Human Resources Planning In Organizations

Human Resources Planning In Organizations InTroduction Planning is very important to our everyday activities. Several definitions have been given by different writers what planning is all about and its importance to achieving our objectives. It is amazing that this important part of HR is mostly ignored in HR in most organizations because those at the top do not know the value of HR planning. Organizations that do not plan for the future have less opportunities to survive the competition ahead. This article will discuss the importance of HR planning; the six steps of HR planning that is : Forecasting; inventory, audit, HR Resource Plan; Actioning of Plan; Monitoring and Control. Definition of HR Planning Quoting Mondy et (1996) they define it as a systematic analysis of HR needs in order to ensure that correct number of employees with the necessary skills are available when they are required. When we prepare our planning programme, Practitioners should bear in mind that their staff members have their objective they need to achieve. This is the reason why employees seek employment. Neglecting these needs would result in poor motivation that may lead to unnecessary poor performance and even Industrial actions. Importance of Planning Planning is not as easy as one might think because it requires a concerted effort to come out with a programme that would easy your work. Commencing is complicated, but once you start and finish it you have a smile because everything moves smoothly. Planning is a process that have to be commenced form somewhere and completed for a purpose. It involves gathering information that would enable managers and supervisors make sound decisions. The information obtained is also utilized to make better actions for achieving the objectives of the Organization. There are many factors that you have to look into when deciding for an HR Planning programme. HR Planning involves gathering of information, making objectives, and making decisions to enable the organization achieve its objectives. Surprisingly, this aspect of HR is one of the most neglected in the HR field. When HR Planning is applied properly in the field of HR Management, it would assist to address the following questions: How many staff does the Organization have? What type of employees as far as skills and abilities does the Company have? How should the Organization best utilize the available resources? How can the Company keep its employees? HR planning makes the organization move and succeed in the 21st Century that we are in. Human Resources Practitioners who prepare the HR Planning programme would assist the Organization to manage its staff strategically. The programme assist to direct the actions of HR department. The programme does not assist the Organization only, but it will also facilitate the career planning of the employees and assist them to achieve the objectives as well. This augment motivation and the Organization would become a good place to work. HR Planning forms an important part of Management information system. HR have an enormous task keeping pace with the all the changes and ensuring that the right people are available to the Organization at the right time. It is changes to the composition of the workforce that force managers to pay attention to HR planning. The changes in composition of workforce not only influence the appointment of staff, but also the methods of selection, training, compensation and motivation. It becomes very critical when Organizations merge, plants are relocated, and activities are scaled down due to financial problems. Inadequacy of HR Planning Poor HR Planning and lack of it in the Organization may result in huge costs and financial looses. It may result in staff posts taking long to be filled. This augment costs and hampers effective work performance because employees are requested to work unnecessary overtime and may not put more effort due to fatigue. If given more work this may stretch them beyond their limit and may cause unnecessary disruptions to the production of the Organization. Employees are put on a disadvantage because their live programmes are disrupted and they are not given the chance to plan for their career development. The most important reason why HR Planning should be managed and implemented is the costs involved. Because costs forms an important part of the Organizations budget, workforce Planning enable the Organization to provide HR provision costs. When there is staff shortage, the organization should not just appoint discriminately, because of the costs implications of the other options, such as training and transferring of staff, have to be considered. Steps in HR Planning Forecasting HR Planning requires that we gather data on the Organizational goals objectives. One should understand where the Organization wants to go and how it wants to get to that point. The needs of the employees are derived from the corporate objectives of the Organization. They stern from shorter and medium term objectives and their conversion into action budgets (eg) establishing a new branch in New Dehli by January 2006 and staff it with a Branch Manager (6,000 USD, Secretary 1,550 USD, and two clerical staff 800 USD per month. Therefore, the HR Plan should have a mechanism to express planned Company strategies into planned results and budgets so that these can be converted