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Muhammad Irfan Arshad

Roll No: AX846575
Professor Dr. Arshad Zaheer
LEVEL: MS (MANAGEMENT SCIENCES)
Date: 12
th
September 2014

STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (8704)
SEMESTER: SPRING 2014
ASSIGNMENT No. 2
(Units: 14)


ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD
(Department of Business Administration)
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Question 1: What is meant by investment in training and development?
Also explain the role of strategic training and development in success of an
organization with suitable examples.
Today, investing in Human Capital has become a key business decision which enables the
maximization of returns through sustained growth. By investing in their human resources,
companies want to make employees much more employable to actually deliver to their
clients, stakeholders, and the business and for you. Through this investment, substantial
support is provided to gain professional qualifications through a time and money budget
organizations manage personally to meet your specific needs and priorities. Some of these
investments are as follows:
Provisions for growth opportunities
A learning Environment
Training
Retraining
For years, companies have been functioning under the assumption that they are garnering
positive benefits from the training efforts. They recognize training as a given expense,
presenting human capital investments as expenses on their corporate balance sheets and not
as assets that are expected to produce income. However, because perception and casual
estimates have shaped the basis of lots of their training investment results, many companies
have small evidence to confirm that they are garnering positive returns on these investments.
Role of Strategic Training and Development for Success of Organization
In order to have the world-class human resources needed to pursue strategic objectives,
organizations must provide employees with skills and development they will need to be
employable in the future.
1. Creation of world-class workforce for competitive advantage
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It is evident that, for future strategies and competitive advantages, heavy investment in
training becomes necessity. For example auto workers in Japan receive more than three times
as much training each year as workers in American-owned assembly pants. They receive
months of trainings by their employers, 59% of German workforce has been trained through
apprenticeship programs. Hence Japanese companies are investing in human resources by
training their workers. Another example is that of Corning Inc by demonstrating that a
company can earn high returns by investing in human resources. Keeping in view the
competitors lower labour cost, corning decided to produce a world class work force. It sent its
new employees in different colleges for one year and invested in extensive technical and
interpersonal skill trainings. Training took up 25 percent of total working time during plants
first year; empowered workers take on duties previously performed by managers, only four
job classifications instead of the previous 47 reduced the retool time. As a result plant made
$2million profit against expected $2.3 million start up loss. Some other organization who
have invested heavily in training employees include A.O Smith, Boeing, Cummins, Ford,
General Electric, IBM, Kodak, Motorola, Polaroid, Proctor & Gamble and Xerox.
On-the-Job Training is another way in which an employer may invest in human capital
needed for strategic advantage where employees learn new procedure during work through
self instruction and employer may also absorb the cost of lower productivity through trail-
and-error processes.
2. Strategy shift in Management Development
Investment in management development is a critical strategic issue evolving and forecasted in
managerial environment. As organizations are becoming less hierarchical by elimination
middle management positions, more educated and better professionals expect to participate in
decision making process, task forces and project team are emerging. In these circumstances
power will be shared, managerial status will be deemphasised, leadership responsibilities will
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be rotated so the professionals may have more exposure to managerial responsibilities and
may develop related skills as a natural part of their work.
Job Rotation is another management development approach in which employees seek broad
view of organization by the involvement in challenging interdepartmental or cross-functional
assignments. Such exercise helps in generating generalists, avoiding over dependency on one
supervisor, creation of cross-fertilization of ideas and increased inter departmental
cooperation. Strategically job rotation develops a pool of high potential or fast-track
managerial personnel.
Other methods of management development include executive development programs, in-
house training programs, off-site management development programs, pilot tests, customised
cases. Due to causality of budget cuts during economic downturns, many organizations give a
low priority and view it as avoidable cost than an investment.
3. Prevention of Skill Obsolescence
Because of rapid change in technology, engineering and science, professionals and managers
run a risk of having their skills become obsolete. Because technological obsolescence can
limit an organizations strategic alternatives, prevention of skill obsolescence should be of
value to strategists. Strategists must provide challenge, responsibility, authority,
participation, and employee inter-action to the prevention of obsolescence. It is important to
prevent employees from becoming overspecialized.
An example of one companys intensive efforts to prevent obsolescence is provided by
Hewlett-Packard by the establishment of cooperative programs with universities. Other
companies in lower-technology industries also need to make investments in their current
employees.


