HR Planning Alignment and Change

• HR Planning refers to Human Resource planning

Goals of HR Planning

• Explain the strategic importance of HR planning for alignment & change.
• State the roles & responsibilities of the HR Triad in HR planning.
• Describe 3 major HR planning activities & their typical sequence.
• Give examples of HR objectives & metrics used to guide & monitor change.
• Explain how to develop HR plans & timetables, and how to implement HR action plans.
• Explain the importance of reviewing, revising, & refocusing change effects.
• Discuss two current issues in HR planning.

Strategic Importance of HR Planning For Alignment & Change

• Companies need to change to succeed under new competitive conditions by adjusting their vision, values, structure, strategy, and corporate culture.
• Changes in HR policies and practices encourage and support behaviors needed for organizational change.
• HRM helps align the organization with its chosen strategy.

Achieving strategic alignment

• Vertical Alignment exists when the HRM system fits with all other elements of the organizational environment.
• Horizontal Alignment exists when all the HR policies & practices that comprise the HRM system are consistent with each other.

Reacting to and Anticipating Change

• Radical Change involves major adjustments in the ways a firm does business.
• Incremental Change evolves over time from many small routine changes.
• Reactive Change is triggered by a forced radical or incremental action.
• Anticipatory Change is action taken in anticipation of upcoming events or early in the cycle of a new trend.
• Situations requiring different types of change involves major planned change due to M&As and international expansion
• Small planned change stems from normal growth and shifts in workforce demographics. Major unexpected change arises from environmental disasters and new competitors
• Small unexpected change is caused by the departure of a top executive or customer feedback.

Managing Resistance to Change

• Reasons for Resistance to Change include fear, misunderstandings, and cynicism.
• Forms of Resistance can manifest as criticism, malicious compliance, sabotage, or silence.
• Causes of Negative Reactions to Workforce Reductions include loss of attachment, lack of information, perception of managerial capriciousness and future reductions.
• A key challenge is maintaining employee morale and regaining trust, whilst the company seems to devalue them.
• The success of products & services offered in the internal marketplace should be monitored.
• A Human Resource Information System (HRIS) provides the means for collection & dissemination of evaluation data.
• Ensure there are "short-term wins" to celebrate.

Learning Organizations

• Learning Organizations continually find new ways to satisfy customers & other stakeholders by integrating information resources, technology, and people to produce & then effectively use new knowledge
• Learning Organizations are constantly changing through experimentation & learning from others.
• Planning ensures the HRM system provides learning opportunities to build competencies & keeps employees motivated & interested in learning.

Aligning HR Management in Learning Organizations

• A business strategy identifies organizational learning as a core competency that contributes to a sustainable competitive advantage.
• Company culture values include continuous innovation and change sharing best practices; and focus on learning as a common objective.
• Technology is used to create a highly connected, flat organization with fast knowledge flows across internal and external boundaries.
• Staffing recruit, hire, and promote based on actual knowledge and the capacity for future learning.
• Training and development means Knowledge on any topic is accessible to everyone, anywhere, all the time.
• Performance appraisals assess the individual's growth and development and contributions to others' growth and development.
• Rewards consist of Monetary rewards and recognition that encourage long-term growth and development of self and others.
• Needed employee behaviors include experimentation, critical thinking, creating and sharing knowledge, working across boundaries, learning through experience, revising and applying what they know, and adjusting to change.

The HR Triad

• Roles of the HR Triad includes the line manager, hr professional and the employee
• Line managers scan the environment, provide info during planning and communicate constantly.
• HR professionals manage activities, develop HR objectives, and support change.
• Employees monitor the environment, provide input, adopt positive changes, collaborate in data collection and take responsibility to understand everything.

Strategic Importance of HR Planning

• Human Resources Planning (HRP) forecasts future human resources requirements.
• HRP ensures that the organization has the required number of employees with the necessary skills.
• Key steps in the HRP process include forecasting demand for labor, analyzing the labor supply, and planning & implementing HR programs to balance supply and demand.

