OPEN UNIVERSITY OF MALAYSIA

PLANNING, RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION OF

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
BBRP2103

EASA FAHEEM
S11422649
A161090
7943878
easa.faheem@gmail.com

Easa Faheem , S11422649

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Bachelors of Human Resource

Management

Easa
Faheem
Assignemnt
October 2012

th

20
of Planning,
Human resource
planning is a
Recruitment
and
process which
anticipates and
Selection
of HR

maps out the consequences of

Analyse
a HR
Planning
business
strategy
on an in
organization'sorganisation
human resources.
a business
This is reflected in planning of
skill and competence needs as well
as total headcounts.

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Preface
Human resource planning is a process which anticipates and maps out the
consequences of business strategy on an organization's human resources. This
is reflected in planning of skill and competence needs as well as total
headcounts.
For resourcing strategies to be implemented they must be translated into
practical action. The strategic process can be organized logically. For these
decisions to be taken, information must be obtained, consequences gauged,
political soundings taken and preferences assessed.
It is clear that many of these decisions are fundamental to an organization. If
the implications are major, strategic decisions are taken at the center of the
business.
Each organisation the process of making Human Resource Planning is different.
If an organisation is decentralized and having a more inter department then,
that organisation will have separate departmental HR plan and overall
organizational HR plan that will focused on the departmental HR plan.
It is important to follow the HR plan on doing things related to staffs or workers.
In this assignment will look at mainly on introduction of the Maldives Customs
Services, and how the HR planning process is taking place. And also, external
influences and challenges facing, while, implementing HR plan and how to deal
with it. The assignment is concluded in giving a recommendations.

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Introduction
The history of Maldives Customs Services is backed in 1890. Maldives Customs
Services main duty is to, regulate import and export regulation of the county
and control the border of the country both air and sea.
Although government export / import tax administrative infrastructure was
functional long before 1890, Customs Services joint World Customs
Organization on 8th September 1995. When, it became its 139th Member,
name of Maldives Customs was re-named Maldives Customs Service on 11th
November 1998.
More than 800 staffs worked various branches of Maldives Customs Services
across the country are divided into 9 different departments. From these
departments, Seaport department is the biggest department. Under seaport
department, they will look at all the regional seaports operates various region
of the country.
As mentioned earlier, at the formation of Maldives Customs Services, there
main duty is to collect export / import tax and check the cargoes entering into
the country by air and sea.
As we live in a world that was more technologically advance and also
increasingly interconnected, that will reflect the expansion of flows of
information, technology, goods and people around the globe. Increased
participation in the global community offers significant and its risk Customs is
in the frontline in helping the Government of Maldives manage these risks by
protecting our borders and our revenue so that the people of Maldives may live
in safety while actively participating in the global community.
In this esteem, the role of Customs have been changing from a more traditional
role of revenue collection to a multi-functional role with responsibility for social,
economic and environmental protection, security of the supply chain, and
facilitation of trade at our borders.

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Moreover, Customs today is challenged with increased volume of traffic, with

no corresponding increase in resources and greater expectations from traders
for faster clearance times. At the same time, the Government and society
expect Customs to provide effective controls on our borders.
The vision of Maldives Customs Services was, to become a world-class Customs
service that fully reflects national and international standards and best
practices, in contributing to border protection and trade facilitation. And there
mission is to guard and protect the Maldives national borders from smuggling
of narcotics, contrabands and against other illegal cross-border activities, by
steadfastly enforcing the laws of the Maldives while fostering economic
security through facilitation of legitimate trade and travel.
The human resource situation of Maldives Customs Services sees quiet good.
More than 800 staffs are working there, and all the staffs are divided in
between the departments. From all the departments more staffs are worked
under seaports department. That is because; in that department they will
control and supervise all the regional customs branches which are located
across the country.
Maldives Customs Services providing staff with relevant academic competency
and skills training so as to create conducive work environment for generating
inspiration and motivation amongst them; by inculcating and promoting the
required ethical standards to become professional Customs officers.
They will provide national and international level of technical and professional
training to expertise customs officers in various fields on Customs Services.
They also trying to develop the Customs training center facilities, so as to
provide national and regional level trainings in Customs Services and it will be
easy to conduct in-house training programs.
Moreover, Maldives Customs Services offers various courses that are related to
customs in nationally and internationally to thorough with services of customs
and aware the work that they have to do. In addition to that, Customs
promotes and done various things for staffs motivation, awareness and
wellbeing of the staff and create an effective mean while they are trying to
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adopt and strengthen organizations promotion and recognition policies so as to

implement them firmly and equally.

