Definition
Human resource planning determines the human resources required by the organization to achieve its strategic goals. As defined by Bulla and Scott (1994) it is ‘the process for ensuring that the human resource requirements of an organization are identified and plans are made for satisfying those requirements’. Human resource planning is based on the belief that people are an organization’s most important strategic resource. It is generally concerned with matching resources to business needs in the longer term, although it will sometimes address shorter term requirements. It addresses human resource needs both in quantitative and qualitative terms, which means answering two basic questions: first, how many people, and second, what sort of people? Human resource planning also looks at broader issues relating to the ways in which people are employed and developed in order to improve organizational effectiveness. It can therefore play an important part in strategic human resource management.
Human resource planning determines the human resources required by the organization to achieve its strategic goals. As defined by Bulla and Scott (1994) it is ‘the process for ensuring that the human resource requirements of an organization are identified and plans are made for satisfying those requirements’. Human resource planning is based on the belief that people are an organization’s most important strategic resource. It is generally concerned with matching resources to business needs in the longer term, although it will sometimes address shorter term requirements. It addresses human resource needs both in quantitative and qualitative terms, which means answering two basic questions: first, how many people, and second, what sort of people? Human resource planning also looks at broader issues relating to the ways in which people are employed and developed in order to improve organizational effectiveness. It can therefore play an important part in strategic human resource management.
Human resource planning and business planning
Conceptually, human resource planning should be an integral part of business planning. The strategic planning process should define projected changes in the scale and types of activities carried out by the organization. It should identify the core competences the organization needs to achieve its goals and therefore its skill requirements. But there are often limitations to the extent to which such plans are made, and indeed the clarity of the plans, and these may restrict the feasibility of developing integrated human resource plans that flow from them.
In so far as there are articulated strategic business plans, human resource planning interprets them in terms of people requirements. But it may influence the business strategy by drawing attention to ways in which people could be developed and deployed more effectively to further the achievement of business goals as well as focusing on any problems that might have to be resolved in order to ensure that the people required will be available and will be capable of making the necessary contribution. As Quinn Mills (1983) indicates, human resource planning is ‘a decisionmaking process that combines three important activities: (1) identifying and acquiring the right number of people with the proper skills, (2) motivating them to achieve high performance, and (3) creating interactive links between business objectives and people-planning activities’. In situations where a clear business strategy does not exist, human resource planning may have to rely more on making broad assumptions about the need for people in the future, based on some form of scenario planning. Alternatively, the planning process could focus on specific areas of activity within the organization where it is possible to forecast likely future people requirements in terms of numbers and skills; for example, scientists in a product development division.
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