Human Resource planning model

• Factors for forecasting demand for labor involve organizational strategic plans and economic conditions
• Things to consider when analyzing labor supply include markov analysis as well as staffing tables
• Implementing Programs to balance labor supply and demand include overtime, hires and layoffs

Balancing Supply & Demand Considerations

• When labor demand exceeds labor supply, implement overtime, external recruitment, and career development.
• When labor supply exceeds labor demand, implement hiring freezes, offer incentives to leave, and consider employee layoffs.
• When labor demand equals labor supply, critical performance management with internal promotions or external hires are required.

Relationship Between HR Planning and Strategic Planning

• An employer's strategic plan involves questions regarding diversity etc, these questions then dictate the companies personal plan, which involves recruitment
• Personnel forecasts determine recruitment needs and employee selecting plans.

Implementing HR Programs To Balance Supply and Demand

• A labor surplus exists when the internal supply of employees exceeds the organization's demand.
• Response is typically hiring freezes or layoffs
• A labor shortage exists when the internal supply of human resources cannot meet the organization's needs.
• Response is typically overtime to transfer or promotion

Elements of HR Planning

• Involves Scanning & assessing the external & organizational environments, forecasting future HR needs, and setting objectives.
• Requires Developing specific plans for HR policies & practices, along with timetables for implementing those plans
• Important external elements include globalization and unionization
• Important organizational elements include technology and company culture

Scanning and Assessing the Environment

• Organizational Analysis requires assessing both the external and internal environments.
• HR forecasts and Employee opinions are the primary methods used

HR forecasting

• Involves estimating the firm's future human resource needs.
• Judgmental forecasts which are informed experts that predict business trends.
• Statistical forecasts which rely on objective data & formal models
• Involves the use of historical information to predict the future

Employee Opinions

• Involves asking about problems and potential solutions through Employee surveys and focus groups.
• Involving employees in developing HR plans.

Models and Maps

• Models & Maps provide insight into why employees behave as they do
• Identifies the business consequences of certain employee behaviors.
• Involves showing a cause-> effect relationship.
• Shows the Connections between HRM & strategic success.

Quantitative Approaches on Forecasting HR Needs

• Trend analysis: Review past employment levels.
• Ratio analysis is the ratio of business activity (e.g. sales) & number of employees needed.
• Scatter plot: to determine whether two factors (business activity and staffing levels) are related.
• Regression analysis: Examines the statistical relationship between business activity and employees.

Qualitative Approaches on Forecasting HR Needs

• Nominal Group Technique is a decision making technique that involves a group of experts meeting face to face
• Steps include independent idea generation, clarification & open discussion, and private assessment.
• Delphi Technique is a judgmental forecasting method typically involving outside experts.
• Involves the exchange of ideas without seeing each other in person and the feedback is then fine tuned until consensus
• Managerial Judgment through the use of an HR/resource manager

Staffing Table

• It is a pictorial representation of all jobs within the organization, along with the number of current incumbents & future employment requirements

Forecasting availability

• Markov Analysis is a method of forecasting internal labor supply that involves tracking the pattern of employee movements through various jobs.

Skills Inventory

• Consists of Manual or computerized records summarizing an employee's education, experience, interests, skills.
• Used to identify internal candidates eligible for transfers and/or promotions

Management Inventories

• Contains Records summarizing qualifications, interests, & skills of management employees with duties, responsibilities and training received.

Replacement Charts

• Lists visual representations of who will replace whom in the event of a job opening.
• Replacement summaries are lists of people, their strengths and position

Succession Planning

• Its the process of ensuring suitable supply of successors for people's careers to be effective.

Forecasting the Supply of External Candidates

• This can be done through a project of outside prospects.
• Assessment includes the national and local labor market conditions

Setting HR Objectives and Metrics

• Objectives must be tied to strategic business goals
• Business objectives focus on employee competencies and productivity

Linking HR Objectives

• Strategic changes must be guided by clear objectives
• The implications for managing the human resources become clear

Metrics to match Objectives

• Should be Accepted as Legitimate, Relatively easy to use and connected to business
• Common metrics include HR ROI, value etc

Building A complete HR plan

• Consists of Talent, Staffing, Leadership and Training Programs

Talent Management Plan

• Ensures supply matches demand due to Success planning and replacement charts

HR Action Plans

• Involves people with task forces and focus groups
• Requires establishing accountability to promote change

Current Issues

• Addressing the new global challenge of talent management
• Corporations considering environmentally and socially responsible actions