Strategic Aspects of

Employee Resourcing &

Human Resource Planning
MSC Management
(HRM Pathway)

Dr Samantha Lynch
Session Outline
 Introduction
 Organising for Added Value
 Demographic Developments
 Diversity
 Skills & Qualifications
 Strategic Approaches to Employee Resourcing
 Cell Block HR Case Study
 Human Resource Planning (HRP)
 Responding to labour market trends
 Designing and Implementing HRP
 Case Study
Human Resource Strategy
 “the intentions of an organisation towards its employees,
expressed through philosophies, policies and practices.”
(Tyson 1995)
 “those decisions and actions which concern the
management of employees at all levels in the business
and which are directed towards creating and sustaining
competitive advantage” (Miller 1987:352)
 “the use of planning, a coherent approach to the managing
of people underpinned by a core ‘philosophy’ matching
HRM activities & policies to some explicit strategy, &
seeing people as a ‘strategic resource’ for achieving
‘competitive advantage’.” (Hendry & Pettigrew 1986)
Employee Resourcing &
Organisational Change
 Changes in organisational systems and structures
result in organisations making significant changes
to their key capabilities
 Changes in the external environment result in

organisations changing their demands for resources

 Commonly associated with a search for employees

with new attitudes, skills and experiences (or

competencies)
 The search for recruits can be internal or external
 The development of employees must reflect these

changes
Organising for Added Value
1. A central shared service centre

2. Business partners

3. Centres of expertise

ULRICH, D. (1997) Human resource champions: the

next agenda for adding value and delivering results.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press
Employee Resourcing & “Adding Value”:
What is the value?
 Delivering business objectives:
◦ Acting as a strategic partner
 Administrative excellence:
◦ Re-engineering organisation processes
 Acting as a champion for people management:
◦ Listening & responding to employees
 Change Agent:
◦ Managing transformation & change

Constraints:
 Labour Markets
 Regulation
 Employee Attitudes
 Poor line managers
 Trade unions
Or……

“People, intellectual
capital & talent are ever
more critical to
organisational success”
(Boudreau & Ramstad 2005:28)
Strategic Approaches to Employee
Resourcing
1. Aligning HR practices with Business Strategy:
◦ HR policies should have both and ‘external’ and
‘internal’ fit
◦ e.g. Miles and Snow; Porter/ Schuler & Jackson
2. Best practice approaches:
◦ “one best way”/ “best practice”/”high commitment
HRM”
◦ e.g. Pfeffer, Guest, MacDuffie, Huselid
3. Resource-based views:
◦ Using human resources as “strategic assets”
◦ e.g. Barney
Cell-Block HR Case Study
 What are the current people resourcing
problems currently facing HM Prison Service?

 What steps have been taken to solve them?

To what extent have these been successful?
 How is it anticipated that reorganising the
P&D function will contribute towards the
resolution of these people resourcing issues?
To what extent will the reorganisation help to
add greater value?

 Can you offer any other suggestions for

improving the current people resourcing
problems?
A Reactive Activity?
 “Angela’s leaving - quick, we must make sure
to get the ad in this month’s journal.”
 “It’s hopeless - they all leave as soon as

we’ve trained them. What’s the point?”

 “It’s not my fault - we just can’t get the staff.

No wonder quality is so poor.”

 “That’s it. The results are so bad we’ll have

to let some of them go. Tony, draw up a

shortlist of possibilities and we’ll try and get
it sorted this week.”
HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING: A
DEFINITION
“HRP is the process for identifying an
organisation’s current and future human
resource requirements, developing and
implementing plans to meet these
requirements and monitoring their overall
effectiveness.”
Beardwell & Claydon (2007) Human Resource
Management: A Contemporary Approach, FT
Prentice Hall, p. 159
Human resource planning
 more strategic
 less focused on numbers
 takes account of employee resourcing policies,
procedures & practices
 serves as the integrating link between strategic
decision planning & strategic HRM
 termed the ‘soft’ approach or a combination of
‘soft’ and ‘hard’ techniques
Designing & Implementing HRP
Four main components:
1. Investigation & analysis - internal & external
2. Forecasting to determine a HR imbalance or
‘people gap’
3. Planning, resourcing & retention activities
4. Utilisation & control through HR techniques,
policies & IT
THE PROCESS OF HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING

Analysis and Internal External Organisation

investigation Labour Mkt Labour Mkt Assessment
Corporate Strategy

Forecasting Supply Demand

HR Imbalance - quantitative & qualitative

Planning and
resourcing e.g. Work patterns
Organisational structure
Recruitment and selection
Equal opportunities
Pay & reward
Performance management
Retention

Implementation
Using PM/HR techniques
and control Developing policies & reviewing practice
Utilising technology
Investigation & Analysis:
Basic Tools

 The SWOT Analysis (Overall Analysis)

 PLEST + C Model (External Analysis)

 The 7 M’s (Internal Analysis)

 Human Resource Strategy

Forecasting: Demand & Supply
 Forecasting the potential DEMAND for labour
e.g.
number & status of jobs, location, types of
skills & people needed
 Forecasting the potential SUPPLY of labour

through:
recruitment, promotion, re-deployment,
development, disengagement

Samantha Lynch - HRP

Forecasting: Internal labour market
analysis
 corporate & HR strategy
 new job projections/ job reduction projections
 succession plans
 characteristics of current employees
 wastage analysis/ labour turnover/stability analysis
 cohort analysis
 internal promotion analysis
 managerial judgements
 working back from costs
 forecasting models
Forecasting: External labour supply
 International labour markets
 National labour markets
 Local labour markets e.g.
◦ general population density
◦ population movements in and out of the area
◦ age distribution
◦ social class
◦ unemployment rates
◦ school leavers
◦ proportion with higher education
◦ skill level
◦ transport patterns

