MU0010 - Manpower planning and Resourcing

Q. 1 -
(a) What is Manpower Planning?
Ans. Human resource planning is very essential for continued existence of the business. It is a process
in which the HR department tries to understand their strength of current manpower and
prepares for the future. Effectiveness of Manpower planning is to hiring the right number of
people at the right place and at the right time for doing the right things. Effective manpower
planning helps in achieving the goals and objectives of the organization. This is all with respect
to the most vital resource of an organization-its employee. The HR department sees whether all
departments in the organization are an appropriate size or not and also prepares for future job
openings and vacancies. Human resource management by comparison, is the process of
anticipating and making provision for the movement of people into, within, and out of the
organization. In order to accomplish the organizations goal the managers try to deploy human
resources as per requirement and as effectively as possible.

According to Eric W. Vetter, manpower planning is a vital process where the management
determines how the organization should move from its present manpower position to a desired
manpower position. According to Stainer, manpower planning may be defined as a strategy for
the procurement, development, allocation and utilization of an enterprises human resources.

Human Resource Planning consists of a series of activities:
1. Forecasting future manpower requirements
2. Making an inventory of present manpower resources.
3. Anticipating manpower problems by projecting present resources into the future.
4. Planning the necessary programs of requirement, selection, training & development to
ensure that future manpower requirements are properly met.


Organizations are made up of people. Manufacturing industries need people to operate
machines, maintain machines and ensure desired output quality. Service industries need people
to serve customers. Human resource is the most important asset of any organization. It is the
people, who play a crucial role in achieving business objectives. One cannot ever deny the
importance of human resources to make an organization successful.

Manpower planning managers need to estimate the total number of manpower required for
each position or job role correctly. This is no easy task. Manpower planning managers need to
estimate the requirement as close to reality as possible and also ensure hiring for the job role
requirements in the shortest possible time so that the business is not impacted negatively due
to the shortage or absence of resources. And this is what makes manpower planning an
interesting subject.



Definitions

According to K. F. Turkman manpower planning can be defined as an attempt to match the
supply of people with the jobs available in an organization. Statistical techniques have been
used to ascertain the supply of people with the jobs available.

Bruce Coleman has defined manpower planning as the process of determining manpower
requirements and the means for meeting those requirements in order to carry out the
integrated plan of the organization. The website http://www.businessdictionary.com defines
manpower planning as: Estimating or projecting the number of personnel with different skills
required over time or for a project, and detailing how and when they will be acquired.

A business definition according to http://www.bnet.com for manpower planning is The
development of strategies to match the supply of workers, and the availability of jobs at
organizational, regional or national level.


(b) Explain the factors affecting manpower planning.
Factors Affecting Manpower Planning:

The Type of organization determines the production process, type of staff (supervisor and
manager) and the strategy plan of the organization defines its HR needs Organizational growth
cycle and planning-start up, growth, maturity, decline Environmental uncertainty- political,
social and economical change affect all organizations.

Outsourcing- the process by which employees transfer routine or peripheral work to the
another organizations. Nature of job: job vacancies, promotions and expansion strategies.

Time horizons- long term plans and short term plans, the greater the uncertainty the shorter
the plan

Q. 2 What are the inputs provided by HR for manpower planning?
Ans. Some of the relevant inputs provided by HR for manpower planning are:
1. Evaluate present manpower inventory Current inventory levels and inputs for
orientation of representatives involved in manpower planning at the departmental
level.
2. Manpower forecasting Goals, controllable variables, uncontrollable variables, business
projections, uncontrollable variables, maturity level of the organization, changed
organization structure if any.
3. Develop a manpower sourcing plan or retrenchment plan previous years plan versus
actual, inputs regarding offers to joining ratios, target resource pool, challenges of
recruitment and challenges of retrenchment.
4. Manpower allocation Meeting headcount target based on budgets by allocation
techniques used previously.
5. Building requisite competencies Manpower training and development processes,
challenges and costs.