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4. Reductions in Career Plateauing
Career plateaus occur when employees have occupied a job in an organization for some
period of time, have mastered all aspects of the job, and have low prospects for promotion.
Eliminating or reducing the incidence of plateaus is important because they have the potential
to create resentment and a sense of futility. As a result, there may be reductions in
productivity. Plateaus are a natural consequence of a lack of organizational growth or change,
pyramidal shape of organizations and organizational inflexibility. Besides investment in
developmental programs, alternative future strategic scenarios must be considered in the
planning of developmental assignments in order to have promotable managers. Plateaus also
may be avoided by more deliberate identification of stars (outstanding performers with high
potential) and solid citizens (satisfactory or outstanding performers with less potential).

Question 2: Discuss in detail, why it is necessary for managers to have awareness of
human resource environment?
Human resource environment is currently more turbulent than in any other period since
World War II. During the last 10 years of the twentieth century with continuation to 21
st

century, many political, economic and technological developments had massive impacts on
human resources. During such times of rapid change, the difficult processes of formulating
viable competitive strategies and planning for their implementation become even more
difficult as well as more important. Only those organizations will retain competitive
advantage that have the ability to scan the environment; develop strategies accordingly, and
plan alternatives for dealing with changing conditions. The framework of environmental
scanning includes technology and organizational structure, worker values and attitudinal
trends, managerial trends, demographic trends, trends in the utilization of human resources,
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and inter-national developments. A successful HR must have awareness of these entire
rapidly changing human resources environment.
TECHNOLOGY AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Due to rapid change in information technology, companies are now investing heavily in
Enterprise software systems to integrated major business areas including human resources as
well. Human resource departments and the activities they perform have been affected
dramatically by these enterprise software systems like Oracle, SAP, and PeopleSoft and
human resource information system (HRIS). HR executives can now include more and quick
information when making strategic or operational decisions and allow firms to automate
human resource processes of a transactional nature.
Human resource strategists will need to consider these changes work, and managers who can
be effective in such environments require more educational requirements and new skills. Due
to shorter product development cycles, training programs and developmental assignments
must be planned to ensure the availability of highly trained specialists.
New organization structures are emerging as a result of advances in information technology
that are characterized by flexibility, flatness and adaptive one. Because of growing blurred
distinctions between management and labor, empowerment, joint accountability, task forces,
project oriented groups: the structure of many of todays organizations is poorly suited for the
future. Most companies cannot take for granted the emergence of managers with the skills to
operate in such environments. As a result, their numbers and skill requirements must be
anticipated and developmental experiences planned. There are four new structural forms of
interest: (1) unbundled corporations, (2) network organizations, (3) cellular organizations,
and (4) respondent organizations.


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WORKER VALUES AND ATTITUDINAL TRENDS
It is a long-standing tradition that younger generation is less loyal and work-oriented with
less concerned to compensation rather they their emphasis lies on extrinsic values. They want
interesting work, to participate in decisions affecting them, autonomy, and opportunities to
grow. They are also active participants of unions for their rights.
The values of older workers also may be important to strategic management. During
downsizing, old employees are specially targeted, and suffer from job dissatisfaction and skill
obsolescence. They tend to be more loyal and more concerned about compensation and fringe
benefits. In planning for the environmental challenges of the future, strategic managers may
need to develop approaches to prevent the decline of job satisfaction of older workers.
MANAGEMENT TRENDS
Several managerial trends are having an impact on human resources environment. For
example workforce diversity, heterogeneity gender and racially diverse markets demand for
Effective Management of Diversity. Similarly Work Teams and Virtual Teams have been of
increasing interest to managers in a number of leading companies. The trend toward
outsourcing has been extremely widespread that is used for political purpose i.e to help
reduce bureaucracy and to have specialized edge of workforce. Moreover open-book
management, Total Quality Management, integrated manufacturing; reengineering,
management of professionals and management in aftermaths of mergers and acquisitions are
also affecting the Human Resource environment and put the strategic managers in trouble to
make decisions accordingly.
Demographic Trends
Massive changes in demography have important implications for human resource
management. Major changes include an aging workforce, the baby boom age glut, the baby
bust labor shortage, increased racial diversity, and greater feminization of the workforce.
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These developments, particularly the variations in growth across different age cohorts, will
have major implications for the career potential of individual workers. Planning will be
necessary to avoid age bulges, age gaps, and surpluses in job categories or job families.
