Good planning must take into account the temporal projection or the future environment in which the decisions and corresponding actions will take place.
A. Human Resource Planning
Until a few years ago, the person was considered exclusively from the production point of view. The production processes were simple, and consequently, highly qualified workers were not needed, which made it possible to go to a job market where it was easy to find these types of workers, since they were abundant.
The costs originated by this labor were not very important compared to other elements of the production process, such as raw materials, depreciation of machinery or distribution of finished products. However, from the 1970s onwards, the phenomenon of downsizing has occurred, partly caused by the fact that most large companies were oversized, and personnel costs had risen alarmingly.
On the other hand, the division of labor, the new trends towards a greater humanization of the company's operating methods and the new worker motivation systems, give rise to a greater specialization of the workforce and a shortage of operators to carry out certain activities complex, which led to the establishment of new recruitment, training and remuneration systems.
Human resources become one of the fundamental factors of business policy, with repercussions within the company itself and social repercussions.
As can be seen in the following table, human resources began to take on a special importance from the 90s.
Human resources directors have become managers, ceasing to be administrators as they had been until then, since unemployment, labor legislation to make templates more flexible, and the oversizing of the number of existing company personnel in recent decades, have made it necessary to plan templates in companies.
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The planning process must be understood as a methodical analysis and a rational choice of the objectives and goals to be achieved, as well as a selection of the different programs or alternative lines of action. Also considering that plans are made with a view to the future. Good planning must take into account the temporal projection or the future environment in which the decisions and corresponding actions will take place.
As García Echevarría indicates, “planning constitutes one of the key instruments in the scientific management of the company. Planning determines what are the requirements and characteristics that should govern to organize the business institution.
Planning, consequently, consists of defining specific objectives and designing the systems to follow to achieve them, as well as quantifying the necessary means by establishing certain time frames.
According to W. Weber "human resource planning comprises that system of complex business decisions with which the future is systematically foreseen in the personnel area and its fundamental lines are established".
EW Vetter defines planning as “the process by which a company ensures the sufficient number of personnel with the necessary qualifications, in the suitable positions and in the opportune time to do the most useful things economically”.
Ben H. White defines personnel planning as "the anticipation of the future organization of the company, taking into account the influencing factors in the environment in order to guide decisions about personnel according to this evolution".
In any case, with planning, the aim is to prevent the future in qualitative and quantitative terms, in such a way that we can establish the ideal workforce by indicating the excess categories, the deficit positions, as well as the guiding criteria necessary for action.
The same must be provided for the manpower necessary for moments of expansion, such as avoiding improvisation in circumstances in which, due to the decrease in the volume of activity of the company, a significant contingent of people who are not suitable or cannot be fired is unemployed. In short, planning allows the adequate adaptation of the company to the needs of each moment.
The concept of planning includes, in addition to staff planning, the planning of personnel needs, that is, the characteristics of the future workforce, which would imply a prior analysis and the corresponding evaluation of the jobs, as well as a study of the organizational structure of the current and future company. Consequence of this will be:
- The planning of the recruitment and selection processes. The training plan. The promotion plan.
All this contemplated within the organizational framework, since a good organization is one that is characterized by allowing the establishment of the most effective structure that the company will have in the future. Ultimately, the organization will indicate where to start planning, which are the scarcest levels or the most important qualitatively.
When we propose the design of an organization, including how many people we need and in what positions, almost automatically, we tend to group the components of the workforce by departments or similar functions, although this has been a very frequent way of operating in the past. It has its serious drawbacks, especially in periods of rapid change, either due to market demand for new products or services or due to a simple process of organizational growth linked to current activity.
In this way, the issue of the qualitative composition of the workforce is usually dealt with; another problem remains to be solved: how many? This question is also often given simple answers in one of the following ways:
- Those allowed by the company's profit level. When I see that all my workers are very busy, I will hire more.
In other words, it might seem that this is a hobbyist's template planning model, in reality, large companies also tend to choose these criteria, although, instead of showing it colloquially, they are hidden in apparently well-studied reports.
The questions we have to answer to plan templates are very different and have nothing to do with the results of the company or with the level of sweating of current workers but with the old concepts of effectiveness and efficiency, often confused despite mean very different things; As a reminder, efficiency refers to the usefulness of what is done, while efficiency refers to the economy of resources in action.
The organization is going to remain structured during the period for which it is planned in basically the same way as it is now.
Planning workforces based on the principle of efficiency, that is, of workload and process improvement, is absolutely sterile if it has not been previously guaranteed that efficiency is properly attended to and that the process, perfect or imperfect, contributes something to the organization; It is therefore necessary to answer the following questions when planning templates:
- What do the workers in my company spend their time on? Are all the things they do useful or are there some that are done by routine or incorrect structuring of functions and are of no use? Is the workload reasonable - not very high not very low-? The interval between 70 and 90% of effective time over the normal working day is usually considered admissible. If I mechanize any task, can I achieve significant savings in time? Could I organize my company in a totally different way that requires fewer resources or allow a more flexible use of current resources?