Therefore it is safe to say that HR plays an important role in the manpower planning process.
According to Michael Armstrong, Human resource management is the strategic and coherent
approach to the management of Manpower Planning and Resourcing.

An organization's most valued assets - the people working there- who individually and
collectively contributes to the achievement of the objective of the business. Human resource
management (HRM) means employing people, developing their capacities, utilizing, maintaining
and compensating their services in tune with the job and organizational requirements.

Rewards & Recognition
Employee reward systems refer to programs set up by an organization to reward performance
and motivate employees at individual or group level. Reward is normally considered separate
from salary but could be monetary in nature or in kind. Employee recognition programs are
often combined with reward programs but they have a different purpose. Recognition is more
of a psychological benefit offered to the deserving employee.

Performance Feedback
Performance feedback enables employees to know how close they are performing to the
expected performance levels or how far they are from the expected performance levels.
Specific instances of lack of knowledge, skill or behavior are noted. These observations made
about the employee are shared on a constant basis. Organizations share performance feedback
with employees at a regular frequency. In some organizations it is shared fortnightly, monthly,
quarterly, half-yearly. This is done from an improvement perspective and not to threaten or
victimize employees.

Performance Appraisals
According to Edwin B. Flippo, a prominent personality in the field of Human resources,
"performance appraisal is the systematic, periodic and an impartial rating of an employees
excellence in the matters pertaining to his present job and his potential for a better job."
Performance appraisal is a systematic way of reviewing and assessing the performance of an
employee during a given period of time and planning for his future. Performance appraisal is a
powerful tool to regulate, improve and reward the performance of employees. Performance
appraisal helps evaluate individual achievements and their contribution to achieve overall
organizational goals. This system works well when achievements are traced on a quarterly
basis. Performance appraisal of an employee must be carried out not only by the immediate
superior but also by fellow employee and customers.

Knowledge Sharing
Sharing your knowledge and experiences is a wonderful way of improving the employees and
their work performance. Keeping all the important Manpower Planning and Resourcing
information in a central database that can be easily accessed by each and every employee is a
one way of knowledge sharing. For example, if an employee is sent for a particular training, the
knowledge that is acquired by that employee can be saved in these databases for future use
and for others to learn from it. Innovative ideas that management feels is essential for
employees, can be saved here for all the employees.

Publicize Good Performances of Employees
Each and every organization has some employees who perform better than the others. Such
performances need to be recognized in meetings or displayed on notice boards and posted on
the intranet. This motivates the high performing employee and also motivates other employees
to give their best performance. A good system would be to recognize high performers at
specific times in a year. It is very crucial to ensure that employee recognition is made public in
the organization so that the employees feel that their efforts are valued and that their
individual contribution is applauded. This can be done by conducting recognition award
ceremonies or even in the annual meeting in the Organization.

Discussions with Employees
Successful organizations nurture ideas of employees because the employees are the closest to
the business operations and customers. They know the business better than any management
would ever know it. Employees can provide the best ideas. The management should seek
employee ideas.

The Surprise Factor
Everyone likes surprises? The employees deserve a surprise when they are least expecting it.
It could be a gift voucher or a small reward. Surprises dont have to be limited only to the best
performers, but it can be given to other employees as an incentive too. Any employee in the
organization can be given this surprise reward. Such healthy HR practices encourage growth of
the organization as it is the employees after all who play a major role in the well-being of an
organization. Making an employee feel important proves to be of success to the firm or
organization.

Q. 3 What are the problems in Manpower Planning?
Ans. Following are the main problems that organizations face in the process of manpower planning:
1. Non Optimal Utilization of Manpower
The biggest obstacle for manpower planning is the fact that organizations cannot optimally use
their manpower once manpower planning begins. During manpower planning, the number of
resources required for a job is decided based on the total work load, the processes to be
followed and the criticality of the job. Once the analysis is done, it is decided that one person
can only handle a certain portion of the workload and hence for any additional workload,
additional resources need to be hired proportionately. Over a period of time, the total
workload may change, the processes may change, the criticality of the job may change and new
technological innovations may make the job far easier to accomplish. However when the same
employees are asked to step up the productivity, they resist accepting any additional workload
and resist even deployment of new technology, hence making it hard for the management to
maximize the use of their manpower.



