This is an academic paper on the external factors which influence human resource planning.
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Introduction to Human Resources Planning
Human resource planning is the step by step process of identifying the current and future human resources for an organization. It serves as a link between human resource management and the overall strategic plan of an organization. This study is a systematic investigation of the external factors that influence the processes of Human Resources Planning. We formed a group of three participants and named the team Lion. In the team, we conducted our study in the Tourism Australia, a popular tourism firm in Sydney. Our main focus of the study was to investigate the possible external factors that influence the human resource function. There was a hypothesis already that external factors influence the way Human resource departments make strategic plans and that organizations do not have control over external factors. Owing to that, our team also focused on the possible ways through which the Tourism Australia was managing to mitigate external factors.
Literature Review
As it has appeared for some time, Human resource units have external influences that challenge the way they do their planning (Rothwell & Kazanas 2003, p.24). Most of the companies in Australia implement their Human resources functions through interpreted information Systems. These systems keep track of the employee history, which helps the human resources to make effective strategic plans for the employees. The external factors include changes in technology, for example, the use of information systems. There is always need for change in the information management methods; hence, data integrity has been an issue following regular data cleanups. The planning process also faces social issues related to the welfare of employees. Our team discovered that there has been an issue with skill gaps among new recruits. Tourism Australia has not been able to get a good number of experienced people in the industry. This has at times forced the human resource management department to take in middle-aged people from other companies, but this has its own repercussions; retirement. The middle age employees soon attain their retirement age and the same challenge goes on in cycles. External service providers place the company in tight schedules with heavy terms of reference, for example, Tourism Australia contributes high amounts of funds in terms of the medical insurance premium.
Analysis of the Labour Market
The labour market has been infiltrated by foreigners who are often an alternative as a result of the taxation policies in Australia. Indigenous employees seek opportunities in international organizations to evade the heavy taxation from the Australian government. Of course, by employing foreign expatriates, especially from the United States of America, Tourism Australia has to do remunerations in international rates, which impacts negatively on its annual financial budget. In addition, Australian government policies require companies to have a minimum percentage of its employees being indigenous. It is not easy to retain the employees for considerable durations owing to the fact that the external job market is dynamic and employees pursue various personal interests beyond the ability of the company to satisfy, including high salaries.
Factors Influencing Human Resources Planning
1. Social factors Affecting Human Resources Planning
One of the social factors that have appeared to affect the planning of human resources in Tourism Australia is the employment of aged staff. These staffs attain their retirement ages before the human resources department plan to recruit their replacements. This again comes with heavy responsibilities, for example, the majority of the employees come with already large families of which Tourism Australia has to pay medical insurance premiums. The other social factor is in the area of education and experience. The level of education and studies in the industry has more theoretical presentation than practical exposure (Deb 2006, p.80). The challenge has been how to get local citizens into training programs to acquire more experience. Even the attempts to train the existing employees are not fruitful enough because the external job market pulls them out of Tourism Australia with all the experience they acquired. Tourism Australia gets into a situation where it handles employee retirement processes and recruitment processes at the same time. Changes of status among employees also have implications on Tourism Australia human resources. For example, if an employee is taken in while single a time comes when he or she will marry and even have children. All these information forces the human resource department to change its planning strategies (Caruth et al 2008, p. 11).
2. Economic Factors Affecting Human Resources Planning
Whenever the government experience effects of inflation, it affects every industry and prompts necessary reviews of terms of employment. Employees, through Tourism Australia Workers Union, demand higher payments during the common bargaining agreements. The only implication of the demands is an adjustment of the annual budget beyond what had been set in the strategic planning. The government increases taxation scales which make human resource management very expensive. This has seen Tourism Australia reduce the numbers of recruitment and also doing frequent retrenchments. Our survey found out that due to the unpredictable nature of inflation, Tourism Australia human resource department has to apply for a provision for employee risk management from the finance department. This amount caters for an increase in the budgets as a result of inflation or any other uncertainties related to employees.
3. Technological Factors affecting Human Resources Planning
The dynamic work market according to Kumar (2010, p.35) requires frequent changes in the systems for managing human resource information. As employees come in and out of Tourism Australia, they raise the need for data updates in the management information system. This is an added task that is not easy for human resource department to plan for. The Lion team found out that there are possible delays in doing data amendments due to the rising frequencies of employee exits. Any slight delay in data updates has been detrimental to the human resources and the payroll department, because of inconsistent information processing and reporting. This is a risk in the sense that the payroll can possibly remit salaries to non-existent employees. Again as Americans increasingly penetrate the Australian job market, Canzer (2006, p.40) argues that there is a need for more advanced technologies to match the standards of the USA. Our study discovered that even though this is not a government policy, Tourism Australia has had to acquire its information systems from an American vendor firm. The issue with information management also affects job grading promotions and change of biodata status.
How Tourism Australia has dealt with the factors
Tourism Australia has had struggles in balancing its core business objectives with the human resource planning issues for a number of years especially between 2010 and 2012 where it experienced serious effects of the global financial depression. One of the ways it has reacted to the situations with regards to the economic issues is to reduce the number of employees joining the workers union. Tourism Australia has a policy that any employee in the grade of management does not have to join the workers union. It means whenever the common bargaining contract is under negotiation, its impact is less in the human resource department. About social factors, Tourism Australia has set a provision for any uncertainties in terms of financial risk management, and for managing the good fare of the employees. Our team also confirmed that tourism Australia does periodic data check to ensure consistency of demographic information in the Human Resources management Information system database. It, however, found no method in dealing with government policies since the only option left is to comply with them to avoid penalties. Economic factors are very challenging, added to the fact that they are unpredictable. Whenever there is a rise in inflation, Tourism Australia reduces the frequencies of employing new staff. This has been of great impact in managing operating cost within the desired threshold. It has always avoided retrenching existing employees due to the possibility of triggering chaotic situations from the workers union industrial movements. Human resource management considers this as a bad reputation to an equal opportunity employer.
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References
Canzer, B. 2006. E-Business: Strategic Thinking and Practice, New York: Cengage Learning, p.34-40.
Caruth, D. L., Caruth, G.D & Pane, S.S. 2008. Staffing the Contemporary Organization: A Guide to Planning, Recruiting, and Selecting for Human Resource Professionals Third Edition:A Guide to Planning, Recruiting and Selecting for Human Resource Professionals Third Edition, New York: ABC-CLIO, p. 11.
Deb, T. 2006. Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management, New Delhi, India: Atlantic Publishers & Dist, p. 80.
Kumar, R. 2010. Human Resource Management: Strategic Analysis Text and Cases, Uttar Pradesh, India: I. K. International Pvt Ltd, p.19-35.
Rothwell, W. J. & Kazanas, H. C. 2003. Planning & Managing Human Resources: Strategic Planning for Human Resources Management, London: Human Resource Development, p.24.
