Human resource planning is the process of putting the right people in the right positions to meet your company’s goals. The problem with human resource planning is there’s no “go” flag. You don’t get a green light to get started—it’s a process you can start from Day One or begin at any time. Thankfully for busy HR professionals, this is also the benefit of HR planning! There is no “timeline” you have to follow to get it right.
The point is, just get started. You’ll never feel 100% prepared or ready–in fact, you may even feel like you’re chasing your tail—but don’t worry. As you continue through the HR planning process, you’ll begin to notice that your wins feel like goals achieved instead of good luck. Keep reading to find out more about the need for HR planning.
Benefits Of Human Resource Planning
Your HR department isn’t stuck in a reactive posture, constantly putting out fires or facing hiring shortfalls.
Your entire organization can leverage the data and insights you generate to predict trends and solve personnel issues.
With GenesisHR as your partner in HR planning, you’ll have a partner alongside you to help you through an ever-changing world of regulations and compliance, as well as a team of experts dedicated to helping your business thrive.
The Human Resource Planning Process Circle
Know your company goals and objectives.
As you begin your human resource planning process, identify the company’s goals and objectives, as well as what each department is trying to achieve. Some employers skip this step because they don’t have stated goals as a company culture, but we think this is a mistake. From an HR perspective, it’s more effective to establish goals and then hire people who can execute them rather than the other way around.
Some examples of broad goals and objectives include enhancing operations, increasing company efficiency, expanding market share, and improving customer satisfaction. Once they’re listed and everyone is familiar with them, you can begin putting the right people in place, which leads to the next step.
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Know your employees.
The purpose of human resource planning is to optimize the employees you have to help you reach your goals. In order to put the right people in the right positions to meet your goals, you must know as much as you can about the people you already have working for you.
The purpose of human resource planning is to optimize the employees you have to help you reach your goals.
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Catalog your current staff. Who do you have? What are their skills? What experiences do they possess? What is their capacity? What is their compensation/salary? You need to know them inside and out.
Get a sense of their engagement by asking employees questions like the following:
Where do they want to go within the company?
What is their history with the company?
What do they know about your organization that you may not?
Identify current HR gaps & forecast future needs.
Once you’ve assessed your current employees, compare the people you have to the goals and objectives you identified to see what skills are missing. You may notice you have the employees you need currently, but pay attention to whether or not meeting current needs is enough to help you reach your goals.
Create a plan to fill the gaps and execute.
Once you’ve identified any gaps, you can start putting the pieces together to reach your objectives. This often means increasing staffing, providing training, or changing roles for certain employees.
If your four staff members all cover the same shift and don’t have the flexibility to change shifts, you could be overstaffed in this area, while still needing to grow your overnight team.
Review the effectiveness of your plan and begin again.
Once you’ve reached this point in the human resource planning process, review your plan and assess its effectiveness. If you’ve found it was successful, you can move toward working on a new objective; if not, begin again with the same goal, switching some of the variables to see if those changes help you meet your goal. Don’t feel dejected if you review your HR plan and find it’s not perfect—it will likely never be, which is why HR planning is an ongoing process!
Need help with HR resource planning?
Whether you’re new to the idea of HR resource planning or simply stuck on how to do it in a meaningful way for your organization, GenesisHR can help. Contact us today to learn how human resource planning fits in with the comprehensive plan we provide our PEO clients, and how it may look for you.
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