Human Resource Notes

Workforce planning involves analyzing and forecasting the number of workers needed by the
organization for example new recruits needed to expand because current employees leave.

Successful workforce planning helps a firm to develop a competitive advantage by matching human
resource needs to the organization’s strategic decisions.

Labor turnover measures the rate of change of human resource within an organization
(𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑓𝑓 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟)
𝐿𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 = × 100
𝐴𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑓𝑓

Internal and External factors that influence Human Resource planning

1) Demographic Change – It refers to development and trends in the population that influence
workforce planning for example the average age of the population, gender distribution etc.
2) Changes in Labor mobility – It refers to flexibility of workers in moving from one Job to another
However, occupational immobility is the inability of workers to move from one job to another
3) New communication technologies – It provides many benefits to workers
 Better communication technology makes it easier for larger businesses to recruit
globally through their website and video-conferencing facilities.
 It reduces cost of online advertising, recruitment and interviews
 It makes homeworking and teleworking more attractive and accessible to workers.

Common steps for recruitment

1) Job analysis – Process of identifying what a particular job entails for example roles, responsibility
and skills. From this analysis, a job description is created.
2) Job Description – It is a document that provides details of a particular job for example the tittle,
roles, duties and responsibility.
3) Job specification – It is the document that gives the profile of the ideal candidate for example a
description of qualification, skills, experience and knowledge.
4) Job advertisement – It is after job description and specification are produced.
5) Shortlisting – It is the process of identifying the most suitable candidates from all applications
for an interview
6) Testing – Aptitude test (Skill test), Psychometric test (Personality traits), Trade tests (expertise
and skills), and intelligence test (General knowledge and literacy)
7) Background checks – From the last employer
8) Job offer – Issuing a contract of employment

Internal recruitment

- It is hiring people from within the organization to fill a job vacancy

- Advantage – Low risk, low cost of recruitment, known to organization, faster than external,
strengthens the loyalty, motivates other workers that there is a scope for promotion, eliminates
the need for induction training.
- Disadvantage – No new ideas, low number of candidates will give employer fewer candidates, it
creates unnecessary internal competition from existing workers who applied for the job, and
hiring someone internally will mean that there is vacancy created, therefore external
recruitment is still required.