Human resources planning identifies current and future human resource needs to achieve organizational goals. It should link to the overall strategic plan. An aging workforce and demands for qualified workers underscore the importance of effective planning. Planning includes creating strategies for recruitment, retention, flexibility, talent management, and absence management. Best practices define needed human resources to achieve goals, including numbers, competencies, and timing. Competency-based management assesses gaps between current and needed capacities, and designs programs to close gaps like hiring, learning, and succession. Planning is ongoing to best use an organization's human resources by ensuring fit between employees and jobs while avoiding shortages or surpluses.

1. Human resources planning is a process that identifies current and future human
resources needs for an organization to achieve its goals. Human resources planning should
serve as a link between human resources management and the overall strategic plan of an
organization. Aging worker populations in most western countries and growing demands for
qualified workers in developing economies have underscored the importance of effective
Human Resources Planning.
As defined by Bulla and Scott, human resource planning is ‘the process for ensuring that the
human resource requirements of an organization are identified and plans are made for
satisfying those requirements’.[1]
Reilly defined workforce planningas: ‘A process in which an
organization attempts to estimate the demand for labour and evaluate the size, nature and
sources of supply which will be required to meet the demand.’[2]
Human resource planning
includes creating an employer brand, retention strategy, absence management strategy,
flexibility strategy, talent management strategy, recruitment and selection strategy.
Best practices
The planning processes of most best practice organizations not only define what will be
accomplished within a given time-frame, but also the numbers and types of human
resources that will be needed to achieve the defined business goals (e.g., number of human
resources; the required competencies; when the resources will be needed; etc.).
Competency-based management supports the integration of human resources planning with
business planning by allowing organizations to assess the current human resource capacity
based on their competencies against the capacity needed to achieve the vision, mission and
business goals of the organization. Targeted human resource strategies, plans and

2. programs to address gaps (e.g., hiring / staffing; learning; career development; succession
management; etc.) are then designed, developed and implemented to close the gaps.
These strategies and programs are monitored and evaluated on a regular basis to ensure
that they are moving the organizations in the desired direction, including closing employee
competency gaps, and corrections are made as needed. This Strategic HR Planning and
evaluation cycle is depicted in the diagram below. Human resource planning is the ongoing
process of systematic planning to achieve the best use of an organisation's most valuable
asset - its human resources. The objective of human resource (HR) planning is to ensure the
best fit between employees and jobs, while avoiding workforce shortages or spares. The
three key elements of the HR planning process are forecasting labour demand, analysing
present labour supply, and balancing projected labour demand and supply.
Implementation stages
The following implementation stages are suggested for mid to large organizations
implementing competencies in support of Strategic Human Resources Planning.
Stage 1
Short - Term HR Planning
• Establish a Competency Architecture and Competency Dictionary that will support
Strategic Human Resource Planning.
• For each group to be profiled, define the roles and career streams to help identify
current and future human resources needs.
• Determine how competencies will be integrated with the existing HR Planning
process and systems (e.g., Human Resource Information Management systems; other
computer-based tools, for example forecasting models).
Stage 2
• Build or revamp HR Planning tools, templates and processes to incorporate elements
as determined in Stage 1.
• Train managers and / or facilitate corporate HR Planning process.
• Continuously monitor and improve processes, tools and systems to support HR
Planning
Overarching policy, process and tools
Human Resource Information Management Infrastructure

3. Governance/accountability structure Organizations that have effectively implemented
competencies on a corporate-wide basis have ensured that there is an appropriate project
management, governance and accountability framework in place to support the
development, maintenance and revision/updating of the competency profiles to meet
changing demands.
Process implementation stages
The following implementation stages are suggested for mid to large organizations.
Stage 1
• Identify the infrastructure and system requirements to support full implementation
(e.g., Human Resources Information Management System; other on-line software tools
needed to support various CBM applications).
• Develop the competency profiles.
• Implement the competency profiles in a staged-way to demonstrate benefits and
create buy-in (e.g., as soon as profiles for a group are developed, implement quickly
within a low-risk high-benefit planned application for the group).
• Communicate success stories as competency profiles are implemented.
• Good for organization.
Stage 2
• Develop, revise/update competency profiles to meet changing demands.
• Monitor and evaluate applications to ensure that they are meeting organizational
needs, and adjust programs/plans, as needed, to meet evolving needs.
There are five HR strategies for meeting your organization's needs in the future:
Restructuring strategies Training and development strategies Recruitment strategies
Outsourcing strategies Collaboration strategies