in terms of numbers and skills required. Inventory After knowing what human resources are required in the Organization, the next step is to take stock of the current employees in the Organization. The HR inventory should not only relate to data concerning numbers, ages, and locations, but also an analysis of individuals and skills. Skills inventory provides valid information on professional and technical skills and other qualifications provided in the firm. It reveals what skills are immediately available when compared to the forecasted HR requirements. Audit We do not live in a static World and our HR resources can transform dramatically. HR inventory calls for collection of data, the HR audit requires systematic examination and analysis of this data. The Audit looks at what had occured in the past and at present in terms of labor turn over, age and sex groupings, training costs and absence. Based on this information, one can then be able to predict what will happen to HR in the future in the Organization. HR Resource Plan Here we look at career Planning and HR plans. People are the greatest asserts in any Organization. The Organization is at liberty to develop its staff at full pace in the way ideally suited to their individual capacities. The main reason is that the Organizations objectives should be aligned as near as possible, or matched, in order to give optimum scope for the developing potential of its employees. Therefore, career planning may also be referred to as HR Planning or succession planning. The questions that should concern us are: Are we making use of the available talent we have in the Organization, and have we an enough provision for the future? Are employees satisfied with our care of their growth in terms of advancing their career? Assignment of individuals to planned future posts enable the administration to ensure that these individuals may be suitably prepared in advance. Actioning of Plan There are three fundamentals necessary for this first step. Know where you are going. There must be acceptance and backing from top management for the planning. There must be knowledge of the available resources (i.e) financial, physical and human (Management and technical). Once in action, the HR Plans become Corporate plans. Having been made and concurred with top management, the plans become a part of the companys long-range plan. Failure to achieve the HR Plans due to cost, or lack of knowledge, may be a serious constraints on the long-range plan. Below is an illustration of how HR Plan is linked to corporate Plan. The link between HR Plan and Strategic Management STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT -> HR PLANNING Æ’Â   STRATEGIC PLAN Organizational goals Values Organizational goals Strong and weak parts Mission Strong weak points Opportunities and threats Goals and Priorities Opportunities threats Sources of Competitive advantage Resource Allocations Source of Competitive advantage Identify People related matters Define HR strategies, Implement Hr Processes Goals plans Policy Practices HUMAN RESOURCES PLANNING Bohlander et as (2001) Monitoring and Control. This is the last stage of HR planning in the Organization. Once the programme has been accepted and implementation launched, it has to be controlled. HR department has to make a follow up to see what is happening in terms of the available resources. The idea is to make sure that we make use of all the available talents that are at our disposal failure of which we continue to struggle to get to the top. Do you have an HR Plan in action? Let us all check where we are working and see whether there is really a Human Resource Plan. If its not available, let use try to develop one and you would see how you will make a difference. It is quite true that HR plan is the basis of Human Resources Management. If we do not know how to develop it, then we are not doing an services to our Organizations and our impact will not be felt in the management pool. Human resource planning has traditionally been used by organizations to ensure that the right person is in the right job at the right time. Under past conditions of relative environmental certainty and stability, human resource planning focused on the short term and was dictated largely by line management concerns. Increasing environmental instability, demographic shifts, changes in technology, and heightened international competition are changing the need for and the nature of human resource planning in leading organizations. Planning is increasingly the product of the interaction between line management and planners. In addition, organizations are realizing that in order to adequately address human resource concerns, they must develop long-term as well as shortterm solutions. As human resource planners involve themselves in more programs to serve the needs of the business, and even influence the direction of the business, they face new and increased responsibilities and challenges. In an early treatment of the topic, Vetter (1967) defined human resource planning as the process by which management determines how the organization should move from its current manpower position to its desired position. Through planning, management strives to have the right number and the right kinds of people, at the right places, at the right time, doing things which result in both the organization and the individual receiving maximum