TRENDS IN THE UTILIZATION OF HUMAN RESOURCES
The Internet, e-mail, fax machines, cable modems, digital subscriber lines, personal
computers, other forms of telecommunications, and express mail make up a set of forces that
have allowed many workers to work off-site by telecommuting. The implications of
telecommuting and the migration of information workers to rural areas and small towns for
cost-ofliving and quality-of-life reasons should be of great concern. Some also have been
able to relocate geographically while continuing to perform the same work for their
employers via telecommunications technology. Growing use of temporary or contingent
employees and employees leasing is also emerging as a new human resource environment.
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
The increased internationalization of business and global sourcing of labor along with the
implications of NAFTA and the EC are also likely to affect human resources in the twenty-
first century. The legal restrictions involved in these actions may be critical and require
human resource management specialists who have developed expertise in working through
the legalities for such moves. Similarly organizations also will need to help develop managers
and key professionals who can work effectively in the cultures of the other countries.
After scanning the environment for opportunities and threats and the introspective process of
evaluating strengths and weaknesses, the organization is ready for strategy formulation.



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Question 3: Explain strategic impact of legal environment on the human resource
management practices of an organization?
There is a plethora federal, state, and local laws and regulations related to workers' equal
opportunity, affirmative action sexual harassment compensation, unemployment
compensation, wages, health and safety in workplace, whistleblower's protection, retirement,
employee benefits, right of privacy, and protection against unjust dismissal. These sensitive
areas impact all human resource practices.
Obviously, the legal environment is a major consideration for strategic manager. In the
future, strategic managers may need to become more proactive in the design of legislation so
that the laudable social goals can be obtained simultaneously with organizational growth and
efficiency. Without managerial flexibility, some assurance of what the rules of the game
are, and predictable means of determining when the employer is in compliance with
legislations, now companies are not likely to be as productive and efficient as they should be.
Conversely, with higher level of productivity and efficiency, companies are likely to produce
larger economic pie to share with all employees. Given strong economic performance, they
should have less difficulty in providing equal employment opportunities. In the absence of
these efficiencies and economic growth, companies will be faced with the difficult situation
of allocating or rationing employment opportunities to a smaller set of individuals.
HR managers and persons intending to be HR managers should realize that the practice of
human resources is a litigious minefield with more "mines" being planted in the form of new
laws or regulations and the judicial acceptance of new legal theories of unfair or injurious
employment practice.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Substantial economic inefficiency is associated with equal employment opportunity
legislation. Individuals covered under Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws are
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protected from illegal discrimination, which occurs when people who share a certain
characteristic, such as race, age, or gender, are discriminated against because of that
characteristic. People who have the designated characteristics are called the protected class.
Federal laws have identified the following characteristics for protection:
Race, ethnic origin, color (for example, African American, Hispanic, Native
American, Asian)
Gender (women, including those who are pregnant)
Age (individuals over 40)
Individuals with disabilities (physical and mental)
Military experience (Vietnamera veterans)
Religion (special beliefs and practices)
The main purpose of the EEO laws is to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity of
getting a job or being promoted at work.
Affirmative action
While EEO laws aim to ensure equal treatment at work, affirmative action requires the
employer to make an extra effort to hire and promote people who belong to a protected
group. Affirmative action includes taking specific actions designed to eliminate the present
effects of past discriminations.
Pakistans labour laws trace their origination to legislation inherited from India at the time of
partition of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. The laws have evolved through a continuous process
of trial to meet the socio-economic conditions, state of industrial development, population
and labour force explosion, growth of trade unions, level of literacy, Governments
commitment to development and social welfare. To meet the above named objectives, the
government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has introduced a number of labour policies,
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since its independence to mirror the shifts in governance from martial law to democratic
governance.
The Constitution of Pakistan contains a range of provisions with regards to labour rights
found in Part II: Fundamental Rights and Principles of Policy. Under the Constitution labour
is regarded as a concurrent subject, which means that it is the responsibility of both the
Federal and Provincial Governments. However, for the sake of uniformity, laws are enacted
by the Federal Government, stipulating that Provincial Governments may make rules and
regulations of their own according to the conditions prevailing in or for the specific
requirements of the Provinces. The total labour force of Pakistan is comprised of
approximately 37.15 million people, with 47% within the agriculture sector, 10.50% in the
manufacturing & mining sector and remaining 42.50% in various other professions.
