It is very natural that, the continual positive development of any business owe to its effective planning. Making all the necessary preparations and appropriate arrangements proactively basing upon what is expected to happen in future and performing a series of tasks and activities accordingly in a systematic and organized way is one of the important functions of management, which necessitates an effective and proactive planning process. Proper planning and designing an effective organizational structure by assigning an assortment of responsibilities to the concerned employees may help the business organizations to accomplish their set of objectives. Putting the right person at the right place and at the right time is essentially much important to any business as it comprises of a wide and comprehensive range of activities in relation to “the management of man“. Manpower planning, not only focuses on the effective utilization of existing human elements but also concern in fulfilling future manpower need of the organizations at the time of need. Manpower planning is “the process of determining manpower needs and the means and ways to meet those needs in order to carry out the integrated organizational plan.” It is very much indispensable for any organization to perform the activities efficiently and to produce desired results.
It is an apparently well known fact that, the success of any business highly rest upon the competent people that a business organization posses. Manpower planning is considered as crucial functions of human resource management. It gives due importance to the human element than that of material elements and strive to manage and maintain the good will of a business. It endeavors to add to the organizational development and success of the business with due recognition of knowledge, skills, competence, experiences, expertise and talent of the employees. Effective recruitment and selection process follows an effective manpower planning process in fulfilling future manpower need as and when needed by the organisation. That necessitates manpower planning process and put lot of significance to it. At the same time, it contributes significantly to the achievement of organizational objectives by avoiding over-staffing and under-staffing. However, although the notion of Human Resource Planning is well established in the HRM vocabulary, in practice, it does not seem to be as key HR activity.
Need for manpower planning is continuously driven by many of the factors in the organizations. It is essential when labor turnover is to be determined. There are situations that compel to replace older employees, disabled personnel and people whose medical conditions cause disturbances to usual functioning of the organisation. While executing effectively, manpower planning process entails analyzing the requirements of present and future vacancies. These situations usually take place at the time of retirements, transfer of employees or they are upgraded due to promotion. Similarly, manpower planning is inevitable to deal with the situations that arise at the time, when employees avail their leaves or in case of their absences. In order to carry out the assigned task in a planned or intended way business organizations need personnel having necessary qualifications and experience which can be accomplished optimally through a effective manpower planning process. Manpower planning is of great importance in identifying the surplus and shortages of the employees. In case of surplus, the manpower may be redeployed from one area or activity to another in case of the former, whereas shortages demand providing required personnel.
Manpower demand forecasting, manpower supply forecasting and manpower audit are some of the important tasks concerning the process of manpower planning. Manpower demand involves estimating total manpower requirements and planning accordingly. Then, the next step in manpower planning process is manpower supply forecasting. It comprises of both internal supply forecasting and external supply forecasting. Internal supply forecasting works when the employees are transferred or promoted, while the need of external supply arises from the requirement of new workers when a business expands or there is change in technology or adopts new methods of production. In addition to that the process entails manpower audit. Manpower audit is carried out through “Skills inventory”. It provides detail information about each employee. The overall value of an employee in an organization is also determined through skills inventory. For the sustenance of the key workers, manpower audit analyses the factors that compels and propels the employees to leave the current jobs and move elsewhere. As a result of which necessary measures may be taken to curb the rate of turnover in the context maximum utilization of Human Resources.
Manpower planning is significant for the best interest of employees as well as for organization. While implementing appropriate selection procedures for the right candidates, Human resource planning undertakes proper recruitment methods and thereby preserves the individual talents of the employees. It focuses on assessing the requirement and the arrangement of training and development programs for the employees in order to equip them with the prerequisites of job. Manpower planning also focuses on the promotion procedures for competent people who can be entrusted with the challenges of advanced tasks. The inefficiencies of the employees are also identified by means of manpower planning process. So that necessary training may be provided leading towards improving employee morale. In this way the manpower planning process improves productivity and efficiency of the employees and their performance may be more effective and they can contribute optimally to the total organizational development. Above all, the success of any business revolves round the quantity and quality of human resources of that particular organisation.
Manpower Planning vs Human Resource Planning
Manpower planning or HR planning both can be used interchangeably. HR planning is more broad-based. Human Resources planning refer to planning conducted for all aspects of Human Resources. It takes care of training, employee safety, recruitment, manning levels, Performance Management and so on. But manpower planning basically tends to revolve predominantly around numbers. The number of people required to perform efficiently and productively in order to produce the best results with minimum cost is known as manpower planning. However, these concepts are always evolving and are variously called as manpower planning, personnel planning or employment planning and human resource planning.