ANALYZE THE IMPORTANCE OF WORKFORCE PLANING AND EXPLAIN ITS DIFFICULTIES.

CHOOSE AN EXISTING COMPANY OR AN ABSTRACT COMPANY OF YOUR CHOICE.

Workforce Planning is simply getting the right number of people with the right skills, experiences, and competencies in the right jobs at the right time. This process provides managers with a framework for making staffing decisions based on an organisation's mission, strategic plan, budgetary resources, and a set of desired workforce competencies. Importance of workforce planning is it allows an organisation to: 1. Respond quickly and more strategically to change, as the organisation and managers can recognise emerging challenges in the market, workforce and business; 2. Improve efficiency, effectiveness and productivity (employees possess the right skills and are a good fit for the job); 3. Facilitate strategic staffing and planning for future workforce requirements (can identify staffing needs in a timely manner, monitor and ensure replacements are available to fill key vacancies); 4. Assists with the identification and management of people with the knowledge critical for effective and efficient business operations, and the organisation s management of knowledge

To have a proper workforce planning for a company, one must adhere to the following steps:
1.

Workforce analysis
Workforce analysis involves establishing a clear understanding of the organisations direction, its strengths and weaknesses, and the internal and external factors that influence current and future labour demand and supply.

2. Forecast future needs

Forecasting future needs involves identifying changes to the service delivery requirements of the organisation. Likely changes in the capability and capacity of the future workforce need to be determined.

3. Analyse Gaps
Analysing gaps involves using the results of workforce analysis and forecasting to identify current and future gaps between the demand for services and the supply of labour to meet those demands.

4. Develop strategies
Developing strategies involves the planning and design of specific programs and projects that will enable the organisation to develop and maintain a workforce capable of delivering upon the organisations objectives.

5. Implement strategies
Implementing strategies is the execution of the specific programs and projects required to develop and maintain the capability and capacity of the workforce.

6. Monitor and evaluate

Monitoring and evaluation is conducted to determine the effectiveness, efficiency and appropriateness of the workforce planning strategies and activities.

I ll be using Company XYZ as my abstract company. For the purposes of this assignment, company is an ICT Firm. 1. Workforce Analysis: Budget Forecast

Annual reports

Employment type (full-time, part-time, casual)

Federal and State government laws and policies affecting the workforce Number of employees Education level/qualifications

There are plans by Company XYZ to purchase a new office building to accommodate more customer care staff. The company has entered into an agreement with the state government in developing a Tax Portal that will have all tax payment accruable to the state government go through that portal. The is demand for programmers to finish and maintain the Tax Portal as well as IT literate customer care personel to handle complaints. The recently approve Minimum wage of N18,000. 5 Mainly degree holders not in computer sciences.

Function 1: Manpower planning

The penalties for not being correctly staffed are costly.
y y

Understaffing loses the business economies of scale and specialization, orders, customers and profits. Overstaffing is wasteful and expensive, if sustained, and it is costly to eliminate because of modern legislation in respect of redundancy payments, consultation, minimum periods of notice, etc. Very importantly, overstaffing reduces the competitive efficiency of the business.

Planning staff levels requires that an assessment of present and future needs of the organization be compared with present resources and future predicted resources. Appropriate steps then be planned to bring demand and supply into balance. Thus the first step is to take a 'satellite picture' of the existing workforce profile (numbers, skills, ages, flexibility, gender, experience, forecast capabilities, character, potential, etc. of existing employees) and then to adjust this for 1, 3 and 10 years ahead by amendments for normal turnover, planned staff movements, retirements, etc, in line with the business plan for the corresponding time frames. The result should be a series of crude supply situations as would be the outcome of present planning if left unmodified. (This, clearly, requires a great deal of information accretion, classification and statistical analysis as a subsidiary aspect of personnel management.) What future demands will be is only influenced in part by the forecast of the personnel manager, whose main task may well be to scrutinize and modify the crude predictions of other managers. Future staffing needs will derive from:
y y y y y y

Sales and production forecasts The effects of technological change on task needs Variations in the efficiency, productivity, flexibility of labor as a result of training, work study, organizational change, new motivations, etc. Changes in employment practices (e.g. use of subcontractors or agency staffs, hiving-off tasks, buying in, substitution, etc.) Variations, which respond to new legislation, e.g. payroll taxes or their abolition, new health and safety requirements Changes in Government policies (investment incentives, regional or trade grants, etc.)

