Human resource planning determines the human resources required by the organization to achieve its strategic goals. Human resource planning is the process for ensuring that the human resource requirements of an organization are identified and plans are made for satisfying those requirements. In human resource planning people are the most important strategic resource for an organization. Whereas HR Planning generally concerned with matching resources to business needs in the longer term, although sometime address shorter-term requirements as well. HR Planning also looks at broader issues relating to the ways in which the people are employed and developed in order to improve organizational effectiveness. So HR Planning plays an important role in strategic human resource management.
Professionalism in HR planning
The first part of professionalism in HR Planning is understanding the customer, the customer requirements and providing customer satisfaction. HR is increasingly viewed as a service; a service both to employees and to the business. As such customer requirements need to be well understood. Delivering the right services to the customer at the right time, to the right quality and to the right cost must be the goal of HR.
In this global business environment, the customer demand on HR is changing rapidly. From the business point of view, HR needs to understand the changing resourcing requirement of the business, flexibility in headcount in response to business cycle, the core competencies the organisation is trying to create and the culture it is trying to establish. HR has to understand the needs of a mobile workforce supporting a global organisation, the knowledge-based workforce the organisation is trying to nurture, the frequent re-structuring due to increased mergers and acquisitions activity, integration of new staff and so on. From the employee point of view, HR need to be clearly understand the increasing needs for workplace flexibility, distance and e-working, improved work-life balance, accessibility of HR operations.
Some of the evolving requirements identified above can be enabled by technology. For example, technology underpins mobile/home working and facilitates the accessibility of HR operations at any time and from anywhere. It must be emphasized that technology alone cannot drive results, deliver customer satisfaction or deliver professionalism.
Professionalism requires that HR practice be fair, open and transparent. Today, there is a legal obligation for organisations to ensure equality in the areas of race, disability, age, sexuality, gender, religion and belief. HR practices must ensure that equal opportunity regulations are adhered to by all the levels of organisations. Policies and practices should cover recruitment, promotions, remuneration, working conditions, customer relations and the practices of contractors, suppliers and partners, procedure must be in place to ensure that managers do not stifle or limit the promotion prospects of particular groupings or minorities, or discriminate in the selection of new recruits. Professionalism in HR Planning requires the adoption of formalism in capturing customer requirements and selection criteria, and checking adherence against the agreed criteria. This applies to all aspects of HR practices including recruitment, selection, promotion and separation. Professionalism in HR Planning is also enhanced by engendering, within the organisation as a whole, a culture of equality and respect. One way is to promote this is to ensure workforce diversity training is provided to all levels of staff.