The human resource, as a source of labour is usually one of the most expensive input factor into any form organization. Efficient assignment of personnel is one of the biggest challenges for today’s organizations in order to stay competitive and successful. This can be achieved by several aspects, e. g. bringing down the cost of personnel, getting the most output out of this resource or adjusting the staff availability to changing manpower requirements. Personnel planning can be described as the theoretical anticipation of future personnel measures.
Its main intention is to provide the business on short, medium and long-term basis with the required staff, at the right time at the right place in the necessary quality, in accordance to the company’s strategy and situation. Rational Personnel Planning Approach The general strategy and the targets of an organization influence its practices and methods, and therefore the need for personnel. An organization can be influenced by internal and external, factors. Where internal factors can be controlled by the organization, external factors are usually uncontrollable and have a big impact on existing structures.
Based on the evaluation of internal and external factors that influence an organization, a forecast for the future need of personnel can be made. This forecasted demand of personnel is then matched to the available supply of personnel. Based on this comparison, the company can recruit, retain or reduce its personnel, to match forecasted demand and available supply. Soft and hard personnel planning The human resource planning processes can be split up into hard and soft processes.
Where the hard planning process are based on the quantitative analysis, in order to supply the company with the right number of the right sort of people at the right time, the main purpose of the soft process is to ensure the availability of the people with the right type of attitudes and motivation who are committed to the organization, engaged in their work and behave accordingly. Strategic human resource management The period of significant change in national and world economies in the 1980s and 1990s, led to a rethinking process out of which the strategic human resource management (SHRM) resulted.
Its main purpose is to provide the tools for a cost effective development of personnel, as cost effective operations are a major success factor. The difference between the traditional personnel planning and the SHRM-models is, that it requires an holistic approach with not only an integration between personnel systems but also an integration between those systems (HR-Strategy) and the organizations strategy overall. The Flexible Firm (Atkinson 1984) The model of the flexible Firm describes the structure of a firm, which is able to compete best in uncertain markets with big cost pressure and changes of the involved technologies.
The main purpose is, to spill the organizations personnel structure up into core and periphery workforce, in order to gain the maximum possible flexibility in terms of the number or employees (adapt the labour level to fluctuations), the functionalities (adjust and develop the skills of our workforce), the payment (use flexible payment methods) and the distance (outsourcing of processes). Providing the organization with the staff required, is and remains one of the vital functions for a company.
Referring to the rational personnel planning function the planning process can be influenced by the mission and vision of a company itself, internal and external factors. From the description of the aspects that affect today’s organizations, it can be interfered, that they have to face many new challenges, especially external factors to survive. The trend to have large affiliated groups is no longer up to date, because companies have to adapt to the increased business speed, the ever-changing markets and the global competition. Personnel planning vs. strategic human resource management.
From my point of view the personnel planning process, is no longer en vogue because it is not flexible and therefore unable to fulfil the changed needs in today’s economies. Even though some organizations with a quite unchanged structure like hospitals or the armed forces have a continuing need for those traditional personnel planning processes. The traditional personnel planning process seems to involve a lot of planning and time to reach its goal, the adequate provision of personnel. There is a growing demand for flexibility in terms of the organizational structure, its recruitment processes, working times and working places.
