Workforce Planning Process - Assignment Example

Questions and Answers Name: Grade Course: Tutor’s Name: 22nd March, 2011 QUESTIONS 1 and 8 When conducting workforce planning, there are principles involved or steps to be followed. One step leads to another and a successive next step cannot be conducted without first performing the first one. The quote indicates that workforce planning has to do with passing on responsibility and just like in a relay race, if an athlete does not pass the baton, the team loses the race. The same applies to workforce planning process. If one step is not done, there is no way a next step can be taken. The previous steps determine the actions of the next step and in turn determine the success of the whole planning process. There are three phases in workforce planning. The first phase is determining what the organization needs to achieve its aims. The next phase is determining what kind of skills will do what needs to be done for the company to accomplish its missions and the third phase is getting such skills. “Pass on the responsibility” is quite clear in the phases above. After determining what the company needs, determine what skills will help accomplish such duties, after determining the skills, develop ways of acquiring them. Without aligning the strategies of the organization to its aims, there is no way the aims can be accomplished. So “drop the baton you lose the race”. If an organization aims at expanding to virgin markets for example, the company has to determine what it requires to expand to such markets. Included in the requirements is the human capital which depends on what the organization will be doing in the virgin markets. Strategies developed have to aim at venturing into the new markets and operating to accomplish the goals set by the company. In the first phase, step one involves developing and harnessing leadership support, step two involves reviewing the strategic goals of the organization, the missions and vision and step three involves determination of the functions required to accomplish strategic goals and in turn organizational missions. Second phase: Step four involves creating a profile for the future workforce. This is obtained from data collected based on the functional requirements of the organization. The next step involves creating a profile for the current workforce. This will help in the identification of the gaps in workforce requirements. Step six then involves identification of the future workforce competencies. This is done by comparing the future workforce profile and the current workforce profile. Third phase: Step seven then involves developing strategies of getting such competencies. This can be done by training, retaining the available employees or hiring. It also involves estimating the budgetary requirements. Step eight is evaluation of the whole process for purposes of improvement. The steps have to be followed in that order and there is no way the functional requirements for example, can be determined without first reviewing the aims of the organization and developing strategies on how such aims will be accomplished. This process is not a “number’s game”. It is no gambling with any step or the skills required by the organization and expect to achieve results. There are no assumptions on what the organization will require in future, it has to be determined and this has to be done through a process. This is why the planning is more than a “number’s game”. Phase one leads to phase two and all that is created and developed in phase one are important for phase two’s development. All that are done in phase two are important for phase three’s development and completion. This is the reason why dropping the baton is a loss. With no information from phase one or with no completion of phase one, phase two cannot be completed, nor even initiated. QUESTION 3 and 4 Workforce planning is avoiding inefficiencies due to unavailability of skills, knowledge or experience in the organization’s workforce. To avoid such inefficiencies, the future aims of the organization for a specific period of time are considered, the skills, knowledge and experienced required for meeting such aims determined and strategies for acquiring such skills, knowledge and experience developed. This process is affected or influenced by several factors. Some of these factors are the demographic changes and social or community group attitudes. Social or community group can be the youth, the working class, people from a specific community for example Mexicans living in a County in US or can be an organization like the labor force organizations. Working class has the experience of working in certain organizations and has also seen the success achieved from certain careers. Most likely, they are parents and with this kind of knowledge, they will influence the choice of career for their children. The guidance they give their children will be directed towards certain careers. This influences the availability of some skills with some being scarce and others available in abundance. Some people may even feel that doing business is the best and education should come later. This again influences the availability of specific skills in the market. Some people will take long to complete their education which gives them the skills that organizations require to employ them. Availability or lack of skills and experience in the market influences the level of competition for such skills by organizations. It therefore influences the strategies that organizations take to get such skills. If the skills, experience and knowledge required by the organization are not available in the market, the organization will be forced to train. Strategies selection may also depend on the availability of resources. With enough resources, the organization can chose to train its employees to improve their knowledge and skills to the required levels or can hire skills from the market. When there is competition, the skills go at a high price which increases the cost of workforce management. If the youth (age 18-35) for example believe that teaching has very low pay and involves a lot of stressful duties, most of them will not go to college to gain teaching skills. They will select other careers. This influences the availability of teachers in a specific area hence affecting the workforce