Manpower planning is a vital activity that helps businesses monitor the recruitment situation to develop new and more effective plans.
What is manpower planning? Personnel scheduling is a significant part of human resource management. If you want to know what manpower planning is and how to apply it to your business, don't miss the following handy information about staffing from Navigos Search - Vietnam's leading middle and senior level personnel recruitment brand.
1. What is manpower planning?
Manpower planning is the process of determining the number of employees who fully meet the quality and knowledge requirements needed for each specific position in the organization to reduce unnecessary expenses in the organization's human resources system.
The goal of manpower planning is to optimize the match between human resources and job needs, thereby reducing unnecessary costs in human resources management. This process frequently requires close cooperation between the accounting and human resources departments in the unit.
Find out what is manpower planning?
2. The importance of manpower planning
Manpower planning plays a critical role in managing and utilizing the human resources of each company and enterprise. Efficiency in staffing brings multifarious benefits as follows:
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Create a business or organization with a well-structured, easy-to-manage structure, helping to solve human resource-related problems effectively.
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Avoid wasting resources, optimize human resource efficiency, and help save time and resources.
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Allows businesses to proactively recruit and train new employees to meet the unit's personnel needs in the future.
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Build a team of quality employees willing to adapt to change.
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Provide optimal solutions for human resource management, helping businesses confidently overcome challenges and difficulties.
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Assist in developing short-term and long-term plans based on actual data, thereby promoting the business's sustainable development.
The necessity of manpower planning
3. What are the conditions for manpower planning?
For manpower planning, the unit needs to meet the following requirements and conditions:
For the business
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Define development strategy: Businesses must have a specific development strategy to know their future human resource needs.
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Have a detailed business plan: The business plan must come with a budget and change plan to ensure the best preparation for staffing.
For departments
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Identify positions, duties, and powers: Describe the job positions, duties, and powers of employees in the unit.
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Understand task frequency and work process: Grasp the frequency and process of work implementation to ensure efficiency and quality of work.
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Assess the desired level of proficiency and predict output results: Define desired professional skills and qualifications for each position and predict work results.
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Understand the application of automation: Determine the level of application to optimize the work process.
4. Common mistakes when implementing manpower planning
Manpower planning is a crucial aspect related to the size and operations of the organization. Below are some common mistakes when implementing manpower planning at organizations and businesses:
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Not assessing the actual needs of the unit explicitly, leading to over or under manpower planning.
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Failure to use the right tools and techniques, causing inaccurate results. Enterprises should apply methods, including dynamic load analysis, skill gap analysis, and data analysis to accurately determine staffing levels.
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Staffing plans lack flexibility, causing risks when there are fluctuations in the future.
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No cross-functional collaboration, leading to ineffective and time-consuming staffing.
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Have no backup plan, causing a lack of initiative when faced with unexpected changes in the future.
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Not setting specific goals in the manpower planning process results in a loss of guidance and clarity for this process.
Some organizations make mistakes when implementing manpower planning
5. How to effectively allocate manpower
To effectively implement manpower planning, businesses should pay attention to the following important principles:
Correlation ratio
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Rate of increase or decrease in staffing: It must reflect the increase/decrease in revenue of the business in the previous year to ensure that the staffing rate is adjusted according to the business situation.
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Correlation ratio between direct positions (production and sales) and the group of employees performing indirect work.
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Correlation ratio between costs paid to management groups and employees, between direct and indirect working groups.
Labor norms
Principles of labor norms are based on the following significant factors:
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Norms based on volume: Applied in production and business, depending on actual needs to meet production or service provision.
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Norms based on performance coefficient: Applied in business, focusing on optimizing work performance.
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Norms based on service subjects: Applied in indirect departments, depending on the needs of the subjects they serve and ensuring that customers are adequately supported.
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Norms based on work frequency: For example, the number of daily transactions, to ensure effective business management and optimization of work performance.
Correlation ratio
This principle is applied as follows:
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Norms based on volume: Applied to production and sales departments, depending on the necessity to meet production and service needs.
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Norms based on productivity spending system: Applied to business departments, focusing on improving performance and efficiency.
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Norms based on service object: Applied to indirect departments, depending on service needs and ensuring that customers are always enthusiastically and adequately supported.
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Norms based on work frequency to ensure effective management and promote work performance.
Frequency and duration
This principle is based on job title, frequency, and duration of tasks. This is a general guideline applicable to the indirect departments, subject to the usual standards applied in the operating line and similar businesses.
Critical principles for manpower planning activities
5. Steps to build manpower planning process
The process of developing manpower planning can be divided into 5 basic steps as follows:
Determine human resource needs
The first step is to determine the human resource needs based on the business's goals and development plans. During this process, the following information should be clarified:
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Determine when a large number of well-qualified personnel is needed.
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Define the exact number of personnel needed for each job position.
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Set requirements for skills, qualities, and professional knowledge that personnel in each position need to meet.
Analyze the current human resources situation
Analyzing the human resource situation is a vital step to help businesses understand the strengths and weaknesses of their human resources force. Through this process, they can recommend appropriate human resources strategies and plans.
Make decisions to increase or decrease personnel
After evaluating and determining the personnel situation, the business will make a decision on increasing or reducing the number of personnel. This is a critical part of the personnel selection process, including leadership evaluation. Therefore, businesses must carry out this process carefully to minimize blunders and take advantage of potential employees.
Make a plan
After completing the previous three steps, the business will create a reasonable manpower planning strategy. If this process is followed as planned, the human resources department will save time and economic resources, and optimize the use of human resources. In this plan, important information should include:
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New personnel recruitment plan and schedule.
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Plan for promoting and transferring internal personnel.
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Plan to restructure the organizational structure and determine the number of personnel needed for each department.
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Plan to reduce personnel who are unable to contribute value to the company.
Evaluate plan implementation
Finally, the last step in this process is to assess the results of plan implementation to identify limitations and causes of discrepancies (if any). From there, businesses can draw valuable lessons to apply to future staffing rounds and have appropriate adjustment solutions.
Steps for manpower planning effectively
6. What are important things to note when implementing manpower planning?
When implementing manpower planning, businesses need to pay attention to the following important points to ensure accuracy and efficiency:
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Determining the frequency of absenteeism, revenue growth, and production should be based on actual data and figures.
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Manpower planning does not exist independently but can be influenced by many factors, including the labor market situation, business development strategies, and human resource policies. This requires reviewing and evaluating these factors to ensure the accuracy and effectiveness of manpower planning.
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Regularly update and adjust human resources to adapt to new requirements and changes in the business model over time. This ensures that manpower planning always reflects reality and helps enterprises maintain flexibility in business and human resource management.
Navigos Search hopes that through this, you have found an answer to the question of what is manpower planning and grasped the steps to implement a manpower planning strategy for your unit. If you have any questions or concerns about manpower planning and human resource management, don't hesitate to share them with our human resources experts.
With over 20 years of experience in personnel recruitment, we will be pleased to assist you in consulting handy information about human resources and recruiting talent most effectively.
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