Strategic HR Planning

HR Planning: Why It Is Essential for Your Organization’s Success

By Stacey Carroll

You know your company has goals for next quarter, next year and the years to come. From higher profits to more product reach, have you aligned your HR planning with your organization’s goals? How can you help ensure that your company has the employees it needs to succeed now and in the future?

What is HR Planning?

Is your HR planning aligned with your organization's goals? View PayScale's webinar HR Planning: HR's Role in Strategic Workforce Planning for 2009 and Beyond to make sure you're planning and preparing for the most successful future possible.

Human resource planning is the process of analyzing and identifying the needs for and availability of human resources so that the organization can reach its objectives. Both employee retention and attracting new talent make HR planning a core competency to creating your organization’s successful future. By linking HR planning to your company’s strategic goals, you and your HR team ensure your organization’s competitive advantage.

What Are the Purposes of Human Resource Planning?

In order to create a successful HR plan, you first need to ask, “What are the purposes of human resource planning?” There are four tasks that a HR plan will accomplish:

1. Identify the HR needs of the organization based on strategic goals (forecasting demand).
2. Help you understand the talent that you already have and become familiar with the talent you need (forecasting workforce supply).
3. Make sure you’re up-to-date on your labor market, e.g. the talent that is available to you now and in the future (forecasting workforce supply).
4. Help you create or modify HR policies, procedures and practices to align the demand and supply of HR talent in the organization.

Strategic HR Planning Today

In these times of great economic turbulence, the importance of human resource planning is more apparent than ever. A short-sighted lay-off, intended to temporarily reduce overhead, can result in much heavier long-term costs. You may one day regret letting people go when you’re spending time and money to hire and train new staff. Plus, you lose profits when you lose experienced, knowledgeable employees.

In contrast, a smart human resources plan encourages your organization to keep a longer view of things and retain talent so that, once this economic upheaval has calmed down, you’ll have a committed team in tact.

Looking to the Future

There are six key components to successful HR planning that we will cover in greater detail in future posts:

1. Know the company/organization’s strategic plan.
2. Do an external scan.
3. Assess the internal workforce.
4. Forecast workforce demand.
5. Forecast workforce supply.
6. Develop programs, policies and practices to align workforce supply and demand.

For now, remember the importance of human resource planning in our current scenario of widespread downsizing and layoffs. Think long-term when it comes to HR planning. Support and retain your best talent. And, that way, you’ll help your organization prepare for long-term success by aligning the mission of the organization with the talent that you have and the talent that you will need in the future.

Find more HR articles and resources by following the links below.

• Why is HR Important? Find out why strategic hr planning is crucial to a companies survival.
• See a free PayScale Compensation Report 
• View a Compensation Product Tutorial
• Have a question or suggestion for Compensation Today? Write to us at comptoday@payscale.com.

Comments

[akesh]

Planning is not as easy as one might think because it requires a concerted effort to come out with a programme that would easy your work. Commencing is complicated, but once you start and finish it you have a smile because everything moves smoothly.

Planning is a process that have to be commenced form somewhere and completed for a purpose. It involves gathering information that would enable managers and supervisors make sound decisions. The information obtained is also utilized to make better actions for achieving the objectives of the Organization. There are many factors that you have to look into when deciding for an HR Planning programme.

HR Planning involves gathering of information, making objectives, and making decisions to enable the organization achieve its objectives. Surprisingly, this aspect of HR is one of the most neglected in the HR field. When HR Planning is applied properly in the field of HR Management, it would assist to address the following questions:

1. How many staff does the Organization have?
2. What type of employees as far as skills and abilities does the Company have?
3. How should the Organization best utilize the available resources?
4. How can the Company keep its employees?

HR planning makes the organization move and succeed in the 21st Century that we are in. Human Resources Practitioners who prepare the HR Planning programme would assist the Organization to manage its staff strategically. The programme assist to direct the actions of HR department.

The programme does not assist the Organization only, but it will also facilitate the career planning of the employees and assist them to achieve the objectives as well. This augment motivation and the Organization would become a good place to work. HR Planning forms an important part of Management information system.

HR have an enormous task keeping pace with the all the changes and ensuring that the right people are available to the Organization at the right time. It is changes to the composition of the workforce that force managers to pay attention to HR planning. The changes in composition of workforce not only influence the appointment of staff, but also the methods of selection, training, compensation and motivation. It becomes very critical when Organizations merge, plants are relocated, and activities are scaled down due to financial problems.

Inadequacy of HR Planning

Poor HR Planning and lack of it in the Organization may result in huge costs and financial looses. It may result in staff posts taking long to be filled. This augment costs and hampers effective work performance because employees are requested to work unnecessary overtime and may not put more effort due to fatigue. If given more work this may stretch them beyond their limit and may cause unnecessary disruptions to the production of the Organization. Employees are put on a disadvantage because their live programmes are disrupted and they are not given the chance to plan for their career development.

The most important reason why HR Planning should be managed and implemented is the costs involved. Because costs forms an important part of the Organizations budget, workforce Planning enable the Organization to provide HR provision costs. When there is staff shortage, the organization should not just appoint discriminately, because of the costs implications of the other options, such as training and transferring of staff, have to be considered.

[dave]

My thoughts regarding planning has modified a bit after reading this post.

[Compensation Today]

Hi Anju,

Thanks for your question. You might check out our recent article: Why is HR Important? I think you'll find it helpful in answering your questions. If you have more questions, please feel free to email us at comptoday@payscale.com.

[ANJU JHAUMAL]

i would like to know why human resource planning is important in an organization, and how does it help an organization