Section ThreeAdditionally, implications of European experiences with human
resource planning were discussed.
Forecasting techniques also were discussed in some
detail, beginning with the factors that deter-mine the utilization
of different techniques. These factors include the purpose of
planning; organizational characteristics such as size and
complexity; industry characteristics; the level of environmental
turbulence; and other considerations such as data availability,
forecasting horizon, the user’s mathematical sophistication, and
accuracy requirements. The discussion of supply forecasting
techniques included replacement charts, succession planning,
Markov analysis, renewal models, and computer simulation.
Trends in the utilization of the various supply forecasting
techniques also were reviewed. Techniques for forecasting the
demand for human resources also were discussed, including
the general category of heuristics, rules of thumb, the Delphi
technique, operations research and management science
techniques, and regression analysis. Differences in the
utilization of these techniques also were discussed.