A Four-Step Guide to Human Resource (HR) Planning
At some level or another, regardless of your business size, someone deals with the Human Resources part. To function effectively in business, one must stick to a plan to reach the planned organisational goals. This is where HR Planning comes in.
An effective human resource planning process helps organisations maximise human capital and build a future-ready workforce. Let’s delve into the importance of human resource planning in more detail and what the process looks like.
What is human resource planning?
Human resource planning (HRP) describes an ongoing, data-driven process where a company systematically plans for the future through human resources to ensure that available jobs are suited to appropriately skilled employees.
It identifies critical HR initiatives for the period ahead to help the organisation achieve its strategic goals and maintain its competitive advantage without staffing shortages or excesses.
Importance of human resource planning
Organisations must be able to adapt their human capital to sustain the continuous shifts in technology, local and global economics, product innovation, and culture. Human resource planning is integral to maximising a well-equipped workforce, and it offers other advantages that assist in accomplishing your organisation’s mission.
Challenges of Human Resource Planning
The challenges to HRP include forces that are constantly changing, such as employees getting sick, getting promoted, or going on vacation. HRP ensures there is the best fit between workers and jobs, avoiding shortages and surpluses in the employee pool.
To satisfy their objectives, HR managers have to make plans to do the following:
- Find and attract skilled employees.
- Select, train, and reward the best candidates.
- Cope with absences and deal with conflicts.
- Promote employees or let some of them go.
Investing in HRP is one of the most vital decisions a company can make.
HR planning aims to ensure that the company has the necessary skills and resources to achieve its business objectives. This process typically involves four steps:
1. Analysing Labor Supply
The first step of human resource planning is identifying the company’s current human resources supply. In this step, the HR department studies the organisation’s strengths based on the number of employees, their skills, qualifications, positions, benefits, and performance levels.
2. Forecasting Labor Demand
The second step requires the company to outline the future of its workforce. Here, the HR department can consider specific issues like promotions, retirements, layoffs, and transfers—anything that factors into a company’s future needs.
The HR department can also look at external conditions impacting labour demand, such as new technology that might increase or decrease the need for workers.
3. Balancing Labor Demand With Supply
The third step in the HRP process is forecasting the employment demand. HR creates a gap analysis that lays out specific needs to narrow the company’s labour supply versus future direction. This analysis will often generate a series of questions, such as:
- Should employees learn new skills?
- Does the company need more managers?
- Do all employees play to their strengths in their current roles?
4. Developing and Implementing a Plan
The answers to questions from the gap analysis help HR determine how to proceed, which is the final phase of the HRP process. HR must now take practical steps to integrate its plan with the rest of the company. The department needs a budget, the ability to implement the plan, and a collaborative effort with all departments to execute it.
By following these steps, companies can ensure that they have the necessary human resources plan to achieve their business goals.
Why document your strategic HR plan?
Now that you know the steps to strategic human resource planning, it’s time to adapt those steps to your organisation and determine how to execute them.
There are many reasons to document your strategic human resources plan, particularly in a visual format like a flowchart. Through documentation, you standardise the process, enabling repeated success. Documentation also allows for better evaluation, knowing what parts of your plan need work. In addition, a properly documented plan will allow you to better communicate the plan throughout the organisation, including how everyone, from the top down, can contribute to making sure it works.
Document every step of the process, from beginning to end, and find room for improvement in your human resources process.
Let’s wrap it up
Companies can stay competitive in today’s fast-paced economy and adapt to change quickly and effectively with effective HR planning. Planning for the future is always a challenge when there is no way to be sure of what it holds, and you can’t foresee every possible development. Nevertheless, it is worth the effort. With some preparation, human resources managers can avoid spontaneously improvising in more situations.
With an accurate understanding of the dynamics of human resources, you have the essentials for an effective human resource planning process that results in a concrete, actionable plan. To develop and carry out your human resource plan, thoroughly analyse your current situation and future needs. If this sounds like a bit too much for your liking, why not consider outsourcing it?
Find your ideal Human Resource (HR) Planning Solution
The benefit of outsourcing your Human Resource planning is that it can help you take the pressure off and give you peace of mind. Outsourcing your Human Resource planning to a trusted vendor like MASA can save you money in the long run and might make a bit more sense depending on the growth stage your business is in.
If you require professional assistance with more than just human resource planning but hiring, onboarding, and training new employees, make sure to contact us to leverage the top staffing employment and labour outsourcing services in SA.
MASA is a leading national and international employment/staffing agency capable of effectively managing the critical elements of your employment/staffing needs.
