- Does the organisation have an effective system for effective human resource
utilisation? - To what extent do employees feel proud of their jobs and the organisation?
HR plans must also be supported by evidence from operational effectiveness analysis.
This will include to what extent an employee is utilised, employees’ productivity and
readiness to respond to a changing environment through flexible work schedules.
The development of human resource plans will focus on resourcing, retention, devel-
opment, utilisation, work flexibility, downsizing, and productivity strategies. If a gov-
ernment or an organisation ignores human resource planning, this will have serious
problems in attracting and retaining the desired staff, being caught up in short-
ages/surpluses, failing to competitively respond to the environment and failing to utilise
and develop staff to meet present and future demand.
Given the above importance of HRP, administrators and managers have reasons to
take a step back and reflect on the status of manpower in their organisations.
Levels of human resource planning
Human resource planning could be at the national, ministerial, sectoral, organisational
and departmental levels.
At the national level, it is important to know the pool of human resource available
and the one that will be required in the distant future because a nation cannot develop
without having the right people, both in numbers and skills. The same applies to minis-
tries, sectors, and organisations. HRP is a means to match demand and supply of the
labour force. At the national level, the following approach is useful.
- Consider the annual economic sectors’ growth for the planning period e.g. 5 years,
- Review the stock of labour in the base year. Primary, secondary, colleges,
universities, professionals e.g. doctors, engineers, accountants etc. - Translate the annual economic growth in terms of labour requirement
- Consider the attrition rate due to retirement, deaths etc,
- Consider the number of people leaving schools, colleges etc. The starting point is to
look at the school enrolment and transition to different universities and training in
other institutions and years of graduation, - Monitor the unemployment rate,
- Fill the gap between demand and supply by proposing action to be taken at certain
times in the planning stage. Planning propositions may include emphasis on training
in certain disciplines; controlling attrition rate, which may be a result of HIV Aids
through national campaigns, or altering the retirement age.
HRP at specific ministries or sectors will by and large use the above approaches but
under the influence of both internal and external factors influencing the ministry or sec-
tor. For example, if it is planning for the agricultural sector, although having a rough
picture of the macro and micro economic environment is important, focus should be
more on agriculture and other closely related sectors.