Project on Human Resource Planning

Human Resource Planning (HRP) is a complex subject, particularly at the time of increasingly turbulent business environments delivering far more discontinuities, which increases the tensions between the greater need for planning and the greater difficulties of prediction. Although a complex subject, the underlying purpose is straightforward, HRP is concerned with having the right people, with the right skills in the right places at the right time.

 

The purpose of this study is to investigate the nature of, and to what extent companies are able to manage this complexity. For this study, eight case study companies from different industries have been used in order to identify if there are any industry-specific differences or trends regarding HRP aspects.

One of the results from our investigation of the studied companies shows that the degree of stability in their respective industries, in terms of employee turnover and economic fluctuations, clearly influences the way in which they approach HRP.

A pilot survey was carried out to identify the problem using structured interviews with Heads of HR. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from senior HR executives The deductive mode of reasoning,  cross-sectional study and quantitative techniques were selected as research methods.