What should emerge from this 'blue sky gazing' is a 'thought out' and logical staffing demand schedule for varying dates in the future which can then be compared with the crude supply schedules. The comparisons will then indicate what steps must be taken to achieve a balance. That, in turn, will involve the further planning of such recruitment, training, retraining, labor reductions (early retirement/redundancy) or changes in workforce utilization as will bring supply and demand into equilibrium, not just as a oneoff but as a continuing workforce planning

exercise the inputs to which will need constant varying to reflect 'actual' as against predicted experience on the supply side and changes in production actually achieved as against forecast on the demand side.

Manpower Planning
Manpower Planning which is also called as Human Resource Planning consists of putting right number of people, right kind of people at the right place, right time, doing the right things for which they are suited for the achievement of goals of the organization. Human Resource Planning has got an important place in the arena of industrialization. Human Resource Planning has to be a systems approach and is carried out in a set procedure. The procedure is as follows:
1. Analysing the current manpower inventory 2. Making future manpower forecasts 3. Developing employment programmes 1.4. Design training programmes

Steps in Manpower Planning 1. Analysing the current manpower inventoryBefore a manager makes forecast of future manpower, the current manpower status has to be analysed. For this the following things have to be notedy Type of organization y Number of departments y Number and quantity of such departments y Employees in these work units Once these factors are registered by a manager, he goes for the future forecasting. 2. Making future manpower forecasts- Once the factors affecting the future manpower forecasts are known, planning can be done for the future manpower requirements in several work units.

The Manpower forecasting techniques commonly employed by the organizations are as follows:
i. ii. Expert Forecasts: This includes informal decisions, formal expert surveys and Delphi technique. Trend Analysis: Manpower needs can be projected through extrapolation (projecting past trends), indexation (using base year as basis), and statistical analysis (central tendency measure). Work Load Analysis: It is dependent upon the nature of work load in a department, in a branch or in a division. Work Force Analysis: Whenever production and time period has to be analysed, due allowances have to be made for getting net manpower requirements.

iii. iv.

Other methods: Several Mathematical models, with the aid of computers are used to forecast manpower needs, like budget and planning analysis, regression, new venture analysis. 3. Developing employment programmes- Once the current inventory is compared with future forecasts, the employment programmes can be framed and developed accordingly, which will include recruitment, selection procedures and placement plans. 4. Design training programmes- These will be based upon extent of diversification, expansion plans, development programmes,etc. Training programmes depend upon the extent of improvement in technology and advancement to take place. It is also done to improve upon the skills, capabilities, knowledge of the workers. Importance of Manpower Planning

v.

1. Key to managerial functions- The four managerial functions, i.e., planning, organizing, directing and controlling are based upon the manpower. Human resources help in the implementation of all these managerial activities. Therefore, staffing becomes a key to all managerial functions. 2. Efficient utilization- Efficient management of personnels becomes an important function in the industrialization world of today. Seting of large scale enterprises require management of large scale manpower. It can be effectively done through staffing function. 3. Motivation- Staffing function not only includes putting right men on right job, but it also comprises of motivational programmes, i.e., incentive plans to be framed for further participation and employment of employees in a concern. Therefore, all types of incentive plans becomes an integral part of staffing function. 4. Better human relations- A concern can stabilize itself if human relations develop and are strong. Human relations become strong trough effective control, clear communication, effective supervision and leadership in a concern. Staffing function also looks after training and development of the work force which leads to co-operation and better human relations. 5. Higher productivity- Productivity level increases when resources are utilized in best possible manner. higher productivity is a result of minimum wastage of time, money, efforts and energies.This is possible through the staffing and it's related activities ( Performance appraisal, training and development, remuneration) Need of Manpower Planning

Manpower Planning is a two-phased process because manpower planning not only analyses the current human resources but also makes manpower forecasts and thereby draw employment programmes. Manpower Planning is advantageous to firm in following manner:
1. Shortages and surpluses can be identified so that quick action can be taken wherever required. 2. All the recruitment and selection programmes are based on manpower planning. 3. It also helps to reduce the labour cost as excess staff can be identified and thereby overstaffing can be avoided. 4. It also helps to identify the available talents in a concern and accordingly training programmes can be chalked out to develop those talents. 5. It helps in growth and diversification of business. Through manpower planning, human resources can be readily available and they can be utilized in best manner.

6. It helps the organization to realize the importance of manpower management which ultimately helps in the stability of a concern.