Industrial and Commercial Employment (Standing Orders) Ordinance was enacted in
1968 to address the relationship between employer and employee and the contract of
employment.
The Factories Act, 1934 addresses issues related to working time & Rest Time, Health and
Safety, Holidays with pay, Special provisions for adolescence and children, Child labor, leave
entitlements,
Article 38 of the Constitution imparts the States obligations aimed at achieving equality in
the form of securing the well-being of the people, irrespective of sex, caste, creed or race, by
raising their standard of living,
The Payment of Wages Act, 1936, regulates the payment of wages to certain classes of
industrial workers.
The Maternity Benefit Ordinance, 1958 makes reference to maternity benefits for women
in employment.
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Industrial Relations Ordinance, 2002 (IRO 2002), aims to consolidate and rationalise the
Law relating to formation of Trade Unions and improvement of relations between employers
and workmen
Sexual harassment
Few workplace topics have received more attention in recent years than that of sexual
harassment. Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Bill, 2010, aimed at
providing a safe working environment. The law defines harassment as any unwelcome
sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other verbal and written communication or
physical conduct of a sexual nature or sexually demeaning attitudes, causing interference
with the work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work
environment, or the attempt to punish the complainant for refusal to comply to such a request
or is made condition for employment.
We, now, can easily understand that legal environment has a direct impact on the strategies of
the company, which has imposed limits on HRM practice. Thus a company can neither frame
nor practice to implement any policy beyond the limits specified by the legal frame work.
The bottom line, as we understand, is that the legal framework is to create and maintain
industrial peace, which in turn will strengthen the companys plans and policies in order to
surely achieve the ultimate goals of the organization.

Question 4: How human resources and human resource management can play major
roles in organizations overall strategy?
IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN RESOURCES TO STRATEGY
Not surprisingly, human resource management is becoming integrated into the strategy
formulation and planning process. As human resource management becomes a more
important component of a companys competitive strategy, general management has an
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incentive to ensure alignment and consistency between strategy and human resource practices
and policies.
In a growing number of organizations, human resources are now viewed as a source of
competitive advantage. There is greater recognition that distinctive competencies are
obtained through highly developed employee skills, distinctive organizational cultures,
management processes, and systems. Increasingly, it is being recognized that competitive
advantage can be obtained with a high-quality workforce, which enables organizations to
compete on the basis of market responsiveness, product and service quality, differentiated
products, and technological innovation, instead of reliance on low costs.
Besides competitive advantage, the necessity of controlling labor costs also has elevated the
role of human resource management. As a result of intense pressure to control costs, general
managers have gained a greater awareness of the impact of inefficient use of human
resources. Interestingly, resources allocated toward better utilization of human resources may
prove to be more cost efficient than investments in plant and equipment. Because of potential
cost efficiencies, improved human resource management can play a key role in the
organizations competitive strategy and in the development of distinctive competencies.
Economic turbulence also has increased the importance of the strategic role of human
resource management. Turbulence, globalization, technology, dramatically changing
demographics, and differences in workforce values have created almost unprecedented
environmental uncertainty. Strategic human resource management and the subprocess of
human resource planning are increasingly being seen as means of buffering environmental
uncertainty.
Human resources can make contributions to strategy formulation in a number of ways.
Systems such as performance appraisal, staffing, training, and compensation enable managers
to implement the organizations strategic plan. Human resource planning also links strategic
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management and business planning with these systems. Most models of strategic human
resource management view the function as having an implementation role, and it has been
less common to find companies using unique human resource capabilities as a primary input
in strategy formulation.
Nonetheless, more companies are drawing on human resource management in the strategy
formulation process. Situations in which human resource capabilities serve as a driving force
in strategy formulation occur where there are unique capabilities.
Additionally, recognition of the human resource cost implications of strategies can be
brought into the strategy formulation process when human resource management plays an
important role. This has not typically been the case in the past, until such costs have become
extreme. To be sure, goal displacement or losing track of the objective is an outcome to be
avoided when human resource capabilities are a primary driver in strategy formulation.
However, such dysfunctional side effects can be avoided with periodic reviews of the
process.
