Topic:Advanced HR Management
Subject:Human resource management
Volume: 2 pages
Type: questions and answers
Format: Other
Description
1.What is human resource strategic planning? What may the objectives and targets of the plan relate to? 2. In order to identify emerging practices and trends, you may need to undertake environmental analysis. How can you do this? What is involved in the process? 3. Give examples of the different options for sourcing labour supply. 4. When considering the impact of new technology, what should you think about? 5. You should be aware of recent and potential changes to industrial and legal requirements. Give two examples of changes that you are aware of. 6. When consulting with relevant managers, what methods can be used? What should you inform them about? 7. What are human resource philosophies and values? 8. What should the objectives and targets of your plan set out? What will this enable? 9. Give two examples of the different options for the provisions of human resource services. 10. What may technology be used to support? 11. What are the key ingredients of a strategic HR plan? 12. When developing a risk management plan, what should you ask yourself? 13. In order to see that the plan is implemented, you will need to work with others. Who may these be? 14. Why should you monitor and review the plan? What questions will you need to answer in order to this? 15. Give two examples of changes in circumstances that may result in your plan needing to be adapted. 16. What does an evaluation of performance enable you to do?
2.6 – Write a strategic human resource plan and obtain
senior management support for the plan
Human resource plan
The HR plan is a way of the HR function saying: ‘this is how we are going to help
achieve the organisation’s overall plan’. It is a key tool for guiding the work of the
HR function over the next period and it affords reassurance that the HR function
is working to support delivery of the overall corporate goals.
The format of the strategic HR plan will be unique to your organisation. It’s a
good idea for it to follow a similar format to the overall strategic plan for the
organisation as this is a simple and effective way of showing clear links between
the two plans. For example, if business objective two has HR implications, then
the strategic HR plan can make reference to ‘business objective two’ where
relevant to illustrate the connection between the items on the HR plan and the
overall organisational plan. This helps to clarify people’s understanding about
‘why are we doing this?’
Whatever format is used, the following are key ingredients of a strategic HR plan:
f Budget
f Priorities
f Objectives
f Timeframes.
The plan should set out what you are seeking to achieve, by when and at what
cost. It should also be possible to see the inter-relationship and dependencies
between items on the HR plan. For example, there may be an objective to recruit
100 new employees within the next 6 months but a more pressing priority would
be to define the new job roles first. Recruitment cannot take place in the absence
of the job descriptions and so defining job roles would take a higher priority on
the plan. The plan helps to set out those dependencies so that priorities can be
established and communicated to those involved in delivering them.
Senior management support for the plan is vital if it is to succeed. It would be a
great shame to put an enormous amount of effort into preparing a plan only for
it to fall at the last hurdle and fail to get approval from the senior management
team. Gaining senior management support should not be an after-thought; it
should be built into the research and development stages of producing the plan.
If senior managers have been involved in articulating their vision for the future or
the organisation, determining the HR philosophy and values and setting out their
HR preferences, then they are more likely to support the plan if they can see that
their input has been listened to and incorporated into the HR plan.
Senior management support can be obtained by:
f Working with all senior managers to gain an intimate and detailed
understanding of the corporate goals
f Gaining senior management’s input to defining the HR philosophy and values
of the organisation
f Listening to senior managers’ HR preferences
f Requesting senior managers’ opinions and advice regarding matters
concerning the HR plan
f Demonstrating credibility in your own knowledge and expertise
f Demonstrating that senior managers’ input has been incorporated into the
HR plan
f Keeping senior managers informed about any changes in direction that are
being proposed and the reasons for this.
Senior management support will be needed if obstacles in implementing
the plan are predicted. Even if no obstacles are predicted; to have senior
management agreement to the plan can pave the way for its successful
implementation.
Some managers and/or employees may be resistant to some of the actions
resulting from the HR plan. For example, they may resist further training, the
implementation of new HR procedures or changes in performance management
processes. A clear and firm message from the most senior leaders in support of
the changes can be critical in gaining widespread acceptance to them.
