Importance of Human Resource Planning (HRP)
1. Future personnel needs
2. Coping with change
3. Creating highly talented personnel
4. Protection of weaker sections
5. International strategies
6. Foundation for personnel functions
7. Increasing investments in human resources
8. Resistance to change and move
9. Other benefits
10. Part of strategic planning
1. Future Personnel Needs:
Planning is significant as it helps determine future personnel needs. Surplus or deficiency in staff strength is the result of the absence of a defective planning. The problem of excess staff has become so heavy that many units are restoring to VRS to remove the excess staff.
2. Coping with Change:
HRP enables an enterprise to cope with changes in competitive forces, markets, technology, products and government regulations. Such changes generate changes in job content, skill demands, and number and type of personnel. Shortage of people may be induced in some areas while surplus in other areas may occur.
3. Creating Highly Talented Personnel:
As was mentioned earlier, jobs are becoming highly intellectual and incumbents are getting vastly professionalized. L & T, an engineering giant, has MBA’S, engineers, technicians who collectively constitute 70% of the total employee strength of 20,000 the HR manager must use his \ her ingenuity to attract and retain qualified and skilled personnel.
4. Protection of Weaker Sections:
Sc \ ST candidates, physically handicapped, children of socially and physically oppressed and backward-class citizens enjoy a given % of jobs not withstanding the constitutional provison which guarantees equal opportunities all.
5. International Strategies:
HRP all will grow increasingly important as the process of meeting staff needs from foreign countries and the attendant cultural, language and developmental considerations grow complex.
6. Foundation for Personnel Functions:
Manpower planning provides essential information for designing and implementing personnel functions, such as recruitment, selection, personnel movement and training and development.
7. Increasing Investments in Human Resources:
Another compelling reason for HRP is an investment an organization makes in its human resources. Human assets, as opposed to physical assets, can increase in value. An employee who gradually develops his \ her skills and abilities becomes a more valuable resource.
8. Resistance to Change and Move:
There is a growing resistance among employees to change and move. There is also a growing emphasis on self-evaluation and on evaluation of loyalty and dedication to the organization. All these changes are making it more difficult for the organization to assume that it can move its employees around anywhere and anytime it wants, thus increasing the importance and necessity of planning ahead.
9. Other Benefits: Following are other potential benefits of HRP:
• Upper management has better view of the HRP dimensions of business decisions.
• Personnel costs may be less because the management can anticipate imbalances before they become unmanageable and expensive.
• More time is provided to locate source talent.
• Better planning of assignments to develop managers can be done.
• Major and successful demands on labour markets can be made.
10. Part of Strategic Planning:
HR management must become an integral part of strategic management process. All activities of HRM-planning, hiring, training, remunerating and maintaining-must be merged with strategic management.
HR planning can become part of strategic planning at two ends. At the beginning of strategic planning, HRP provides a set of inputs into the strategic formulation process in terms of deciding whether the types and numbers of people are available to pursue a given strategy.