Environmental Scanning and Competitive Intelligence
Human resource management has a role in environmental scanning, just like the finance and
marketing functions. Scanning activities are particularly important in periods of rapidly
changing technology and dynamic market environments. Typically, such scanning efforts
focus on trends three to five years into the future and cover developments in demographics,
technology, social issues, economics, and the regulatory environment. An example of trends
of interest to human resource scanners might be the reactions of competitors to greater access
to Mexican labor markets resulting from NAFTA and whether Japanese auto manufacturers
can find a way to assemble cars in Mexico and ship them duty-free into the United States.
Another example would be the Battelle Memorial Institutes development of inexpensive
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biodegradable plastics. Biodegradable plastics have cost as much as $250 per pound, while
Battelles new plastics range from $1 to $2 per pound.
One interesting way in which the human resource management function can make additional
contributions is in the area of competitive intelligence as the function can be an important
source of such information. For example, because human resource managers receive rsums
from employees at competing firms within the industry, they know who is moving.
They also know the skills and types of individual head-hunters and competitors are recruiting.
The types of individuals applying for jobs and trends in their applications can provide
information that will help identify the direction being pursued by a competitor. More
specifically, human resources can provide the following corporate intelligence: From public
information and legitimate recruiting and interview activities, you ought to be able to
construct organization charts, staffing levels and group missions for the various
organizational components of each of your major competitors.
Your knowledge of how brands are sorted among sales divisions and who reports to whom,
can give important clues as to a competitors strategic priorities. You may even know the
track record and characteristic behavior of the executives.
Regardless of the form of linkage between human resources and the strategic planning
process, human resource managers must predict the type of people that will be needed to
support the strategy.
Implementation of Resource Reallocation Decisions
A major role of human resource management is to assess the feasibility of implementing a
strategy and to provide such input in the strategy formulation process. Because the essence of
strategy is to concentrate resources so that the organization can gain advantage over its
competitors, this means that some units, divisions, or product lines must be denied resources.
As a result of the denial of resources, human resource management must prevent the
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demoralization of those not receiving resources. Often, areas not receiving resources are still
critical, at least in the short run, to the success and prosperity of the company. For example,
those business areas in which there are opportunities and in which the company has strengths
(the star areas) will be provided more resources. These resources would come from areas in
which industry opportunities are expected to decline in the future, but in which the company
now has strength and is making money (cash cows). Resources also would come from those
areas characterized by both unattractive industry opportunities and low company strength
(dogs). As resources are taken away from the cash cows and dogs, the manner in which
employees from these areas are treated is critical to successful implementation of the strategy.
For example, will those in areas facing eventual elimination be allowed to transfer out to the
star areas? How will retrenchment or downsizing be handled? Lead Time for Dealing with
Labor Shortages and Surpluses
Another potential contribution of human resource management comes from the lead time
produced by human resource planning. The greater lead time provides alternatives for dealing
with shortages or surpluses of labor. Additionally, if the organization has included the use of
temporary and contingent employees in its staffing strategy, such employees provide a
mechanism for strategic manoeuvring, because this type of labor can sometimes be
considered as a variable cost. As a result, employers have more degrees of freedom and
flexibility to exercise options. Unfortunately, human resource management does not yet have
a strategic role in many organizations and, as a result, adequate lead time is not provided in
many companies. A survey of the human resource managers of Midwestern manufacturing
companies, facing financial problems or threats from intense competition, revealed that 94
percent of them had fewer than 60 days to plan down-sizing. As a result, other alternatives
were seldom considered in these companies.

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Question 5: Discuss the concept of Strategic Human Resource Planning in relation to
the organizations working in Pakistan?
Conventionally organizations used to conduct human resource or workforce planning after
strategy formulation as a means of implementation. But today, where human resource
planning is fully integrated with strategy and has a reciprocal relationship, it provides input in
the formulation process. In such an evolving role, human resource planning may identify
competitive advantages of the organizations human resources or it may be used to assess the
feasibility of various strategic alternatives, in terms of human resource capabilities.
With the recognition of human resources as a source of competitive advantage, human
resource planning will have a larger strategic role in the future. Organizations are concerned
about having an adequate supply of successors for their top-level positions who will have the
experiences and skills needed to provide leadership in this century. Along with increasing
strategic importance, there also has been a trend toward decentralization of the
responsibilities for human resource planning to line mangers.
Aside from the benefits of such planning, the problems that organizations incur when they
fail to plan, include having shortages or surpluses of employees with various skills and
experiences, as well as higher operating costs, which result from failures to include staffing
projections in strategic plans.