Human Resources Planning Process of the Organisation

Every year, Maldives Customs Services renew their human resources plan. To
do the main human resource plan, human resource department collect all the
human resource plans done by the individual department the year. Before
submitting the final human resource plan of the individual department to the
human resource department, the head of the department will recheck the
whole plan and have to approve. After head of department approve the final
draft of individual human resource plan of the department then will submit to
the human resource department, where they collect and make a final human
resource plan for the Organisation.
To do a human resource plan, the entire department will follow five steps
approaches. Such steps include the following: determining business goals,
undertaking environmental scans (including a workforce analysis, as well as
internal and external scans), conducting gap analyses, setting HR priorities,
and measuring, monitoring, and reporting on progress.
Organisational
Organisational
Obectives
and
Obectives and
Strategies
Strategies

Scan
External
Scan External
Environment
for
Environment for
Changes
Changes Affecting
Affecting
Labor
Supply
Labor Supply

Analyze
Analyze Internal
Internal
invetory
invetory of
of HR
HR
capabilities
capabilities

Forvasting
Forvasting

Easa Faheem
Analyze
Analyze
InternalInventory of
InternalInventory
of
HRCapabilities
HRCapabilities

, S11422649

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Survey
Survey of
of People
People
Bachelors of Human Resource
Management

HR
HR Strategies
Strategies and
and
Plna
Plna

Establishing HR priorities to help achieve business goals and measuring,

monitoring and reporting on progress will be critical.
HR Planning Process

Before start doing the HR planning, first each department will determine the
company or organisations objectives and strategies.
1- Determine organisations goal and strategies
A solid understanding of government and ongoing departmental business
and HR priorities, emerging changes and trends, and the impact of
legislative reforms are needed to determine business goals. This step
should also consider whether or not strategic partnerships (to facilitate
business and HR planning / workforce planning efforts) should be
established and ensure that accountability requirements are met.
Government priorities are articulated in documents such as the Speech
from the Throne, Budget Speeches and other applicable government
documents, including departmental Strategic and Business Plans. This
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information is likely already available in existing departmental strategic /

business plans.
2- Scan the internal and external environment
Once business goals are understood, an understanding of the workforce,
as well as planning for projected shortages and surpluses in specific
occupations and skill sets, will be required. Key demographic
employment data and characteristics (e.g. sex, average age,
occupational groups, skills/competency profiles, etc.), as well as internal
workforce trends (e.g. retirement eligibility, vacancy rates, turnover,
etc.), are important factors to consider when conducting a
comprehensive workforce analysis. This information is likely already
available in existing departmental workforce plans, though it may require
updating.
The internal scan is primarily focused on identifying the factors within
the department that might affect the HR capacity to meet
departmental goals.
Each department will be able to identify internal opportunities and
challenges. It will be important for the organization to build on its

strengths and to minimize challenges and risks.

The external scan focuses on identifying those external factors that
may affect workforce capacity, given known operational needs and
emerging issues. An external scan should consider the opportunities
that exist which can be advantageous to the department. It will also
enable the department to identify risks or potential risks in the
external environment so that the department can identify specific
strategies to manage those risks.

3- Conduct a Gap Analysis or Analyze Internal Inventory of HR Capabilities

Current and future HR requirements need to be projected based on an
analysis of departmental goals and priorities, and environmental
scanning. Questions that are helpful in determining HR needs, identifying
gaps, and projecting future HR requirements include the following:
Do you foresee a skill shortage in a specific occupational group?
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Will changes in program delivery require the acquisition of new skills?

Do you have succession plans for critical positions?
Have you conducted a risk analysis of the elements of the scan
critical to the success of your organization?

4- Set HR Priorities to Help Achieve Departmental Goals / Survey of People

Subsequent to an examination of the gap analysis outcomes, HR
priorities should be determined and the strategies needed to achieve
desired outcomes must be identified by departments. Strategies might
address the following issues:
Developing a talent pool
Work environment improvements
Organizational development
Competency / Skills development
Employee engagement
Workplace well-being
Recruitment / staffing
Retention
5- Final HR Plan and Strategies
Monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on HR performance outcomes is
key to assessing progress in target areas, organizational learning and
improvement, and to determining future priorities.
Consider the following questions:
Have clear and measurable HR goals been identified?
Are the HR performance measures aligned with other existing
accountability measures (ex. measures that already exist in

departmental strategic plans, etc.)?

Are systems in place to track performance indicators and analyze any

cost benefit?
Do results from performance indicators inform priority setting for the

next fiscal year?

What is the degree of success that has been achieved?

