Human Resource Management - Article Example

A. Human resource planning is the process of determining the amount of employees needed, the specific skill set they must possessed and the sources acompany will utilize to obtain these resources. It is ongoing processes that must be performed due to the reality of employee turnover. The human resource manager is the person mainly responsible for human resource planning, but managers of all departments should be involved as well since they are the ones who can better identify their specific needs and are also the one who will benefit from the extra workforce. The objectives of human resource planning include the following: Create employment stabilization within a firm to reduce the excessive cost related with layoffs Increase the chance of retaining young talent Assisting companies prepare a pool of candidates for future managerial positions Facilitate the process of allocating financial resources to different department to be able to produce the firm’s desire output (Tamiu, 2007). Human resource planning can be achieved if a company follows processes such as workforce analysis, internal scan, external scan, gap analysis, priority setting, and monitoring-evaluating-reporting (work911, 2007). To accomplish a lot of these processes different tools help managers accomplish the task. One very powerful tool is forecasting. Forecasting can be utilized in human resource planning to estimate the available supply of workers in specific careers and within geographical regions. Forecasting applications can also help managers estimate costs in order to create adequate budgets to fund the recruiting of the human resources. Human resource planning is a business function that consulting companies have targeted to generate revenues. Accenture obtained a lucrative contract from Vadofone Group, a UK based mobile operator, to create an enterprise planning system to enable the company to unite its information systems and enhance the capabilities of the human resource department (Accenture to Support Vodafone’s EPR System, 2007). Imperial is an engineering company founded in 2003. In its short history the company already faced a major obstacle which caused them to restructure their business. A new management team was hired to lower the debt level. The team decided to implement a massive layoff strategy to lower overhead. The company was able to acquire new clients and new business contract are in place to expand the business for the next five years. The company needs to be able to estimate adequately the company’s human resources need. Imperial can estimate its HR need by utilizing forecasting methods such as Delphi method or statistical methods like correlation or regression analysis. The Delphi technique is qualitative method in which a panel of experts gives independent opinions that are integrated to create an unbiased forecast. Linear regression models create correlation among two or more variables to predict outcomes. A variable correlated with the HR need of a company is projected revenues. A one year study of a retailing firm determined that the Delphi technique more accurately predicted their personnel needs than regression analysis (Tamiu, 2007). B. Recruitment is a vital function of the human resource planning process. It can be defined as the process of finding possible candidates for a job (Wikipedia, 2007). The human resource professional must determine what they looking for in a person. A formal job description is good mechanism to outline the specific skills, job experiences and educational background the ideal candidate must possess. Different mediums are used to obtain a pool of candidates. Among the most commonly used mediums are governmental job placement agencies, private employment agencies, online recruiting, job databases, classified ads, press releases, bulletin boards, job fairs and school job placement mechanisms. Candidates are interviewed and sometimes tested to determine if they are a good fit for the company. A formal job offer is made that will either be accepted or rejected by the person. The recruiting efforts of a company are realized at either the local or national level. Specific characteristics about the position determine at what the level the effort will be realized. If a position requires unique and scarce abilities the effort must expand to the national level. For example a university recruiting a college professor for its graduate program for an uncommon concentration will be faced with a limited supply of candidates, thus in order to fill the position they would have to go beyond the national level into the international market to recruit the professional. On the other hand positions for unskilled or semi-skilled workers are more suited for local recruiting since the pool of candidates is wider and easily accessible. Certain economic conditions may also affect the scope of the recruiting effort. Economies with low unemployment rates create a scenario in which either a company has to pay above market to recruit a person locally or simply there are no people available to work for them. National recruiting levels are essential if the local economy has this characteristic. PETER is a limited liability company dedicated to assembling computers for individual customers. The company has grown due to the dedicated effort of its owner who has run the entire administration of the company on his own. The owner expertise is not human resources and his only recruiting experience is with professional in his own field, thus in this case the most suitable recruiting method is hiring a private employment agency to handle the entire process. Imperial is a medium size company with a complete functional business infrastructure. They are embarking in a recruiting project of approximately 175 workers of which 86% are direct laborers. A cheap fast solution is the optimal alternative. State job placement and online advertisements in websites such as Monsters.com and Hotjobs.com are good alternatives. One of their needs is engineers with knowledge of foreign languages, thus online advertising will help locate bilingual professionals. The sales professionals and some of the engineers should be recruited by hiring a specialized recruiting agency to obtain access to a better pool of talented professionals. C. PETER decided to hired people based on recommendation from people he knew and direct referrals from family members. The strategy totally backfired. These employees abuse their personal relationship and became inefficient workers looking for special privileges. In the end he forced to terminate most of these employees. The business operation was put in jeopardy due to wrongful selection criteria in a recruiting initiative. Mr. Peter learned about the importance of human resource planning. Imperial used a state agency, college recruitment methods, inside sources and a recruitment agency to find the candidates. They had a solid plan which I would have made minor adjustments to obtain better results. The inside sources strategy could backfire if the person selected doesn’t turn out to be a good candidate and the company terminates that employee. Such a situation might create resentment from the business associate that recommended the person. The company specific need of obtaining engineers with knowledge of foreign languages requires the company to gain access to larger pool of candidates with the required skill set. An online initiative would give the company access to plenty of bilingual engineers. Most of the machine operators were obtained from the same source, a state agency. It is a good strategy that brings fast results, but it is recommended to try to obtain employees from different sources in order to have a more diversified workforce with various levels of experience and talents. References Accenture to Support Vadafone’s EPR System (2007). GlobalSourcingNOW, 1. Retrieved May 19, 2007 from EBSCOhost database. Tamiu.edu (2007). Human Resource Planning: Goals, Trends, and Forecasting. Retrieved May 19, 2007 from http://www.tamiu.edu Wikipedia.org (2007). Retrieved May 19, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment Work911.com (2007). Strategic and Business Planning Free Resource Center. Retrieved May 19, 2007 from http://www.work911.com Read More