long-run benefits. (p. 15) Contemporary human resource planning occurs within the broad context of organizational and strategic business planning. It involves forecasting the organizations future human resource needs and planning for how those needs will be met. It includes establishing objectives and then developing and implementing programs (staffing, appraising, compensating, and training) to ensure that people are available with the appropriate characteristics and skills when and where the organization needs them. It may also involve developing and implementing programs to improve employee performance or to increase employee satisfaction and involvement in order to boost organizational productivity, quality, or innovation (Mills, 1 985b). Finally, human resource planning includes gathering data that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of ongoing programs and inform planners when revisions i n their forecasts and programs are needed. Because a major objective of planning is facilitating February 1990 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ American Psychologist Copyright 1990 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003.066X/90/$00.75 Vol. 45, No. 2, 223-239 Human Resource Planning Challenges for Industrial/Organizational Psychologists Susan E. Jackson and Randall S. Schuler New York University an organizations effectiveness, it must be integrated with the organizations short-term and longer term business objectives and plans. Increasingly this is being done in leading organizations, although in the past business needs usually defined personnel needs and human resource planning, which meant that planning became a reactive process. The reactive nature of the process went handin-hand with a short-term orientation. Now, major changes in business, economic, and social environments are creating uncertainties that are forcing organizations to integrate business planning with human resource planning and to adopt a longer term perspective. For example, according to Kathryn Connors, vice president of human resources at Liz Claiborne, Human resources is part of the strategic (business) planning process. Its part of policy development, line extension planning and the merger and acquisition processes. Little is done-in the company that doesnt involve us in the planning, policy or finalization stages of any deal. (cited in Lawrence, 1989, p. 70) John OBrien, vice president of human resources at Digital Equipment Corporation, describes an integrated linkage between business and human resource plans as one by which human resource and line managers work jointly to develop business plans and determine human resource needs, analyze the work force profile in terms of future business strategies, review emerging human resource issues, and develop programs to address the issues and support the business plans. According to OBrien, such joint efforts occur when human resource planners convince corporate business planners that human resources HRM is the legal liason between the organization and the employees,they are to uphold the employment and safety laws (osha, and civil rights act) as well as follow the practices, which may differ within federal guidelines, that the employer authorizes. Corporations are always searching for better ways to produce goods and services. When new technological developments give some organizations a competitive advantage, their rivals try to catch up by adopting and improving on the new technologies. Ford has put many of Toyotas technical advances to work in its own plants, and General Motors has spent over $50 billion in the last decade to modernize its production facilities to develop skills in flexible manufacturing. A large part of this growth is the Human Resources department of these companies, who are responsible for hiring the people with the knowledge to bring new technology into a company. To be successful in the automotive market, these companies needs a highly skilled, flexible and committed work force, a flexible and innovative management, the ability to retain developed talent, and a strong partnership between management and labor unions. To achieve these goals, the company needs a talented HR department. Besides hiring the right people to manage and perform specific jobs, HR managers have to build up commitment and loyalty among the workforce by keeping them up to date about company plans, and laying out the implications for job security and working conditions. Such was the case when I worked at Velco. From the interview process to my exit interview at the end of the summer, the HR department was every employees main connection between the production floor and the upper management. The HR department kept us informed via bi-weekly meetings, a company newsletter, and bulletin-board postings throughout the plant. Whenever a question arose, instead of asking middle-management, an employee could go straight to the HR rep they were assigned to. From my experiences, it seemed like the HR reps knew everything there was to know about the company and how it is run. And I found that to be a very valuable asset. I imagine the same takes place at large corporations around the world, be it Velcro or General Motors. The backbone of any successful company is the HR department, and without a talented group of people to hire, culture, and inform employees, the company is doomed for failure.