External influence or challenges to HR Planning

Human resource planning is the key element to the organisations human
resource management. If the effective human resource planning were there,
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the organisations overall human resource management will be successful. Even

though, the planning was an effective one. There may be short term or long
term problem that will face in case of human resource management.
This problem or challenges are faces customs even. It will be either internally
or externally, but many of these influences or challenges are rise from
externally. It may be political, legal, or even technological influences.
According to Deb (2006), he said that, there are lots of external influences that
will affect the effectiveness of the organisations human resource plan.
He divided these influences into four different parts. But from those four
challenges three challenges are suitable to Maldives Customs services, they
are;
1- Changes in technology,
Deb (2006) says that, in this era of science and technological
innovations, the technological changes are more rapid and pervasive
than ever before in the context of the organisation and its interface with
the environment. Such changes in technology makes human resource
planning redundant or obsolete and ineffective, especially the long-term
human resource planning.
2- Changes in consumer demand
Total quality management and stiff competition, consumer has become
the king. Today, he is very demanding and his expectations changes very
rapidly. This requires introducing newer and innovative products and
services, which results in technological changes, product design and
safety changes (ergonomics), cost of production, etc. which makes
human resource planning ineffective as the organisation needs to be
adaptive in a global economy, Deb (2006) says.
3- Changes in government policy
Government policies on human resources, employee relations, labour
laws, trade and traffic norms, job reservation issues, sons of the soil
issues, etc. affects human resource planning adversely. An example given
to Deb (2006) says, reservation of jobs for candidates belonging to
SC/ST/BC/OBC categories in private sector jobs will affect human resource
planning, both quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Adverse changes in
governments policies may force organisation to reduce activity level in
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that particular business or even withdraw from such a business itself. In

such a case, human resource planning becomes ineffective due to
uncertainties created by the government policies.
Bandt, Haines (2004) also gives some more information about influences
and challenges that will face organisation to handle their human resource
planning.
They said that, aligning HR practices, business partnerships,
organisational changes, technology and strategists changes are the main
influences and challenges that will face an organisation.
Dealing with external influences
Customs like organisation will be always technologically advanced. The
staffs who are working the organisation have the capability or basic
knowledge about the modern technology and how it works to settle the
modern technological word. To deal with the technological advancement
the organisation will provide the in-house or other training programs for
those who needed to that kind of training.
To deal with customers demand, organisation working environment
should be changed to customer friendly environment. In addition to that,
introducing newer and innovative products and services, which results in
technological changes, product design and safety changes so that, the
customers who are getting services from the organisation feels easy and
comfortable. Now also Maldives Customs Services introduce innovative
and new services that are easier than before to get services from them.
Recommendation
Expand the role of supervisors to include identification of talented
staff for suitable postings in other job streams early in their career

(e.g. between 30-35) to increase their exposure to different roles.

Expand the career pathing/options and make them known to staff.
Add "Staff Development Needs" and "Staff Career Aspiration"

discussions to the appraisal process and include in the staff report.

Formally through the performance appraisal process, supervisors

recommend next postings for staff.

Train supervisors on coaching skills.

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Implement staff development activities: inclusion in work groups,

assignment of special duties; secondment across functions or to

external organizations.
Establish a Career Development Function/ Manager to improve career

development counseling.
Develop a target number of new recruits for each segment-those

committed to regular duties, medical professionals, etc.

Revise recruiting promotional material to give a clearer picture of the

type of work expected to be carried out by staffs.

Identify desired competencies of recruits.
Revise recruitment criteria: use competencies as a template for

selection to ensure consistently high caliber candidates are selected.

Revise recruiting interview procedures to ensure that a clear picture of

the work is described to volunteers.

Train interviewers regarding the new recruitment approach, e.g.
setting candidates' expectations (to explain the challenges as well as
the pluses), using competencies to assess the candidate, and
identifying candidates that are particularly in demand, i.e. those

interested in performing regular duties.

And also, should follow according to the HR plans that are done from
the start of the year.

References
Allan Bandt, Stephen G. Haines, (2004), Successful Strategic Human Resource
Planning, Systems Thinking Press.
Arthur Sherman, George Bohlander & Scott Snell, Managing Human Resources,
An International Thomson Publishing Company.
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Arun Monappa, (1997), Managing Human Resources, MacMillan India.

Charles P. Greer,(2001) Strategic Human Resource Manager: A General
Managerial Application, Pearson Education Asia.
C.B. Mamoria and S.V. Gankar (2003), A textbook of Human Resource
Management. Himalaya Publishing House.
Edwin B. Flippo,(1984), Personnel Management, 6th Ed. MacMillan India.
Gary Dessler, Human Resource Management, Prentice-Hall of India Private
Limited, New Delhi.
Hirsh, W (2000) Succession Planning Demystified, Report No 372, Institute of
Employment Studies,
Hirsh, W and Carter, A (2002) New Directions in Management Development,
Paper 387, Institute of Employment Studies.
K. Aswathappa, (2002), Human Resource and Personnel Management: Text and
Cases, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited, New Delhi.
Lawrence S. Kleiman, (2003), Human Resource Management. Biztantra
Innovations in Management, New Delhi.
Robert L. Mathis & John H. Jackson, (2000), Human Resource Management (9th
ed.) South- Western College Publishing Thomson Learning.
Tapomoy Deb, (2006), Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management,
Atlantic Publishers & Dis.
V.S.P. Rao, (2002), Human Resource Management: Text and Cases, Excel Books,
New Delhi.

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