2. Absenteeism
Every organization has witnessed an increase in absenteeism. This has lead to errors creeping in
the manpower planning exercise. If the plan stated that 4 employees are required to manage
the total workload, increased degree of absenteeism leads to the partial failure of the
manpower planning exercise.

3. Lack of Employable Labor
People are not employable. The slow pace of acquiring business required competencies by
people at large also result in low employee productivity. All manpower planning is done by
keeping a certain productivity level as the benchmark. And low productivity has negative
implications for manpower planning.

Employee Productivity = Total Production / Total no. of employees
a. Exit Interviews, the rate of turnover and rate of absenteeism are source of vital
information on the satisfaction level of manpower. For conservation of Human Resources
and better utilization of men studying this condition, manpower control would have to
take into account the data to make meaningful analysis.
b. Extent of Overtime: The amount of overtime paid may be due to real shortage of men,
ineffective management or improper utilization of manpower. Manpower control would
require a careful study of overtime statistics.
Few Organizations do not have sufficient records and information on manpower. Several of
those who have them do not have a proper retrieval system. There are complications in
resolving the issues in design, definition and creation of computerized personnel information
system for effective manpower planning and utilization. Even the existing technologies in this
respect are not optimally used. This is a strategic disadvantage.
Q. 4. (a) What is Resourcing Strategy?
Ans. Sourcing is identifying suitable candidates to join the organization while recruiting refers to
selecting and making them available. Resourcing involves identifying as to where exactly these
candidates can be utilized for effective generation of revenue. Thus resourcing is analyzing the
internal availability and making them available.

Every organization has long term goals and it needs right people to realize them. Resourcing
strategy looks at establishing methods or processes which enables the organization to link
resourcing to their strategic goals. In other words it is a tool which refines or makes resourcing
more purposeful.

Resourcing encompasses all the processes connected from identification of resource labor
pools to inducting and retaining right people in the system. It also emphasizes on welfare and
development of existing employees to benefit the organization.



(b) Explain any two components of Resourcing Strategy.
Ans. Two Components of Resourcing Strategy are as below:
1. Research
Research is primarily done to understand the best options available to an organization to carry
out resourcing operations or part of it. It considers the options those are currently employed by
the organization and its likes. It looks at first analyzing what is the quality of human resource
and associated processes required for carrying out the job.

This involves the study of the profile of human resource required, their sources, locations
where they are readily available or from where they can be procured, other
external/outsourcing options, etc. Let us consider an organization which needed to set up a
data processing center. The job primarily involved gathering 70% of customer information from
hard copies of application forms and 30% information from the customers over the phone.
Initially the organization had its base in a metro. The organization had a high running cost in
managing the operation. A substantial part of this cost was the payout of wages. However, the
quality of output was in line with expectations.

After a detailed study the organization realized that there were other ways to carry out this
operation. They could relocate or set-up such operations in smaller cities where there was a
pool of qualified human resource available at a lower cost. The only challenge was the quality
of interaction with the customer; which was at risk as these employees could not match the
communication skills of the employees in the metro city. However they were very efficient at
transferring data from the application forms; which was 70% of their job. The organization kept
this option open. They also found out that the operation can also be outsourced if the quality of
work was monitored.

2. Planning
Planning is the most important component in resourcing. It is part of the process where findings
of research are used to arrive at strategic decision on resourcing. Let us take the example used
above in the Research part forward and discuss planning. Research findings suggested few
opportunities and the challenges associated in exercising those options. One of the challenges
in employing candidates from smaller cities was quality of communication. Detailed study
suggested that the interaction was objective and repetitive in nature and employees can be
trained on the same. A few candidates from a smaller city were trained and tested and the
results were satisfactory. Now the organization had to compare whether locating the set-up in
a smaller city was justified or relocating employees from smaller city to a bigger city or metro
was more viable. Research showed that moving the business to a smaller city would be a
profitable decision in long run. So the organization went ahead with setting up centers in
smaller or tier 2 cities.
Thus, planning involves decisions pertaining to sourcing human resources required for a
business viz. Sources, Location, Structure, Processes etc.




