Question

Identify the three key elements of the human resources planning model and discuss the relationships among them.

Answer 1

Answer:

The three key factors of Human Resource Planning Model are:

1. Forecasting Demand for Human Resources
2. Evaluating or analysing Supply of Employees
3. Finding a balance between projected Demand and Supply

Explanation:

Forecasting demand for human resources speaks to the ability or the process of the HR Department to predict how many staff will be needed for the organisation. It also answers the question "what kind of staff will be required?"

Demand for personnel is usually catalysed by internal and external factors.

Internal Factors could be:

• Starting up a new company
• Starting up a new business unit
• creating new product and initiatives
• ageing and retiring workforce
• an act of god requiring complete replacement of displaced persons

External factors to be considered are:

• economic situation (recession or expansion)
• demand for goods and services (this may trigger an internal occurrence such as the expansion of a business unit)

HR Supply Analysis

Analysing the supply of talent simply means evaluating the ability of the company to attract the required person for specific roles when the need arises.

It also has an Internal and External dimension to it.

Internal Dimension: This examines the current staff of the company for potential selection into key roles in the near term and or foreseeable future. This element triggers the succession planning strategy.

External Dimension: This requires the HR Department to evaluate the business environment in order to determine how the psychographics, demographics and other external factors such as government laws will affect the supply of labour. If for instance, the industry under consideration is Medicine, and the government does not have laws in place to ensure adequate compensation for medical personnel, it is possible that this will lead to brain drain to other countries where there is a greater value placed on such services. In this situation, the entrepreneur would have to consider a strategy that allows in to attract the best hand and retain them for the long haul.

Balancing the Forecasted Demand vs Supply of Labour

Ensuring that there is a continuous supply of persons to meet existing and or forecasted demand for labour is an art which requires a blend of various strategies.

The HR department would need to

• create an keep a tab on its employer brand

• institute a recruitment strategy that covers internal and external recruitment  
• ensure that there is a business continuity strategy - this ensures that the business regardless of how the supply of labour in the short or long term has all the required skill to continue its operations.

Other strategies to consider are retention, recruitment and reward strategies.

Cheers!