Willie Loman as a Tragic Hero

Aristotle’s definition for a tragic hero is one who is not in control of his own fate, but instead is ruled by the gods in one fashion or another.   The tragic hero for Aristotle is tragic because of their lack of control or will in the face of their predetermined future and downfall.   In comparing Arthur Miller’s tragic hero of Death of a Salesman (Willy Loman) and his seeming lack of control in his own fate. This paper will expound upon Loman’s tragic flaw, his change of fate in the plot starting from good and going to worse.   Also, in defining and finding the correct terms in which to define the tragic hero Loman has a great tragic flaw (hamartia) which is his devil may care attitude at the beginning of the story, to the despondency and stagnation of hope that meets him at the end of the story.   Miller’s work analysis will be derived from Greg Johnson’s book Perrine's literature : structure, sound and sense.   As Arp and Johnson state, â€Å"Where tragic protagonist possess overpowering individuality so the plays are often named after them.   (i.e. Oedipus Rex, Othella), comic protagonist tend to be types of individuals, and the plays in which they appear are often named after the type, (i.e. Moliers, The Miser, Congreves, The Double Dealer). We judge tragic protagonist by absolute moral standards, by how far they soar above society.   We judge comic protagonist by social standards, by how well they adjust to society and conform to the expectations of the group† (1308) This is the dichotomy for Willy Loman, the tragic irony, the drama, and Willy Loman’s protagonist stance in a comic viewing. As John Jones (1962) states in On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy with an excerpt from Aristotle’s The Ideal Tragic Hero, â€Å"The well constructed plot must, therefore, have a single issue, and not (as some maintain) a double. The change of fortune must not be from bad to good but the other way round, from good to bad; and it must be caused, not by wickedness, but by some great error [hamartia] on the part of a man such as we have described, or of one better, not worse, than that† (13). This excerpt is the pivotal movement that changes Loman from a man who has hard luck, to the pinnacle of being a tragic hero in which he suffers from hamartia.   For Willy Loman, his reality isn’t primarily attributed to ego; he knows where he is, what he is, but his tragic flaw is accounted for in the pitfall of banal acceptance.   Willy Loman doesn’t try to change anything, but is caught up in mediocrity, and essentially blind to anything with a silver lining. As Harold Bloom (1991) writes in Willy Loman with an excerpt by Thomas Lask and his writing How Do You Like Willy Loman (New York Times, January 1966), â€Å"Yet, to my mind, Willy represents all those who are trapped by false values, but who are so far on in life, that they do not know how to escape them. They are men on the wrong track and know it. They are among those who, when young, felt they could move mountains and now do not even see those mountains. Aristotle said the tragic hero must be neither all good nor all evil, but rather a median figure. Everything about him is paltry except his battle to understand and escape from the pit he has dug for himself. In this battle he achieves a measure of greatness. In the waste of his life, his fate touches us all† (60). In Willy’s acceptance of his own commonness is his own personal flaw.   He doesn’t strive to be any better but allows himself to dully, and almost dutifully accept that he’s a dime a dozen.   Susan C. W. Abbotson (1999) states in Understanding Death of a Salesman, â€Å"Pursuing the dream of middle-class status and success, Willy does everything he thinks a good salesman is supposed to do. He smiles, he tells jokes, he hustles women receptionists. But Willy's talents are ordinary at best, and his value in the market is marginal† (212).   This is Willy’s great error. His mediocrity is a compromise to his once great dreams.   Even in the common man’s world he doesn’t stand out as unique or special; his flaw is in his power to be invisible.   No one seems to care in his existence and for Willy Loman, this realization in turn makes him not care about his own existence in a way, toward the end of the play at least, when his hope is close to banished.   This small sentiment can be found in a few muttered lines from Willy, â€Å"I’ve always tried to think otherwise, I guess.   I always felt that if a man was impressive, and well like, that nothing-â€Å"(97).   This sums up Loman’s fate; his drowning enthusiasm pitted against an uncaring cast of characters. With Oedipus this is the same; his tragic hero status is ensured by his unwillingness to exist as a partial man; without knowing his origins, without knowing his true identity.   While Loman is realizing that he has no identity he thus becomes a tragic hero, for Oedipus when he discovers his true identity, therein lies his status as a tragic hero.   He realizes his ego got in the way of his life.   