TAXILA BUSINESS SCHOOL

Changing role of Human

This project work is a part of assignment based on the Human Resource Planning Process and its
changing role in current scenario, conducted with the guidelines of professor Ashish Mathur, Taxila
Business School, Mansarovar, Jaipur
An Introduction to HRP
Human Resource Planning (HRP) is concerned with getting the right people with the right skills
in the right place at the right time. Planning the right man for right job and developing him into
effective team member is an important function of every manager. It is because HR is an
important corporate asset and performance of organization depends upon the way it is put in use.
HRP is a deliberate strategy for acquisition, improvement and preservation of enterprise’s human
resources. It is a managerial function aimed at coordinating the requirements, for and availability
of different types of employees. This involves ensuring that the organization has enough of right
kind of people at right time and also adjusting the requirements to the available supply.

In simple words, HRP is understood as the process of forecasting an organization’s future human
resource demand for, and supply to meet the objectives such as the right type of people in the
right number. After this process only the HRM department can initiate recruitment and selection
process. HRP is a sub-system in the total organizational planning. Organizational planning
includes managerial activities that set the company’s objectives for the future and determines
appropriate means for achieving those objectives. HRP facilitates the realization of the
company’s objectives for the future and determines appropriate means for achieving those
objectives. HRP also facilitates the realization of the company’s objectives by providing the right
type and the right number of personnel. HRP is variously called manpower planning, personnel
planning or employment planning. Human resource planning is the process by which an
organization ensures that it has the right number and kind of people, at the right place, at the
right time, capable of effectively and efficiently completing tasks that will help the
organization achieve its overall objective. Human resource planning, then translates the
organization’s objectives and plans into the number of workers needed to meet those objectives.
Without a clear cut planning, estimation of human resource need is reduced to mere guesswork.
Human Resource Planning in Changing Environment

When most people think of Human Resource Planning, the first thing that usually comes to mind
is the internal environment of the organization. There is, however; the external environment
which is just as important. The external environment consists of governmental policies, condition
of the economy, demographics, technology, international influences, competitors, and a changing
labor force. Neglecting the external environment can have devastating effects on an organization.
Entire civilizations have vanished for failing to address external environmental factors and the
need to adapt in an ever-changing environment. The question may arise that what the cultures
have to do with HR planning and the external environment? Well, the answer is everything. A
great example of this is Easter Island. Mismanaging their natural resources, the forests in this
case, left the island unable to sustain life. No one knows exactly what happened to the
inhabitants, but we do know why their culture became extinct. The same thing can happen to any
organization that neglects the external environment. 

 Environmental Scanning

The most important part of HR planning regarding the external environment is environmental
scanning, a means to study the environmental climate to identify opportunity or potential dangers
to an organization. As we move into the next century, the necessity to adapt, change, and update
will be more important than in the past. Being able to adapt while staying flexible are essential if
an organization is to be a successful in dealing and being able to predict changes in the
organizational landscape. In order to effectively predict changes, an organization has to identify
and address the changes as they are happening. Environmental scanning will assure that the
proper policies and guidelines are being followed correctly.

 Demand Forecasting

The steps to HR Planning start with forecasting the number and type of employees needed in the
future. This requires a good understanding of the internal and external environment of the
enterprise. The major aspects of the internal environment that affect HR Planning include short-
term and long-term organizational plans and strategies, and the status of the organization's
human resources. The major aspects of an enterprise’s external environment that impacts HR
planning include the general status of the economy, developments in technology, level of
competition, labor market trends and regulations, demographic trends and the like.
For instance, an organization planning to launch a new product would require additional
marketing staff, and an organization looking to open a new branch would require more office
staff. An organization looking to close down unprofitable branches might look to retrench
workers. Similarly, technological developments might prompt the organization to shift to
reliance on fewer numbers of technically skilled workers rather than depend on a large pool of
manual labor. Correct forecasting of human resource requirements contributes significantly to
the competitiveness of the enterprise. Organizations forecasting more workers than required
retain surplus or under-utilized staff, and organizations that fail to grasp the full extent of human
resources required find themselves overstretched and unable to seize opportunities. The two
major methods of forecasting are judgmental methods such as Delphi technique or managerial
estimates, and various mathematical models such as time series, personnel and productivity.

 Emergence of Click & Mortar Organizations (Virtual Organizations)

In today’s scenario, the structure of an organization is changing from physically existing brick
and mortar to the virtual structure which is called as click and mortar organization. So that, due
to changing technology and changing structure Human Resource Planning process has been
drastically changed. The human resource department should evaluate and restructure the
employees and provide proper training and development to them.

 Personnel Planning to Strategic Human Resources Planning

Human Resources planning once used to be termed as Personnel Planning. During that time the
concept of dealing and treating the employees were far different from today. It was a rigid and
more work oriented approach to human being. Employees were only some beings whose duty
was to perform the best, only because they were given the job and being paid for that.
More specifically, HRP is required to meet following objectives:

 Forecast HR requirement.
 Cope-up with the change — in market conditions, technologies, products, government
regulations and policies, etc.
 Use existing HR productivity.
 Promote employees in a systematic manner.

If used properly, it offers a number of benefits:

 Create reservoir of talent.

Today, human resource planning is viewed as the way management comes to grasp the ill-
defined and tough-to-solve human resource problems facing an organization. Human resource
planning as a process of determining the human resources required by the organization to
achieve its goals. Human resource planning also looks at broader issues relating to the ways in
which people are employed and developed in order to improve organizational effectiveness. HRP
is a decision making process that combines activities such as identifying and acquiring the right
number of people with the proper skills, motivating them to achieve high performance and
creating interactive links between business objectives are resource planning activities. HRP sets
out requirements in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Accurate manpower plan is a dream.
A common error of many managers is to focus on the organization’s short term replacement
needs. Any human resource plan, if it is to be effective, must be derived from the long term plans
and strategies of the organization.