A number of managerial issues related to planning included the importance of human
resource planning to individual managers, the changing receptivity toward human resource
planning, and the paradox of the value of planning.
Forecasting techniques also have greater importance, beginning with the factors that
determine the utilization of different techniques. These factors include the purpose of
planning; organizational characteristics such as size and complexity; industry characteristics;
the level of environmental turbulence; and other considerations such as data availability,
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forecasting horizon, the users mathematical sophistication, and accuracy requirements. The
issue of supply forecasting techniques included replacement charts, succession planning,
Markov analysis, renewal models, and computer simulation. Trends in the utilization of the
various supply forecasting techniques should also be considered. Techniques for forecasting
the demand for human resources include the general category of heuristics, rules of thumb,
the Delphi technique, operations research and management science techniques, and
regression analysis. Differences in the utilization of these techniques play an important role in
the human resource planning.
Human resource planning encompasses the following steps:
1. Interfacing with strategic planning and scanning the environment.
2. Taking an inventory of the companys current human resources.
3. Forecasting the demand for human resources.
4. Forecasting the supply of human resources both from within the organization and in
the external labor market.
5. Comparing forecasts of demand and supply.
6. Planning the actions needed to deal with anticipated shortages or overages.
7. Feeding back such information into the strategic planning process.
Telenor Pakistan has got outstanding tactical capabilities in terms of Resource-based, self-
motivated competence and is doing well in developing the strategic capabilities. With one of
the best HR structure in Pakistan that gives it an edge over its competitors. HR strategy refers
to the specific human resource management course of actions that a company follows to
achieve its objectives.
In Telenor Pakistan the HR process is done in accordance with its mission. The first step that
HR planners do is rife the culture of Telenor. The do the SWOT analysis of the company and
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the current market and then on basis of SWOT the Telenor strategic plan is established. With
the overall companys strategic plan HR strategies are formulated at the end.
By acquiring right talent, Telenor Pakistan aims to manage and develope them in the
organization using due processes including succession planning, in mutual collaboration with
the line managers and coach to embed and practice good management in line with the
Telenor Way (Telenor Values and Leadership Expectations), and lead by example. Telenor
let them to be an active team member and establish strong relationships with all
internal/external stakeholders including the extended HR family. Organization also allow
them to participate in unit/functional budget planning discussions, translating the business
plans into HR strategic and operational plans for their business unit or function; monitor
compliance and initiative corrective measures in case of deviations.
Human Resource Management Planning at Barclays Pakistan
The most important thing for HR management is to understand the needs, demand and nature
of business requirement, in this way he will be able to employ those who will deliver the
required performance. The manager have to take keen interest for spotting the talent, this is
called right man for the right job and ensures that the workforce is competent enough the
meet the targets. Future workload must be calculated before hiring new employees, and from
this way you HR can design an accurate job profile and job expectations. At Barclays well
experienced HR manager are hired and motivate his prospective employees to perform to
their potential.
Steps involved in the Human Resource Planning Process are as under:
Designing the Management System
It must be ensured that a proper system is in place to handle the process. The objective of this
system is to manage human resources in line with organizational goals and matching the
organization goals with human resource. Human resource plans, policies, procedures and best
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practices are comes under this system. Through this system to can understand human
resource management trends, such as outsourcing, flexible work hours and increased use of
modern technology can be implemented according to the desired outcomes.
Environmental Analysis
The first step in the human resource planning process is to recognize the background of
human resource management. External and internal environment should be understood by the
human resource manager. For external environments data should be collected and includes
the following the status of the economy, industry, technology and competition; labor market
trends, rate of unemployment, availability of skilled workforce etc and for internal
environment data needed includes organization plans both short term and long term,
strategies and the current status of the organization's human resources
Forecasting Human Resource Demand
This is a kind of future forecasting in which future need of employees and their types is
determined. To analyze and estimate future human resource needs Bottom-up forecasting
method is used gather human resource needs of various organizational units.
Analyzing Supply
Hiring of employees can be done through external and internal sources. To keep track of
internal supply a method of skill inventories is used, this is a computerized system that keeps
records of employee experience, skills and education.
Reconciliation and Planning
The final step in human resource planning is developing action plans based on the gathered
data, information, analysis and alternatives that are available. The acceptation of plan is the
key issue for top management and employees and barriers to success of plan should be
identified to the key players. Many of these plans include training and management
development plan, appraisal plan, employee utilization plan and human resource supply plan.