Learning Task Eleven
Explain how you have gained support for the strategic HR plan from your
senior managers? How have they demonstrated their support?
Activity 2.6
1. Why is it important to obtain senior management support for the strategic
HR plan?
2. What steps can be taken to enlist senior management support for the
strategic HR plan?
2.7 – Develop risk management plans to support the
strategic human resource plan
Risk management
Risk can never be eliminated entirely but steps can be taken to minimise risks
which may jeopardise the implementation of the strategic HR plan.
A range of factors can pose a risk including:
f Decrease in sales
f Financial difficulties
f Emergence of new competitors
f Problems associated with products/services
f Non-delivery or problems with new equipment
f Legal difficulties
f Problems associated with suppliers
f Problems with the workforce.
Any of the above problems could seriously hinder the implementation of the
organisation’s strategic plan and also the HR plan. Imagine an organisation is
dependent upon a key third party for the outsourcing of a major recruitment
campaign; if this third party fails to deliver its agreed services, this will
jeopardise the success of the HR function and the organisation as a whole.
Risk management plans
A risk management plan anticipates possible risk and identifies action required
to either avoid or accommodate the risk.
For example, if the organisation was dependent on a third party for the
outsourcing of a major recruitment campaign, the risk of non-delivery can be
minimised by:
f A thorough vetting process to select the third party (background financial
checks, references and evidence of delivery of similar campaigns)
f Clear and specific service level agreements to set out what is to be delivered,
how, when, to what standard
f Regular and appropriate monitoring to ensure the service level agreement is
being met
f Deploying the use of financial/other penalties or incentives for satisfactory
delivery.
A combination of tactics can be used to minimise the risk in such situations and
this degree of vetting, setting service levels agreements and monitoring can be
used in relation to many different aspects of HR service delivery.
However, despite the most careful and thorough planning, things can still go
wrong. A financially secure third party organisation with an excellent track
record could still crash overnight resulting in non-delivery of the key services. In
this event, the organisation would need to move swiftly to secure an alternative
service provider. This is so much easier and less stressful if a contingency
plan is already in places which provides for the worst case scenarios. When
something unexpected happens and disrupts plans, it can be difficult to think
clearly, especially if senior managers and other stakeholders are making a lot
of noise and wanting to see action being taken to remedy the situation. This is
easier to manage if it has been anticipated and planned for.
There are some key questions to ask when developing a risk management plan:
f Event: What could happen?
f Probability: What is the probability of this happening (ranked High, Medium
or Low)?
f Impact: What would be the impact of this happening (ranked High, Medium
or Low)?
f Mitigation: How can I reduce the probability of this happening?
f Contingency: How can I reduce the impact of this happening?
Let’s look at how this might play out in practice using the example of the
outsourced recruitment campaign again:
Event: What could happen? Recruiter could fail to deliver the
recruitment campaign
Probability: What is the
probability of this happening? Medium
Impact: What would be the
impact of this happening?
High:
Unable to recruit the staff needed
Increased pressure on internal HR team
Inability to meet targets (both HR targets
and production targets)
Mitigation: How can I
reduce the probability of this
happening?
Rigorous tendering process to select
recruitment organisation
Clear and firm service level agreement
Regular monitoring of service provided
Contingency: How can I reduce
the impact of this happening?
Phase recruitment over a period of several
months
Use a variety of recruitment methods
Identify an alternative supplier (perhaps
via the tendering process)
As a result of conducting thinking similar to the above, it should be possible to
identify those actions which will help to reduce the probability of things going
wrong and that if they do go wrong, there are contingency plans in place to react
to the situation to ensure minimal impact on the delivery of the HR strategic
objectives and targets.
Learning Task Twelve
Taking one key objective or action from the strategic HR plan, describe how
you will manage (or have managed) risk using the following categories to
explain your thinking:
f Event
f Probability
f Impact
f Mitigation
f Contingency.
Activity 2.7
1. What factors might pose a risk to the strategic HR plan?
2. How can risk to the implementation of the HR plan be minimised?
