How does your business interpret internal / external staffing information Essay

An important task for the personnel department is to make sure that human resource planning is carried out. It is like marketing planning and it is planning of the overall business. If the employees within the business are used effectively then the business’s objectives are achieved. Planning of human resources will help the business to do this best. It is not only the human resources department’s responsibilities to make sure that this is carried out. It is also part of the marketing; production and finance managers’ responsibility to make sure that it is carried out. Human resource planning is often said to contain a soft and a hard side. The soft side of planning tends to include planning how to motivate and stratify workers, planning how to develop a certain a certain organizational culture or approach in employees, like good relations with customers, or quality all stages of production; and planning how to support or develop employees, like training. The hard side is concerned with quantifying the number, quality and type of employees that will be needed. It is also often known as manpower plan. It can include analyzing current employment needs, forecasting the likely future demand for employees by the business; forecasting the likely future supply of workers that will be available to hire; and predicting labour turnover, the extent to which workers leave the business. Planning can take place short term and long term. Short term planning is aimed at the immediate/present needs of the business, like the filling the vacancies left, say, and due to maternity leave. Long term planning will look at planning for the future, like if the firm was to change production, then it would need to plan the number of employees needed. The first step in manpower planning is to conduct a skills audit and assessment of an organisation’s employees. This provides a comprehensive picture of the supply of labour available to Safeway from internal sources; it examines the skills, attributes and potential of the organisation’s current employment. The audit is based on the manpower inventory, consisting of computerised personnel records on each employee covering: * Age, gender and material status * Date employment * How the employee first heard of the vacancy with the organisation * Job title * Department, section and job location * Employment status * Previous job titles within the organisation * Work experience within the organisation * Pervious work experience with other employers * Performance and attainment * Qualifications * Training and development * Potential for transfer and/ or promotion. All the information that is gathered from the manpower inventory can be analysed by Safeway not only to determine the manpower resource but it can also identify important trends that may have implications for its future labour requirements. The data that is obtained can also be used to measure and analyse, labour turnover, labour stability index, sickness and accident rates, age structure of the workforce and succession. The labour turnover ratio is used to measure the total number of employees leaving an organisation in a given period of time, which is usually a year. It is calculated in percentage terms using the formula: Labour turnover = number of employees leaving over specific period x 100 Average number of people employed The labour turnover for Safeway is: – = 15 x 100 250 Labour turnover =6% Therefore the labour turnover for Safeway is very low, where this is extremely good because it shows that only 6% actually leave within a year. A labour turnover ratio of 25% is generally considered acceptable. It’s when the rate starts to reach 30 % or more that then alarm bell start to ring. A high labour turnover rate can be indicative of a number of problems: there could be poor recruitment, with ‘wrong’ people being selected for jobs, low levels of motivation within the department, or employee dissatisfaction with unfavourable wage rates or working conditions. It may also be due to the induction process is failing and that new employees are not being made to feel comfortable. It is also important that Safeway measure the labour turnover rate to warn of potential problems, so that the management can take appropriate action. The replacing of employees can cause a lot of disruption in the efficiency; it can also create costs for recruitment and training. For Safeway to meet its manpower planning it is important that it minimises labour turnover. Another important ratio that is used, and measures, which is more suitable is the labour stability index, as the labour turnover is generally measured. The labour stability index is measured by this formula: – Labour stability = number employed with more than 12 months service x 100 Total number of staff employed one year ago The labour stability for Safeway is: – = 157 x 100 196 Labour stability = 80 The index stability represents stability because it emphasises those employees that stay rather than leave. The labour stability, which is 80, means that only 20% of workers leave, so this is a very good employment for Safeway. The aim of Safeway is to provide an excellent service to their customers. Here is a plan that can be used to make sure that this is set by Safeway and its employees, goals will be set for the behaviour of employees, like being polite to customers. This would be achieved with training being provided on customer care to employees. It is important that Safeway’s is aware of the current staff needs. In Safeway this can be done with the use of questionnaires to employees and customers, interviews with staff, performance data, discussions with managers, and recruitment or promotion information. Safeway’s can give questionnaire to customers to see whether customer service on the checkouts is good or not. If there is a problem then it should be sorted out; Safeway can do this with extra staff or more training, creating a quicker and better service for customers. I believe that at busy times more staff are required on the checkouts, as this is a occasional problem, and many customers are frustrated waiting in long queue. This is also very beneficial to employees as they will be less stressed and more motivated to meet certain goals which are set. A satisfied customer means a better reputation for the store. An introduction of bonuses based on sales will be a large motivator for staff and can also be beneficial towards the customers, as they will be gaining a better service. An important factor, which will need to taken into consideration when the forecasting new employment are the effects of new or old businesses in the area. Development of housing in the area as this will create a greater demand on the store. The methods of transportation for employees and customers to the store. This is very important because people need good transport e.g. cars, public transport to be reliable, this will lead to punctuality for employees. Also customers need easy access into the store and this is Safeway’s main priority for transport, because without this customers will not even bother coming if it’s difficult to get there. However I feel that Safeway manage to give customers easy access very well, because they also have to think about the football match days because Safeway is right near the football stadium. So on match days they don’t allow people who are not shopping to park in the Safeway car park unless they wish to pay. And local employment trends or local educational or government training schemes can make a difference in the workforce. Recruitment is a very pricey and time-consuming practise and so it is very important that Safeway implements a means of evaluating its efficiency and success. Safeway does not just determine its measure of effectiveness and success by the number of recruits that remain with the organisation over a specific period of time, even though it can be useful. Safeway evaluates every stage of its recruitment process. Safeway uses its labour turnover rate as a form of weaknesses or strengths indicator in its recruitment process. If the labour turnover rate were to be low then Safeway’s training and recruitment procedures are successfully taking place. Being able to get the recruitment procedure right can lead to considerable improvements in the organisation’s performance.