Human Resource (HR) planning is a critical factor in determining the success of a business. A HR plan can help you understand where your staff is currently and whether you have enough staff to handle future needs. You can identify the training that the staff may need in the future to increase their productivity or adapt to new technologies.

The HR plan should align with the organization's overall strategy. You need to know what projects the company has planned for the future to understand the human resources the organization will require to accomplish them in a cost-effective, productive, and efficient way.

1. Examine Your Organization's Current Staff Skill Set

To determine how your plan is performing, you need to establish the baseline productivity of the current situation. You'll need to review current contractors and employees and determine the training, experience, skills, cost, and productivity.

Evaluations can expose critical areas for improvement in the workplace and the reason for them, helping managers focus on areas where there's a need. The process can help you uncover unexpected opportunities and strengths, including identifying employees who can benefit from advanced training or promotion.

Regular evaluations can be a valuable tool to comprehend an organization's weaknesses and strengths and allow you to monitor the success of the implemented changes. It also allows you to react to mistakes faster and leverage success if the solutions perform better than anticipated. As you examine your current staff, pay attention to performance levels, the number of employees, benefits, positions, skills, and qualifications.

2. Predict Future Changes to Current Staff

Using your organization's strategic plan as a reference, you make predictions about future human resource needs. Evaluating the organization's current position compared with an estimate of future requirements is critical to creating a proper HR plan.

You need to identify your labor supply, classify them by type and compare that with the future demand the organization expects. The objective is to leverage the labor supply to ensure you can meet organization demand without exceeding it.

It can be challenging to predict unexpected events like a pandemic, natural disasters, or technological advancements that can affect the market. Some organizations reduce the risk by predicting demand every month in addition to predicting demand several years in advance.

The more far out the predictions are, the more risk you take in acting on them. The upside is that if your long-term predictions are correct, the organization benefits from taking action before the competition.

3. Do a Gap Analysis to Determine Staffing Needs

After completing steps 1 and 2, you can identify if there are any significant gaps. A gap analysis can lay out specific needs that can bridge the gap between the organization's current labor supply and the expected future demand. If one of the issues is the atmosphere, you might be interested in learning how to create a productive working environment for employees.

Some questions you should ask yourself when doing your gap analysis include:

• Do all employees work to their strengths in their current roles?
• Should employees learn additional skills?
• Does the organization need more managers?

4. Combine HR Plan Into Larger Organizational Strategy

Once you've completed the first three steps, you can begin implementing organizational changes. It's critical to communicate the plan with the organization's department leads, which may include potential training programs and lobbying for additional funds from senior executives. You will need to review and adjust the plan to accommodate changes in the organization's goals.

Ways to Develop and Execute Your Human Resource Plan

Human Resource professionals use technological tools to help them create, plan, and monitor the progress of their HR strategy. Here are some of the tools that they use:

Surveys

Surveying your staff is an excellent way to learn about a specific HR topic and make necessary changes. You can use SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to create your staff survey, and you might be interested in learning how to create a remote employee survey using Paperform.

You can use questionnaires to learn:

• How management feels about staff skill levels and productivity
• The types of training programs that staff are interested in
• If employees are happy with the benefits and compensation programs the organization offers
• How employees feel about the company culture, and whether they feel connected to the work environment
• The number of employees that feel the organization values them
• If employees feel there are advancement opportunities within the organization
• Weak points that can lead to a decrease in productivity or high turnover

HR Dashboards

Organizations can have a custom HR dashboard developed, or they can buy one. Software like BambooHR and Paycor Perform supports the planning process because they collect and display valuable information. Reading about the best employee attendance tracking tools for your workplace may be helpful.

Some things you can track with HR dashboards include:

• Turnover rate
• Staff satisfaction
• Staff productivity capacity
• Employee skill levels
• Internal promotions
• Engagement from job candidates

Performance Management Systems

Software like WorkForceHub and WorkZoom can help you assess employees and their performance. You can give and keep track of performance ratings over time and monitor employee improvements.

Performance management systems are helpful to the HR planning process because they allow you to see the type of success the organization can achieve by offering training or making changes in staff roles. You may be interested to learn about the best employee recognition apps and integrations.

Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS)

Monday.com and Leapsome are examples of HRIS software that combines various HR operations, summarizing hiring, enrolment, recruiting, staff turnover, productivity, and satisfaction, among other metrics. HRIS allows you to automate certain functions, such as logging employee hours and sorting through job inquiries. You can use the system to change your HR plan or measure the progress of the changes already made.

Compensation and Benefits Analysis Software

You can use software such as Zenefits or Dayforce HCM to compare salaries and benefits to popular perk options and economic trends. Using the software can be helpful in the planning process to confirm if employees are getting wages and benefits that align with the broader industry trends. You can also use the tool to improve staff satisfaction, reduce turnover, and improve productive capacity.

Looking for HR Management Tools?

There are numerous tools available that can help you plan and manage your HR responsibilities. Whether you work for a large corporation or a small business, you can find solutions to meet your budget. Successfully managing one of your most valuable resources, your staff, is a factor that can make or break an organization's success.

Whether the organization's staff works remotely or in the office, there are tools that employees can use to give you a clear picture of how they feel about the organization and their future within it. Are you familiar with Google Workspace apps that can help your HR management?