Samantha Lynch - HRP

Responding to labour market trends
 starting point for all strategic activity is to
understand the environment within which
an organisation operates
 for employee resourcing this relates directly

to the labour market:

“the pool of available talent in which
employers compete to recruit and
subsequently retain staff.”
Labour market trends
 an increase in large companies
 a move from manufacturing to services
 a move from blue - collar (manual) to white -collar employment
 an increase in the global economy
 international recessions
 an ageing population
 female employment increasing; while male employment declines
 an increasingly diverse labour market
 increased employer demand for employee flexibility
 decentralised industrial relations
 declining trade union activity and industrial action a move
 towards de-regulated labour markets
 increased controls on public expenditure
Student Activity:
Discussion
Consider the impact that labour market trends
will have on organisation’s employee
resourcing policies and practices.
 Work in 3 groups you will be assigned a

labour market trend to consider

 Assess how organisations might design their

approaches to employee resourcing to

accommodate changes in the labour market
 Present a brief discussion to the rest of the

class
Demographic Developments:
Impact on Employee Resourcing
Diversity:
Impact on Employee Resourcing
Skills & Qualifications:
Impact on Employee Resourcing
The ‘people gap’: the gap between
demand & supply
Knowledge of the ‘people gap’ informs
employee resourcing decisions & shapes
planning & resourcing activities e.g.
 determine contractual arrangements for

employment
 for recruitment & selection
 for managing, training & rewarding

performance
 achieving employee release from the

organisation
Managing scarcity in the labour market

 organisations compete for scarce skills with

each other
 managers must know the types of labour

markets in which their organisations operate

 need to be sensitive to market changes likely

to affect labour markets

 need to anticipate opportunities and threats
 need to understand how government’s

intervene in markets to provide workers’ rights

Competing in a tight labour market

Recruitment Initiatives
Retention Initiatives
Reorganisations
Development Initiatives
Competing in the labour market

Employer Employer
of cash of choice

Employer Employer
of churn of values
The case for and against HRP
For:
 What is it used for ?
 How should the results be viewed?
 How can it be adapted?
 What features are particularly useful?

Against:
 What factors make HRP unreliable?
 Why don’t personnel like using HRP?
 Why are companies not interested in using

HRP?

Samantha Lynch - HRP

Adapting traditional HR planning
 Micro-planning
 Contingency Planning
 Succession Planning
 Skills Planning
 ‘Talent’ management
 Soft HRP
Current HRP challenges e.g. Off-
shoring overseas
 The pressure to offshore UK-based activities
overseas is growing
 A ‘hard’ HRM/ manpower planning approach to
offshoring can cause considerable problems BUT
cost reduction is cited as main driver for offshoring
 The introduction of offshoring is liable to have a
negative impact on Staff morale; Managerial control
more difficult; Job security; Language problems; Risk
of disruption to supply
 BUT less than 60% of organisations involved HR in
the strategic decision to offshore; just over half
involved HR in any manpower/HR planning activities
The Reality? Cummins case study
 HR is getting better at Business Analytics and
analysing the workforce/ employment markets
BUT………….
 “employee headcount - “it should be simple, but it
never is” (Global HR Manager)
 The elementary tools of succession planning is
continuous, but more sophisticated HRP associated
with Organisational Development has been cut as a
result of the recession:
◦ “the luxury stuff of HR has be to cut in a recession – the
looking 3-4 years ahead. But we know this will slow down
our growth once an upturn takes hold.”
The Reality? University of Kent
 In June lecturer informs department of
maternity leave to commence in January
 By the end of the term in December the

lecturer was unable to inform students of the

replacement lecturer covering her teaching
 Cover arranged in early January
 Replacement teaching cover commenced in

mid-January
HRP: Adding Value
 Does the presence of a long-term HR
planning function contribute to the
achievement of organisational objectives?
 What would have been the result in recent

years had no such function been present?

 Does the function justify its presence in cost

terms?
 How does our organisation’s performance

compare with that of competitors who have

either a (more or less) sophisticated HR
planning function, or no such function at all?
‘Games of Skill’ Case Study
1. What factors make the workforce planning activities
associated with the Olympic Games more complex
than would be the case with a more typical
commercial project involving the recruitment of
thousands of people?
2. In what ways are workforce planning activities
focused on a wider agenda than the Olympic Games
themselves, and why?
3. What skills required for the running of the Games do
managers believe are in short supply? What steps are
being taken ahead of time to resolve this situation?
4. What HRP tools can be used to support this process?
Summary
 to devise employee resourcing strategy awareness of
context is vital
 employee resourcing should be integral to human
resource strategies
 BUT is often reactive to organisational corporate strategy
 The primary aim of Human Resource Planning is to adjust
labour demand and supply within the firm.
 The accuracy Human Resource Planning depends upon
the firm’s ability to forecast the future – this is not an
easy task
 Firms might be able to use Human Resource Planning to
make their internal labour markets more flexible –
Numerical, Functional and Financial Flexibility
 But reality shows that HR is less likely to be involved in
the strategic planning process of decisions such as
offshoring
References
 Armstrong A. J. (1996) A Handbook of
Personnel Management, London, Kogan Page
 Boudreau J. & Ramstad P. (2005) ‘Talentship

ahoy’, Human Resource Planning, Vol. 28, No.

2: 17-28
 Willmott B. (2006) ‘Ocean drive’, People

Management, 26 January