planning budget and strategies. Demographic changes also affect workforce planning in the same way. Military recruiters for example, go for age group 15-19. If the national demographics show that this age group will be scarce in the next five or ten years, this will affect the hiring process or this kind of organization. Since there are other careers that the 15-19 year olds may select, in order to get this age group, the military may have to offer to pay for their education after recruitment as a way of attracting them. QUESTION 6 “…need to focus on addressing the expectations of the primary stakeholders”. The first question under this is who are the primary stakeholders? In a for-profit organization, the primary stakeholders are the people directly affected by the performance of the business such as employees, customers, creditors and suppliers. The financial status of these people is affected by the business performance. A creditor would expect a company to perform better to be able to payback what the company owes him/her or the organization. A customer would want a company to provide what he or she pays for, that is, the value of money he/she gives should be equal to the service or good he/she receives considering the quality, satisfaction, preference and so many other factors. A supplier would want a company to perform well for him/her or a supplier organization to make more profits and an employee would like good performance from a company for several reasons. These are; to be promoted, get more income, to remain in employment and to build his/her reputation. The expectations of the employee however are dependent on his or her performance as well. Non-profit organizations also have the same primary stakeholders. They serve the customer although the needs of the customers differ, they have suppliers and they have employees. Most non-profit organizations are funded by well wishers, governments or other organizations and so do not have creditors as a source of fund. They can however have creditors. WRP must create visible benefits to show that the expectations of the stakeholders are dealt with. The customer is very important in business and most of the organizational aims focus on satisfying the customer. Without the customer, there is no business. If the aims of the organization focus on satisfying the customer, it means the customer’s expectations are already considered. WFP is done considering the aims of the organization. It is the aims that determine what functions will accomplish certain missions and then the workforce that can accomplish such missions developed. A non-profit organization’s aim may be to supply food to a very remote area. Already the need of the customer (people in need of food) has been identified and considered. This will need a means of transport (how the supplies can reach the area) how the food will be distributed and continued operation. The workforce can then be determined. Considering the expectations of the employee is also very important. If an organization is progressing well for example and the employee’s contribution is part of the progress, he/she should be appreciated. Selecting the competent employees to form part of the future workforce is very important. It shows appreciation which motivates the employee to work hard. In WFP, acquiring skills, experience and knowledge strategies have to be developed. Considering the employee efforts, some can be trained and absorbed in the new workforce. The performance of the organization affects the suppliers and for continued existence of the company, it has to have reliable suppliers and in some cases creditors. With poor performance, the creditors and the suppliers will lose trust in the organization. Performance is dependent on effective management and WFP is one of the components of effective management. CASE STUDY Growth in the demand for goods and services means more revenue for the company and it also means more customers to be handled by the company. A scenario with increased demand for goods and services for Company ABC adds to its factors to be considered when developing a workforce plan. There are so many factors that affect the workforce plan and so have to be considered when developing one. Workforce planning is affected by any new developed strategies that affect staffing. The new program strategies affect the number of employees needed which means they increase or decrease the workload and they also affect the skills, occupational knowledge and abilities of the future workforce. ABC has a new long term strategy to expand to capital city retail banking through internet banking. Internet banking will affect the workload. This coupled with increased customers will need more employees for the organization. The workload will increase because of two factors; new strategy that requires new skills, knowledge and abilities and increased demand for goods and services. Increased number of customers does not change the skills required but changes the quantity required to efficiently perform the functions of the organization in order to accomplish its missions. Company ABC values high quality customer service which is its business model. This cannot be achieved by an imbalanced ratio of employee to customers, based on the employees’ skills and the services they should provide. New skills will also be required based on the introduction of new technology which has different work processes and different workflow. This means that new employees have to be hired. The hiring strategy however will depend on the cost but even if the current employees could be trained to take up positions in internet banking, some will be needed to take up their positions. The regional bank has not established any capital city retail branches and opts to venture into internet banking rather than set up such branches in the cities. This strategy reduces the workload compared to establishment of capital branches that will require branch managers, tellers, information technology support staff, call center operators, department managers and so on. It also changes the geographic location of the new employees. With internet banking, the employees have not to be in the specific regions to perform their duties. This is to the advantage of the company that minimizes cost from not establishing capital city branches. Read More