Study Unit 4 : Workforce Planning
Def: The process of planning to ensure
that the right people are in the right
role at the right time in an
organisation
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Objectives:
Pages in the textbook: Page 214 – 222
Page 162 - 232
1.Explain how workforce planning forms part of
strategic planning.
2.Examine the internal and external factors that
influence workforce planning.
3.Carry out the steps in the workforce planning
process.
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1.
Explain how workforce planning forms
part of strategic planning.
• See page p216 – 8.2 Workforce planning is a
systematic, fully integrated organisational
process
• See Figure 8.1 where the strategic HR planning
and strategic organisational planning model is
discussed.
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Workforce planning forms part of
strategic planning (cont)
• Workforce planning is based on a forecast of
future talent needs and an analysis of the
current supply of talent.
• The process of workforce planning and
recruitment should be closely linked to the
business cycle.
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Strategic HR Planning and Strategic
Organisational planning model (p216)
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Workforce planning (p217 - 8.2.1 )
• Workforce planning is a HR activity and critical
for an organisation’s success, but should be
aligned with objectives and external
influences
• See Figure 8.2 where the external influences
on workforce planning are outlined.
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External influences on workforce
(Fig 8.2 – page 217)
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The impact of good workforce
planning (p218 – 8.2.2)
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Good workforce planning
eliminates surprises
smoothes out business cycles
Identifies problems early on
prevents problems early on
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Good workforce planning (cont)
takes advantages of opportunities
improves the image of the HR department
• See Figure 8.3 where an integrative model for
successful labour recruiting to achieve goals is
presented.
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2.
Examine the internal and external factors
that influence workforce planning. (p218)
Key areas of workforce planning (8.3)
Workforce planning systems categorised into three
areas:
 The talent and demand forecast covers:
-
Talent forecast predicts demand and supply of
talent
Forecast process covers four different areas
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Key areas of workforce planning(cont)
 Trend projection and talent action plans covers sourcing,
identifying supply, etc.
-
Talent action plans comprise
three general activities:
*
*
*
Sourcing and recruiting an adequate supply
of leaders and key talent
Identifying + grooming internal development +
the supply of qualified leaders and key talent
Forecasting the gap between talent needs
+ its availability.
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Key areas of workforce planning(cont
 Integration plan covers:
-
All action plans to meet labour needs of an
organisation
-
See Figure 8.3 for an integrative model
-
First activity in process is forecasting labour
demand.
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3. Carry out the steps in the
workforce planning process.(p219)
• Firms that do not conduct workforce planning
may not be able to meet their future labour
needs (a labour shortage) or may have to resort
to layoffs (in the case of a labour surplus).
• Cascio and Aguinis (2005) state that HR and
management must devise an inventory of
available knowledge, skills, abilities, and
experiences of present employees in the
organisation.
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Forecasting techniques are categorised as
quantitative and qualitative (p220 - 8.4.1)
– Quantitative methods have two main limitations:
(1)
Rely heavily on past data,
(2)
created between 1950 and early 1970s,
when large organisations had stable
environments and workforces
– Qualitative techniques rely on experts’ qualitative
judgments of labour demand or supply
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Forecasting techniques (cont)
–Subjective methods may be less
accurate than those obtained through
quantitative techniques
–In Table 8.1 quantitative + qualitative
techniques of labour forecasting are
presented.
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Estimating labour supply (8.4.2)
• Estimating availability of workers with required
skills to meet future labour needs
• Labour supply comes from existing employees or
people outside the organisation
• Skills inventories and MIS include:
- Personal or bibliographical data
- Language skills
- T & D programmes attended.
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Implementation of the workforce
plan entails (8.4.3)
• The results of the labour demand forecast and
labour supply enables a plan of action to be
established
• How the workforce plan is implemented
depends on whether labour demand exceeds
labour supply and vice versa
• In Table 8.2 the ways of implementing the
workforce plan are presented.
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Control and evaluation of the
workforce planning system (8.4.4)
• Guiding HR activities that identify deviations from
a plan and their courses
• Qualitative measures used in establishing
planning systems to make key comparisons e.g.

actual staffing levels against forecast
staffing requirements.


Actual personnel flow rates against desired rates
Ratios of action programmes benefits to action
programme costs.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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