CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The efficiency and effectiveness of organizations depend, to a great extent, on effective human resource planning (Biswajeet 2010:34). Effective human resource planning is a process of analyzing an organization’s human resource needs under changing conditions and developing the activities necessary to satisfy these needs (Biswajeet 2010:34). With the speedy development of Japanese economy, countries all over the world discovered that the rapid growth of any economy did not lie in attaching single importance to material factors such as the production system. Hence, organizations are realizing that it is imperative to hire employees who can do the job and be successful at it. It behooves the organization to find these people, bring them into the organization and maintain their services. This requires HRP and implementation. It is unfortunate that many organizations had to suffer due to improper HRP. Today’s organizations can no longer just hire to hire or can no longer rest on the belief that individuals will stay with the organization through thick and thin (Decenzo & Robbins 1998:91). Conceptually, HR planning should be an integral part of business planning.
The strategic planning process should define projected changes in the scale and types of activities carried out by the organization. It should identify the core competencies the organization needs to achieve its goals and, therefore it skills requirements. In as far that there are articulated strategic business plans, HR planning interprets them in terms of people requirements. But it may influence the business strategy by drawing attention to ways in which people could be developed and deployed more effectively to further the achievement of business goals, as well as focusing on any problems that might have to be resolved in order to ensure that the people required will be available and will be capable of making the necessary contribution (Armstrong, 2001:358). HR planning is useful in identifying the knowledge and skills needed to successfully identify human resource requirements and attract and retain an effective workforce for an organization. Human Resources planners in organizations need an understanding of how recruitment and selection fits into the broader organizational structure, processes, and goals of an organization and how this function is related to the other functions of human resource planning. The planning process encompasses what should be done, how it should be done and when it should be done in determining organizational goals and the means of achieving those goals of the organization (Mohamed, 2014). Santos et al (2009), found that the purpose of HRP is to forecast organizational needs for its employees and taking into consideration the internal and external supply of labour to meet staffing needs by identifying the gap between what is needed and what is available. Nkechi (2013), argues that it is through strategic planning that top management is able to evaluate the milieu in which the organization operates. HRP is a cyclic process involving many interrelated activities that must be altered and updated as situations require.
HRP practices consist of strategies on employee flexibility, absence management, retention, recruitment, talent management and selections (Reilly, 2003). It is vital to adopt human resource planning to avoid contracting wrong employees because it could turn out to be costly in the long term. The process of HRP ensures that an employees in an organization have the essential skills and competencies a firm needs for it to prosper (Ghazala and Habib, 2012). The process ought to be carefully evaluated to avoid having scarce employees which could lead to use of overtime, recalling employees that had previously been laid o and promoting employees to higher levels to enable the gaps to be meet, whereas having numerous personnel can lead to attrition and hiring freeze, early retirements and layos just to mention a few. HRP is a process based on forecasting and drawing a relationship of current and future human resource requirements. In their study Samolejova et al (2015) found that human resource planning usually involves the recruitment strategies and motivation of employees, as well as the tools of control and management of absenteeism and turnover of employees, selection, training and retention.
Demand forecasting refers to the process of estimating the future statistics of labour required and the possible skills and competencies needed. Factors affecting demand forecasting include the following: – setting up a new regional organization, creating a new sales department, decentralizing a head office function to the regions, plans for new methods of working, additional outsourcing, increasing productivity and reducing employment costs. Supply forecasting estimates how many people are expected to be available from outside and within the organization. Factors influencing supply include:-existing number of people employed by occupation, skill and potential; potential losses to existing resources, through attrition (employee turnover); potential changes to existing resources, through internal promotions; changes to the organization structure, new methods of working, effect of increases in productivity; sources of supply from within the organization – existing employees and the outputs of talent management or training programs. (Armstrong, 2012). This research will focus on the key success factors for human resource planning (HRP) in the public organization.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Human resources management and planning is primarily a line activity, yet the line managers being operating managers are more concerned with materials and financial resources than with the human resources. Human resources are the key to success in any organization be it private or public. Yet many organizations too often, forget how important the people variable (organization’s most valuable asset) is to the success of an organization. Many organizations and managers have failed because they have taken their human resources for granted. Moreover, many of the ill-defined organizational problems tag ‘tough-to-solve’ human resource problems facing organizations could be resolve through effective human resource planning. Effective human resource planning in the areas of recruitment of employees, retention of staff, utilization of staff, improvement of staff performance and disengagement of staff is a necessity in today’s turbulent business world. In all, the major setback in human resource planning is the systematic analysis of human resources on a continuous basis, the researcher has therefore decided to investigate the key success factors for HRP in public organizations.
1.3 Objective of the Study
The main objective of this study is to find out the key factors for HRP in public organizations, specifically the study intends to; 1. Find out the challenges to effective human resource planning in the public sector 2. Find out the key success factors for HRP in public organizations 3. Analyze the impact of effective HRP on organization performance.
