Chapter 2

Environmental Scanning

Tasnuva Rahman
Eastern University

HR Planning
HR Planning is concerned with the flow of
people into, through, and out of an
organization
HR Planning involves:
Anticipating/forecasting the need for labor
and the supply of labor, and then,
Planning the programs necessary to ensure
that the organization will have the right mix
of employees and skills when and where they
are needed.

Why Forecasting?

Forecasting is necessary to ensure

that appropriately qualified staff will
be available to implement an
organizations future plans
Human resource planning is
especially required when there is:

Tight labor market

Declining economy
HR is a major

Environmental ScanningA fuzzy term

A systematic monitoring of trends
Affect the formulation and
implementation of both
organizational and HR strategies.

Sources of Information:

Publications
Professional Associations
Conference and Seminars
Newspaper and Journals

Techniques for scanning

Trend Analysis
Delphi Technique

Trend Analysis:
Trend analysis means studying variation in your
firms employment levels over the last few years.
You might compute the number of employees in
your firm at the end of each of the last five years,
or perhaps the number in each subgroup (like
sales, production, secretarial, and administrative)
at the end of each of those years.
The purpose is to identify trends that might
continue into the future.
Trend analysis can provide an initial estimate, but
employment levels rarely depend just on the
passage of time.
Other factors like changes in sales volume and

Delphi Technique

Delp
hi

This forecasting technique was created in 1950.

This technique is a qualitative method for deciding on
specific detailed ideas of long- run HR demand.
The Delphi Method is based on a structured process for
collecting and distilling knowledge from a group of
experts by means of a series of questionnaires
interspersed with controlled opinion feedback.
A key aspect of this demand forecasting technique is
that the group of experts that are chose never meet face
to face.

Advantages of Delphi
As the experts do not meet face to face this avoids many of the
issues that may occur during face to face communication among
groups as some may feel reluctant to participate due to:
1) shyness
2) perceived lower status or authority
3) perceived communication deficiencies
4) issues of individual dominance
Therefore this technique can allow for each individual to
participate equally and allow for valid feedback from everyone.
This technique also uses expert from different geographical
regions allowing for various inputs.

Collect Information

External Environment
Economy
Technology
Competition
Labor Markets
Demographics
Politics and Govt.
Regulations
Globalization
Society and Culture

Inside
Organization
Strategy
Business
Plans
Current HR
Rates of
Turnover and
Mobility

General Economic Conditions, Job Growth, HR Movement Impacts

Stakeholders

HRP: Initial Decisions

Comprehensiveness of planning
Plan-based HRP
Special projects HRP
Population-based HRP

Planning time frame

Job categories and levels
Head count - current workforce
Roles and responsibilities

Thank you