His ego was his ruin. Willy Loman’s view of the world breaks when he loses his job.   Loman faces the world as no ordinary common man but also an invisible entity left to make no difference on the face of the earth while Oedipus is bereaved of his position and would rather not have lived (or seen what he had accomplished) because of the things he has done.   As Arthur Miller states in Perrine’s Literature, â€Å"Whoever heard of a Hastings small R refrigerator? Once in my life I would like to own, something outright before its broken! I’m always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying for the car and it’s on its last legs.   The refrigerator consumes belts like a Goddamn maniac.   They time those things.   They time them so when you finally paid for them they’re used up† (1586). This is the truth behind the tragic hero Loman.  Ã‚   The paradox for Loman as a tragic hero is in Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero; he’s doomed to failure. In conclusion, Loman began his story with an aplomb of luck, or ego, or a rosy view of the world, and his story ends with destruction:   Loman is hit by a car.   The connotation here is that Loman was blind in the beginning of Miller’s play, but not really in the second act.   Loman has dwindling faith in himself and reality.   Loman survived in life under false pretences, thus he suffers from his one flaw; blindness. Works Cited Arp, Thomas R & Greg Johnson.   Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense.   Heinle & Heinle /Thomson Learning, 2002, 8th edition. Bloom, Harold,   ed.   Willy Loman. New York: Chelsea House, 1991. Hamilton, Victoria. Narcissus and Oedipus: The Children of Psychoanalysis. London: Karnac Books, 1993 Jones, John. On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. Miller, Arthur.   Death of a Salesman.   Penguin Books, New York, 1949. Murphy, Brenda, and Susan C. W. Abbotson. Understanding Death of a Salesman A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Sophocles.   Oedipus the King. Oedipus at Colonus.   Antigone.   Ed. David Greene and Richmond Lattimore.   Random House, New York, 1942.

Millennials Future Essay

Lets face it the way Americas economy is looking right now the job market is in the dumpster. Millennials are working harder then ever to try and stand out from the rest of their peers so they can land a good job to support them on their own. This is putting millennials in between a rock and a hard place. In these day and age it’s almost required to have a college degree to have any chance of landing a good job to support you on your own. But these degrees come at a price and as the job market is failing and loans are pilling up on are college graduates. This bad economy is crushing the millennial generation and their futures. Millennials also know as generation Y, are people born from 1980s to the 2000s. They’re the first generation to be raised using digital technology, social media, and mass media. People born in this generation are now college students, and college graduates that are struggling in this tough economy. The millennial generation has limitless information at the tip of there fingers. Millennial are â€Å"always connected† with social networks like facebook and twitter they always know what friends are doing. People have said millennials are parent dependent and don’t know what reasonability is, which I think could go either way. Some millennials are very parent dependent but I see others very independent going to school and working without the guidance of parents. Its unfair to generalize millenials as slackers that don’t know how to work for something, it all depend on the person. Previous generations were able to go colleges get a degree and start working and living on their own immediately after graduation. â€Å"Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independent, marriage and children.† (Hymowitz 477). â€Å"In 1970, just 16 percent of Americans ages 25 to 29 had never been married: today that’s true of an astonishing 55 percent of the age group.† (Hymowitz 477). The way millennials are living there lives are different from other generations most because aren’t thinking about marriage or kids there more focused on there finical future. Millennials could be one of the first generations that will not achieve the same stander  of living that their parents did. Read more: Speech About Millennial Generation During this bad economy I believe the main thing crushing the millennial generation is the education system and student loans. The Institute for College Access & Success says that the average borrower from student loans owes about 27,000 dollars upon graduation. So when millennials graduate they already are in debt 27,000 dollars with interest rates. With the decrease in jobs millennials are graduating with this debt and no way to pay it back. â€Å"Research shows that young people who graduate from college in a dismal economy typically suffer long-term consequences, with effects on their careers and earnings which linger for about 15 years.