1

IS THE STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING

THE SAME AS HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING AGREE

OR DISAGREE
Before answering the question lets have a look to basic terminologies:

1) STRATEGY: According to Jauch and Guleck” strategy is concerned with

determining which option will provide maximum benefits”

2) STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: According to

Opines Guest “strategic human resource management is to ensure that human resource
management is fully integrated into strategic planning that human resource policies
cohere both across hierarchies and that HRM policies are accepted and used by line
managers as a part of their every day work”

3) HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING: According to Terry L. Leap and Michael

D.crino “Human resource planning is a process of determining and assuming that
organization will have an adequate number of qualified persons, available at the proper
times, performing jobs which meet the needs of enterprise and which provide satisfaction
for the individual involved”.

4) STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING:

Strategic HR planning is an important component of strategic HR management. It links

HR management directly to the strategic plan of your organization. Most mid- to large
sized organizations have a strategic plan that guides it in successfully meeting its mission.
Organizations routinely complete financial plans to ensure they achieve organizational
goals and while workforce plans are not as common, they are just as important.

Even a small organization with as few as 10 staff can develop a strategic plan to guide
decisions about the future. Based on the strategic plan, your organization can develop a
strategic HR plan that will allow you to make HR management decisions now to support
the future direction of the organization. Strategic HR planning is also important from a
budgetary point of view so that you can factor the costs of recruitment, training, etc. into
your organization's operating budget.

The overall purpose of strategic HR planning is to:

• Ensure adequate human resources to meet the strategic goals and operational
plans of your organization - the right people with the right skills at the right time

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• Keep up with social, economic, legislative and technological trends that impact on
human resources in your area and in the sector

• Remain flexible so that your organization can manage change if the future is
different than anticipated

Strategic HR planning predicts the future HR management needs of the organization after
analyzing the organization's current human resources, the external labour market and the
future HR environment that the organization will be operating in. The analysis of HR
management issues external to the organization and developing scenarios about the future
are what distinguishes strategic planning from operational planning. The basic questions
to be answered for strategic planning are:

• Where are we going?

• How will we develop HR strategies to successfully get there, given the
circumstances?
• What skill sets do we need?

5) THE STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING PROCESS

The strategic HR planning process has four steps:

1. Assessing the current HR capacity

2. Forecasting HR requirements
3. Gap analysis
4. Developing HR strategies to support organizational strategies

Assessing current HR capacity

Based on the organization's strategic plan, the first step in the strategic HR planning
process is to assess the current HR capacity of the organization. The knowledge, skills
and abilities of your current staff need to be identified. This can be done by developing a
skills inventory for each employee.

The skills inventory should go beyond the skills needed for the particular position. List
all skills each employee has demonstrated. For example, recreational or volunteer
activities may involve special skills that could be relevant to the organization. Education
levels and certificates or additional training should also be included.

An employee's performance assessment form can be reviewed to determine if the person

is ready and willing to take on more responsibility and to look at the employee's current
development plans.

Forecasting HR requirements

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The next step is to forecast HR needs for the future based on the strategic goals of the
organization. Realistic forecasting of human resources involves estimating both demand
and supply. Questions to be answered include:

• How many staff will be required to achieve the strategic goals of the
organization?
• What jobs will need to be filled?
• What skill sets will people need?

When forecasting demands for HR, you must also assess the challenges that you will
have in meeting your staffing need based on the external environment.

• How will the external environment impact on our HR needs?

Gap analysis

The next step is to determine the gap between where your organization wants to be in the
future and where you are now. The gap analysis includes identifying the number of staff
and the skills and abilities required in the future in comparison to the current situation.
You should also look at all your organization's HR management practices to identify
practices that could be improved or new practices needed to support the organization's
capacity to move forward. Questions to be answered include:

• What new jobs will we need?

• What new skills will be required?
• Do our present employees have the required skills?
• Are employees currently in positions that use their strengths?
• Do we have enough managers/supervisors?
• Are current HR management practices adequate for future needs?

Developing HR strategies to support organizational strategies

There are five HR strategies for meeting your organization's needs in the future:

1. Restructuring strategies
2. Training and development strategies
3. Recruitment strategies
4. Outsourcing strategies
5. Collaboration strategies

1. Restructuring strategies
This strategy includes:

• Reducing staff either by termination or attrition

• Regrouping tasks to create well designed jobs
• Reorganizing work units to be more efficient

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2. Training and development strategies

This strategy includes:

• Providing staff with training to take on new roles

• Providing current staff with development opportunities to prepare them for future
jobs in your organization.

3. Recruitment strategies

This strategy includes:

• Recruiting new staff with the skill and abilities that your organization will need in
the future.
• Considering all the available options for strategically promoting job openings and
encouraging suitable candidates to apply

4. Outsourcing strategies

This strategy includes:

• Using external individuals or organizations to complete some tasks

Many organizations look outside their own staff pool and contract for certain skills. This
is particularly helpful for accomplishing specific, specialized tasks that don't require

5. Collaboration strategies

Finally, the strategic HR planning process may lead to indirect strategies that go beyond
your organization. By collaborating with other organizations you may have better success
at dealing with a shortage of certain skills.