It will be noted that in no case has the economic situation of the company been mentioned and this is not due to oblivion: If we need, for example, ten workers for the company to function, we cannot do so except temporarily and this regardless of the situation financial; at the same time, hiring more than necessary to meet commitments or anything else does not improve the quality of execution and makes the organization more expensive; It is true, despite the fact that the financial situation tends to influence the composition of the workforce, when it is negative in the form of cuts beyond what is reasonable in order to achieve a relief in the treasury; When the situation is positive, it is easy for a certain indiscipline to occur and the hiring of personnel, more than a necessity,be a kind of manifestation of power of the owner or manager; if the winds are favorable, a company can operate for a long time in violation of this basic rule, but clearly it will be much more sensitive to any problem.
Possibly, books on business administration have tended to spread a misconception: A well-managed company survives and a poorly-managed company collapses: the truth is that a poorly managed company can remain for a long time if the environment is favorable to it. and, vice versa, the best management is not capable of working miracles; The foregoing does not exclude the fact that, given that all sectors are increasingly competitive, relying on the market boom to act discretionary in the area of workforce management is a high-risk policy.
The analysis methods always start from the aforementioned bases; on the other hand, human resource planning without going into organizational design is an academic exercise with no practical utility, where the informal organization alone is enough to solve problems that, in a large company, might require elaborate procedures.
Finally, it is common for staff planning to use statistical models; statistics can never be more valid than starting data; In this sense, in most models they usually start from the following assumptions:
The organization will remain structured during the period for which it is planned in basically the same way as it is now
There will be no major technological changes that imply radical operational changes and that substitute investment in labor for investment in technology
The market will not have great surprises
Even the authors dedicated to strategic planning are beginning to renounce mathematical models given the boiling that occurs in most markets and the uncertainty that this generates, in the area of Human Resources, even more so, the most successful planning it can often be about staying nimble and flexible just in case and not relying on elaborate mathematical models unrelated to changing reality.
In accordance with what has been stated so far, we can say that planning answers the following questions:
- How many workers will the company have, with what qualifications, when, in which department and doing what work? This is the answer to the planning for the allocation of human resources How many workers and with what qualifications will the company need, in which departments and carrying out what activities ? This is the answer to the planning of personnel needs and the planning of recruitment and selection. How many workers should be trained and for what objectives? This is the answer to the planning of training and promotion. What costs is expected to be incurred of such measures?
The following are the basic characteristics of human resource planning:
These elements characterize Human Resources planning.
The referential nature of strategic planning refers precisely to the fact that it allows determining the final personnel requirements in relation to the general planning of the company, hence its referential character.
The technical nature is reflected in the internal analysis and evaluation of the work organization that it does within the organization, the establishment of a HR plan involves studying the organization, its objectives, its functions, its tasks, its jobs, the professional categories of its members as well as their professional qualifications.
But it also evaluates the organization of work precisely to know the effectiveness and freedom at work, stability and projection and the quality of the functions performed. These actions promote the development of HR strategies appropriate to the peculiar characteristics of the company.
It allows us to face the environment precisely because of its flexible nature since it incorporates a forecasting phase with which it is intended to detect future needs, making special reference to the market, technology, customers, change and management. We could say that it makes room for change.
These characteristics give strategic planning a dynamic character. As it is a continuous and flexible process, it encourages critical thinking and the development of new initiatives, both symptoms of this dynamism.
Finally, the temporal projection of the strategic planning goes from 3 years onwards. Very difficult to forecast elements are involved. These are general, indicative plans that detect changes in the environment and allow the introduction of measures regarding future needs in the processes.
Basic rules of human resource planning
- Optimize the human factor in the company Ensure over time the necessary staff, qualitatively and quantitatively Develop, train and promote current staff, according to the future needs of the company Motivate the human factor of the company Improve the work environment Contribute to maximizing the profit of the company
Contribute to optimizing the resources of the company, obtaining the maximum benefit and serving as a regulatory mechanism for important cost items.
Get a template of suitable dimensions, we refer here to the number of employees (N). Good planning assumes that the right number of employees has been planned to meet the proposed management and production objectives. Having staff surplus is an unnecessary added expense and the lack of staff is a brake on the development of the organization.
Promote the adequate qualification of the workforce (C), foreseeing the continuous training activities essential to carry out different tasks in accordance with the managerial, environmental and technological dynamics that the plan itself has had to take into account.
Motivate staff by creating expectations for personal and professional development and improvement that materialize in personalized career plans and come true while meeting the planning objectives.
Improving the work environment whose worst enemy is the uncertainty caused by the lack of foresight. Effective communication means that staff know the planning and therefore where the company is going and this is a great stimulus for employees, stimulating initiative and the spirit of belonging to a team.
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