18.3 Human resource planning

The purpose of human resource planning is to make sure that the organization has the right number of people of the right profile at the right time. Many organizations do not discover the importance of this until they face a major problem – either the shortage of competent people becomes an obstacle to expansion or technological change, or the organization employs more people than it can afford and has to retrench.

In many cases a management consultant will be called in, once the problem has manifested itself, to help identify emergency measures to be taken if, for example, there is an acute shortage of competent staff, or if significant redundancies are anticipated. However, an emergency situation provides an opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of human resource planning treated as part of, and coherent with, strategic corporate planning.

The consultant will be able to help the client in combining various human resource planning techniques. If enough detailed information is available on the structure of production or other processes, it may be possible to define and describe all necessary job positions. This implies that a detailed job description is worked out for every job. This is particularly appropriate where the organization and the environment are stable. Increasingly, detailed lists of jobs cannot be established with accuracy, or units have rapidly changing functions and need to adapt readily to new conditions (this is typical, for example, in jobs with a high