HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING: forEcasting demand for employees

Reading

1. Read text 3 using your dictionary to help with new words. Think of the suitable title of the text.

TEXT 3

Human resource planning involves forecasting the organization’s future demand for employees, forecasting the future supply of employees within the organization, and designing programs to correct the discrepancy between the two. It serves the same purpose for human resource management as strategic planning does for other management activities. The purpose of human resource planning is to ensure that, in the future, the firm has enough employees with the appropriate skills so that it can accomplish its long-term goals.

The starting point of human resource planning is the organization’s strategic plans and goals. Let’s use a hypothetical example. Hubert Spotswood presently owns a successful jewellery store. Hubert has read that, because of the cost of building new homes, economic forecasters are predicting that individuals will choose to remodel their existing homes rather than buy new ones. He has therefore decided that in six years he wishes to be the largest jewellery and tool marketer in the area. His strategic plan is to open a large discount store, Jewels & Tools, which will carry watches and other jewellery as well as tools for household repair and maintenance. In addition, he wishes to have three upscale boutiques for each of the two product groups, to be called Pretty Things and Puttering Things.

He knows that implementing these plans will necessitate more employees with different skills than those he presently employs. Hubert does not have the time to handle all the details of the strategic plan, so he has hired Diana Taylor as a human resource manager. Diana, because she did well in her management courses, knows that she must start by drawing up a human resource plan that will be implemented over the next six years.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1172