Types of collaboration could include:

• Working together to influence the types of courses offered by educational

institutions
• Working with other organizations to prepare future leaders by sharing in the
development of promising individuals
• Sharing the costs of training for groups of employees
• Allowing employees to visit other organizations to gain skills and insight

6) DOCUMENTING THE STRATEGIC HR PLAN:

Once the strategies for HR in your organization have been developed they should be
documented in an HR plan. This is a brief document that states the key assumptions and

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the resulting strategies along with who has responsibility for the strategies and the
timelines for implementation.

7) IMPLEMENTING THE STRATEGIC HR PLAN

Once the HR strategic plan is complete the next step is to implement it:

Agreement with the plan

Ensure that the board chair, executive director and senior managers agree with the
strategic HR plan. It may seem like redundant step if everyone has been involved
all the way along, but it's always good to get final confirmation.

Communication

The strategic HR plan needs to be communicated throughout the organization. Your

communication should include:

• How the plan ties to the organization's overall strategic plan

• What changes in HR management policies, practices, and activities will be made

to support the strategic plan

• How any changes in HR management will impact on staff including a timeframe

if appropriate

• How each individual member of staff can contribute to the plan

• How staff will be supported through any changes

• How the organization will be different in the future

It is impossible to communicate too much (but all too easy to communicate too little),
especially when changes involve people. However, the amount of detail should vary
depending upon the audience.

Legislation and mandate

Ensure that the actions you are considering are compliant with existing laws, regulations
and the constitution and bylaws of your organization. To review laws relating to
employment, visit the HR Toolkit section on Employment Legislation and Standards

1) Organizational needs

Whether you are increasing or reducing the number of employees, there are implications
for space and equipment, and on existing resources such as payroll and benefit plans.

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2) Evaluation

HR plans need to be updated on a regular basis. You will need to establish the
information necessary to evaluate the success of the new plan. Benchmarks need to be
selected and measured over time to determine if the plan is successful in achieving the
desired objectives.

8) IS STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING THE SAME AS HUMAN

RESOURCE PLANNING: DISAGREE

Strategic Human resource planning is not the same as human resource planning iam
disagree with this statement because any one can plan but every body can not
strategically plan. Technically, it's possible to do short term human resource planning that
is a bit different than strategic human resource planning, in the same sense one can plan
tactically or strategically. However, in basic terms, planning within human resources
should be done strategically, since longer term thinking is required to effectively manage
human resources over time.

A comprehensive Human Resource Strategy planning plays a vital role in the

achievement of an organisation's overall strategic objectives and visibly illustrates that
the human resources function fully understands and supports the direction in which the
organisation is moving. A comprehensive HR Strategy plan will also support other
specific strategic objectives undertaken by the marketing, financial, operational and
technology departments.

In essence, an HR strategic plan should aim to capture "the people element" of what an
organization is hoping to achieve in the medium to long term, ensuring that:-

• it has the right people in place

• it has the right mix of skills
• employees display the right attitudes and behaviors, and
• Employees are developed in the right way.

If, as is sometimes the case, organisation strategies and plans have been developed
without any human resource input, the justification for the HR strategy may be more
about teasing out the implicit people factors which are inherent in the plans, rather than
simply summarizing their explicit "people" content.

A HR strategy will add value to the organisation if it:

• articulates more clearly some of the common themes which lie behind the
achievement of other plans and strategies, which have not been fully identified
before; and

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• Identifies fundamental underlying issues which must be addressed by any

organisation or business if its people are to be motivated, committed and operate
effectively.

Human resources strategic planning is also important because in which top management
determines an organization's overall purposes and objectives, and how the organization
will achieve these over time. This is an ongoing process, as companies are always
growing and responding to internal and external forces. There are four main steps to
human resources strategic planning: mission determination, environmental assessment,
objective setting, and strategy setting.

Why do management theorists stress the importance of strategy? A number of reasons are
apparent because it adds:
• Value
• Rarity
• Inimitability
• Non-substitutability
Strategy is important because it deals with high level decisions, concerning it self with
big agenda.

If you consider the complexity of any human resource planning process, it seems obvious
that the process needs to be strategic in nature. Unfortunately, many companies do not
allocate enough time or resources to developing long term strategic HR plans.

So, the short answer is that they should be the same. All HR planning should be strategic.
In practice, many companies plan their human resources in a shorter term, or bandaid
type fashion that involves reacting to short term forces, rather than being proactive long
term.

The benefits of strategic planning are obvious. The process provides away for an
organization to determine concrete goals and devise a plan of how to achieve them.
Because it is an ongoing process, past successes can help foster new goals and plans for
growth.

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9) REFERENCES

• Arun Monappa: Strategic Human Resource Management, Indian Journal of Social

Work, Special Issue on Human Resource Management, Vol.LII, No.4,October
1991,pp.527-531.

• D.Guest: Personnel and HRM: can you tell the difference? Personnel
Management, Vol.28, No.1, Jan.1989,pp.48-51.

• Dale S. Beach: Personnel Management of people at work, 1977, p.411.

• Alan price: Human Resource Management in a Business Context, 3rd edition,

south western cengage learning publication.

• SS.Khanka, Human Resource Management, Text & Cases, 2003, S chand &
company limited, ramnagar New Delhi – 110055.

• http://strategic-Human-resource.com

• http://www.google.com

• http://oppapers.com

• http://ehow.com

• http://ask.com

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