (2) pp. 129 – 143. Available from http://www3.interscience.wiley.com [Accessed 20 April 2009].

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