ORGB 364 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Shortage, Workforce Planning, Trend Analysis
22 May 2018
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Unit 4: Planning, Recruitment, and Selection
• Human resource planning—this is, forecasting the demand for and supply of workers
• Planning leads into recruitment
o Fill positions, result of job analysis and design
▪ Advertising and interviewing
Workforce planning—identifying the numbers and types of employees the organization will
require to meet its objectives
WHAT IS WORKFORCE PLANNING?
• Organizations need a clear idea of the strengths and weaknesses of their existing internal
labour force
• Knowledge helps them define the numbers and kinds of employees they will need
• Goal – ensure the organization has the right people with the right skills in the right place in
the right time
• 3 stages: forecasting, goal setting and strategic planning, and program implementation and
evaluation
Forecasting
• Forecasting – the attempts to determine the supply of and demand for various types of human
resources to predict areas within the organization where there will be labour shortages or
surplus
o Use of statistical measures to predict
Forecasting the Demand for Labour
• For specific job categories or skill areas
• Planner investigates the likely demand for each
• Trend analysis, constructing and applying statistical models that predict labour demand for
the next year, given relative objective statistics form the previous
• Lead indicators, objective measures that accurately predict future labour demand
o Economy, actions of competitors, technological change, and trends of work
Forecasting the Available Supply of Labour
• Firm’s available labour supply
• Detailed analysis of how many people are currently in various job categories or have specific
skills within the organization
• Transitional matrix, a chart that lists job categories held in one period and shows the
proportion of employees in each of these job categories in a future period
o “where did people who were in each job go?”
o “Where did people now in each job category come from?”
• Examine trends in the external labour market
Determining Labour Surplus or Shortage
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Goal Setting and Strategic Planning
• Focus attention on the issue and provide a basis for measuring the organization’s success in
addressing labour shortages and surpluses
o Come directly form analysis of labour supply and demand
o What should happen with the job category or skill area and a specific timetable, for
when the results should be achieved
• Options for reducing a labour surplus cause differing amounts of humans suffering
o Based on how easily the organization can undo the change if it no longer faces a
labour shortage
o Consider – whether the employees needed will contribute directly to the
organization’s success
• Labour shortage, common options – temp employees, outsourcing
Downsizing
• Downsizing, is the planned elimination of large numbers of employees with the goal of
enhancing the organization’s competitiveness
• Four objectives
o Reducing costs
o Replacing labour with technology
o Mergers and acquisitions
o Moving to more economical locations
• Effects have a long-term consequence
o High among firms that engaged in high-involvement work practices, su7hc as the use
of teams and performance-related pay incentives
o Typical results – rehiring
o Employees who survive the ‘purge’ become self-absorbed and afraid to take risks
o Hope of future promotions decreases
o Hurts company image in the labour market
Reducing Hours
Early-Retirement Programs
• Phased-retirement programs, the organization can continue to enjoy the experience of older
workers, while reducing the hours these employees work, as well as the cost of those
employees
o Provide psychological benefit of easing into retirement
Employing Temporary and Contract Workers
• Popular with employers, because it gives them flexibility they need to operate efficiently
when demand for their products changes rapidly
o Offers lower costs
• Temp workers may offer benefits not available from permanent workers
o Objective p.o.v
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• Risks
o Contractor –cannot directly supervise, treated as a regular employee – legal
requirements
Outsourcing
• Save money, operate more efficiently
• First uses of outsourcing emphasized manufacturing and routine tasks
• Technological advances increase outsourcing process
• Challenges
o Poor customer service, security violations, quality-control issue
• To be successful
o Learn about what the provider can do for the company, not just cost analysis
o No offshoring that is proprietary or requires tight security
o Start small and monitor
o Look for opportunities to outsource work in areas that promote growth
Overtime and Expanding Hours
• Downside to overtime, employer must pay nonmanagement employees additional pay above
and beyond their normal wages for work done overtime
o However, employers see overtime as preferable to costs of hiring and training new
staff
o Many workers appreciate the pay and hour increase (at least for a small period)
Implementing and Evaluating the Workforce Plan
• Implementing, organization must hold some individual accountable for achieving its goals
o Person must have authority and resources to accomplish this task
• Evaluating the results, checking whether the organization has succeeded in avoiding labour
shortages or surplus
o Identify parts of the planning process contributed to success or failure
Applying Workforce Planning to Employment Equity
• Meeting employment equity goals requires that employers carry out an additional level of
workforce planning aimed at those goals
• Workforce utilization review, a comparison of the proportion of employees in protected
groups with the proportion that each group represents in the relevant labour market
o Determine if there is any subgroup whose proportion differs from those in the job
category
o Underutilization
WHAT IS SUCCESSION PLANNING?
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Document Summary
Unit 4: planning, recruitment, and selection: human resource planning this is, forecasting the demand for and supply of workers, planning leads into recruitment, fill positions, result of job analysis and design, advertising and interviewing. Workforce planning identifying the numbers and types of employees the organization will require to meet its objectives. Forecasting: forecasting the attempts to determine the supply of and demand for various types of human resources to predict areas within the organization where there will be labour shortages or surplus, use of statistical measures to predict. Early-retirement programs: phased-retirement programs, the organization can continue to enjoy the experience of older workers, while reducing the hours these employees work, as well as the cost of those employees, provide psychological benefit of easing into retirement. External sources: typically for entry-level, possibility specialized upper-level positions, bring outsiders in, expose the organizations to new ideas or ways of doing business, ability to grow.