Q. 5.
(a) Explain the benefits of an Induction Program.
An Induction Program is the process used within many businesses to welcome new employees
to the company and prepare them for their new role.

Benefits of an Induction Program:-
An induction program is a very important step when new employees join an organization. It
provides an introduction to the working environment and the role of the employee in the
organization. Induction covers the employer and employee rights and, the terms and conditions
of employment.

An induction program definitely covers any legal and compliance requirements of the
organization. Also it definitely tells employees about the health and safety precautions to be
taken in certain situations Induction is meant to enable a new employee to become productive
and get integrated with the team faster and hence start feeling good about his/her joining the
new firm. The aim is not to throw someone into the deep end. But to create an environment
for the new employee to become productive and part of the team in a manner that the person
will be able to quickly start performing and also start undertaking large responsibilities.

The idea is that an employee should not be expected to perform without understanding how to
do their job, or how their role fits in with the rest of the company. A good induction program
can increase productivity and reduce short-term turnover of staff.
(b) What are the types of Induction?
Types of Induction
An organization needs to make a strategic choice before designing an induction/orientation
program. They are: Formal Induction and Informal Induction

1. Informal Induction
In this the new employees are instructed to report to the HR department for an explanation of
organization policies before being referred to the manager for on the job briefing on specific
work process. In informal orientation, new employees are put directly on the job and are
expected to adjust themselves on the new job and organization. Informal orientation tends to
be brief; may last for an hour or may be less than an hour.

2. Formal Induction
Here the management has a structured program which is executed when new employees join
the firm. Formal induction is more elaborate and is spread over a couple of weeks or months.
Most formal induction programmes consist of three stages: General introduction to the
organization is often given by the HR department. Specific orientation to the job and the
department typically is given by the supervisor or manager. Follow up meeting to verify that the
important issues have been addressed and employee questions have been answered. This
follow up meeting usually takes place after a week of joining between the new employee and
the manager.
Organization issues: organization history, history of the employer, names and titles of
important executives, departments, layout of physical facilities, probationary period, product
line, production procedure, organization policies and procedures, disciplinary regulations,
safety procedures.
Employee benefits: pay scale, pay days, vacation and holidays, rest breaks, training and
education benefits, counseling, insurance benefits, retirement program etc. Supervisors outline
the main job duties: job location, task and overview of job, safety requirements and
relationship to other jobs. The choice between formal and informal induction will depend
mainly on the goals and objectives of the organization. The more formal the program the more
the new employee will acquire a set of standards. Many organizations prepare certain induction
manual and induction power-point presentations which they keep on the intranet. These can
be accessed only by the company employees. It is helpful when employees join in small
numbers at different point of time, when a separate induction program cannot be held. This is
also helpful to clarify any doubts an employee may have regarding certain organizational
practices. In an informal program individual differences are maintained.
Q. 6. Explain the importance and driving factors of talent engagement.
Ans. Importance of Talent Engagement
Managers should essentially cultivate engagement in the organization because failure to do
that causes a lack of commitment and motivation amongst employees. Talent engagement is
linked to talent turnover, customer satisfaction, loyalty and profitability.

The importance of talent engagement is that it helps

1. Create and sustains world class processes
2. Contribute greatly to society at large Lower stress and allows healthier lives.
3. Achieve greater work-life balance
4. Allows more peace on earth
5. Increase ability to attract new talent
6. Increase ability to innovate

Driving Factors of Talent Engagement

The driving factors of talent engagement are:-

1. Employers ability to create the conditions that promote talent engagement
2. Employees own unique psychological makeup and experiences
3. Nature of interaction between talented employees at all levels in the organization

The above listed aspects are the responsibility of an organization and they have to create an
environment and culture which is conductive to this partnership.