†(Demirdjian). Some colleges are starting to be run like businesses, which is really destroying America’s education system. For-profit colleges like university of phoenix spend 20 to 25 percent on advertising and 10 to 20 percent on teaching. Which means their spending more money to try and get you to the college then, the service th ey are providing you. These for-profit schools attract millennials because of there flexible class schedule, online classes, and easy enrollment. But the debt load in student loans for for-profit colleges are nearly double the average debt, for-profit schools have graduation debts that about 32,000 dollars with interest rates. For-profit students are only 10% of are student population but they use 25% federal finical aid and they default 47% of student loans in America, which is from Senator Tom Harkin report. â€Å"The report finds that 62.9 percent of students who enrolled in an associate degree program at a for-profit college in the 2008-09 school year left before earning a degree, and that the median student lasted only four months.†(Haynes). They are killing the value of and education and millennials are paying the price. Millennials are going to suffer the worse from the economy. Millennials were told there hold life education was key to succeed and now it’s failing them. After gradation millennials are stuck dragging around these loans for years. Even if the economy does turn around to many millennials are already in debt over their heads. Millennials are going to have to work harder than ever to land good jobs but, I do see millennials succeeding later in their lives when the economy turns around because of the hard work ethic they are learning in there early adulthood years. Works Cited Hayes, Dianne. â€Å"The for-Profit Conundrum.† Diverse Issues in Higher Education 29.14 (2012): 10-1. Ethnic NewsWatch. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. Z, S. Demirdjian. â€Å"The Millennial Generation’s Mindset: Susceptibility to Economic Crisis.† The Business Review, Cambridge 19.2 (2012): 2,I,II. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. Hymowitz, Kay S. â€Å"Where Have the Good Men Gone.† Wall Street Journal (February 19, 2011): 477-81. Print.

The Pearl Quotes Explained

The  Pearl  by John Steinbeck is a novel about an impoverished young diver, Kino, who finds a pearl of extraordinary beauty and value. Hardly believing his luck, Kino believes the pearl will bring his family fortune and fulfill his dreams of a better future. But as the old adage goes, be careful of what you wish for. In the end, the pearl unleashes tragedy on Kino and his family. Here are quotes from The Pearl  that illustrate Kinos rising hope, overreached ambition, and, finally, destructive greed. The Pearl Quotes Analyzed And, as with all retold tales that are in peoples hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between. If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it. Found within the prologue, this quote reveals how The Pearls plot is not entirely original to Steinbeck. In fact, it is a known story that is often told, perhaps like a folk legend. And as with most parables, there is a moral to this story.   When Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with satisfaction—and that was conversation. From Chapter 1, these words paint Kino, the main character, and Juanas lifestyle as unembellished and quiet. This scene depicts Kino as simple and wholesome before he discovers the pearl.   But the pearls were accidents, and the finding of one was luck, a little pat on the back by God or the gods both. Kino is diving for pearls in Chapter 2. The act of finding pearls represents the notion that events in life are not actually up to man, but rather chance or a higher power.   Luck, you see, brings bitter friends. These ominous words in Chapter 3 spoken by Kinos neighbors foreshadow how the discovery of the pearl can harbor a troublesome future.   For his dream of the future was real and never to be destroyed, and he had said, I will go, and that made a real thing too. To determine to go and to say it was to be halfway there. Unlike the deference to the gods and chance in an earlier quote, this quote from Chapter 4 shows how Kino is now taking, or at least trying to take, full control of his future. This raises the question: is it chance or self-agency that determines ones life? This pearl has become my soul... If I give it up, I shall lose my soul. Kino utters these words in Chapter 5, revealing how he is consumed by the pearl and the materiality and greed it represents.   And then Kinos brain cleared from its red concentration and he knew the sound—the keening, moaning, rising hysterical cry from the little cave in the side of the stone mountain, the cry of death. This quote in Chapter 6 describes the climax of the book and reveals what the pearl has wrought for Kino and his family.   And the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared. Kino finally escapes the siren call of the pearl, but what does it take for him to change?