What is human resource planning?
Human resource planning (HRP) in construction is the process of planning ahead to ensure that the human resource requirements of the organization are able to meet the demand of the project pipeline. HRP also ensures the best-fit employees are being assigned to the right projects at the right time and helps to optimize capacity planning by avoiding workforce shortages or surpluses.
Human resource planning is essentially responsible for identifying the workforce requirements for a contractor to meet organizational goals. While the major aspects of strategic human resource planning revolve around workforce supply and project demand, HRP is also tasked with tracking team member skills/experience and nurturing career development.
Challenges addressed by strategic human resource planning professionals
FINDING THE RIGHT EMPLOYEES TO FILL SKILL GAPS
Human resource planning processes include, among many things, identifying the right employees to fill skill gaps that are preventing your organization from hitting its goals. This process helps to ensure your company is right-sized at the right time and can include:
- Key performance indicators (KPI) – KPIs determine how a team member is or isn’t contributing to the organization. Using KPIs can help to identify any competency gaps in the workplace.
- Employee assessments – Regularly evaluating your team members will help to understand individual career progression, which can help identify who is ready to take on new challenges.
- Performance benchmarks – This is the process of benchmarking the performance of your highest-performing team members. This benchmark can then be used as a template to better understand which team members are operating at a high level and might be ready for the next step in their careers.
For insight into using your data to reduce skill gaps, read this article.
INCENTIVIZING EXISTING EMPLOYEES
Incentive programs can help to keep your team engaged with not only company goals but also individual career development. The challenging part is deciding which incentives will work best for your team. Incentives can have a significant impact on your work culture and like any other programs, should be tracked for success. Some incentives you may want to consider include:
- Perfect attendance bonus – Ex. $600 for every six months of perfect attendance. This is an easy incentive program that keeps team members working and happy they get to line their pockets every six months.
- Unlimited sick days – Let’s face it, most employees would rather be at work than sick at home. Give your team the time they need to recover without feeling like their job is on the line.
- Recognizing work anniversaries – This is a very simple way to make your team feel appreciated. This helps foster a culture of comradery as senior team members are recognized for their contributions and the new team members have something to strive for.
These are just a few simple incentives that can help keep your team engaged with their work. If you’re wondering why you can’t just pay your team members more, keep in mind that payroll is taxed twice. By using incentives, managers and owners can write them off as necessary business expenses, get more bang for their buck, and pass that on to their employees.
DEALING WITH INTERPERSONAL CONFLICTS
The human resource planning team has the responsibility of developing and implementing workplace conflict policies and procedures. They will also be responsible for creating and managing team members through conflict-resolution programs.
Most HRP professionals will have gone through conflict-resolution training throughout their professional development and are capable of either conducting training or sourcing external training resources for managers and supervisors. HRP should initiate employee communications and be able to track the effectiveness and cost of their conflict-resolution program.
Some examples of workplace conflict include:
- Inappropriate workplace behaviors
- Undefined roles in the workplace
- Poor communication
- Mismanaged organizational changes
TERMINATING EMPLOYEES
One of the human resource planning processes is terminating employees. While this is typically a negative experience for everyone involved, HR should play a significant role in every termination. HRP professionals can help influence the process and help guide the conversation to eliminate potential damage to the employee as well as the company.
HRP is involved in the process to ensure company policies and procedures are followed and that all actions conform to legal guidelines. However, it’s likely that a high-performing human resource planning team will be involved much earlier in the process and will have proactive training for managers and employees to provide guidance and training to avoid a termination altogether.
Steps involved in the typical human resource planning process
EVALUATING THE COMPANY’S OBJECTIVES
Strategic human resource planning should have an in-depth understanding of organizational goals and where the company expects to be in the next 1-5 years or more. With this information, HRP can develop strategies to be successful with the current workforce and identify any skill gaps that could negatively impact your project outcomes.
Company goals will also help to inform a more effective training process for new hires. Once your human resource planning team identifies the capabilities required by the organization, they can define and create comprehensive training strategies for new employees. They can also develop workshops and seminars for existing team members to ensure that everyone is informed of company goals/objectives and how the company plans on hitting those goals.
EVALUATING THE CURRENT WORKFORCE
Evaluating the current workforce involves creating a profile of the current workforce that includes staff performance levels, demographics, and competencies. This profile can exist at both a company level as well as an individual profile for each team member.
Once you have created your profiles, you can begin to establish measurable metrics related to your company strategies. These metrics can be used for further evaluations to track improvements over time and can include (but are not limited to):
- The quality of work and performance of new hires
- Defining the link between individual improvements and the overall company performance
- Key positions filled by internal team members that have participated in training or development programs
FORECASTING LABOR NEEDS
Forecasting labor needs is the process of projecting what human resources will be needed to meet a contractor strategic goals. This will include having an understanding of the projects that will need to be staffed in the upcoming period as well as how many staff will be required to hit company goals. Strategic human resource planning will also use workforce utilization insights to identify skill gaps that need to be addressed with further training or external recruitment.
High level forecasting will also include understanding external forces that may affect your resource strategy. For example, how the construction community is expected to change in the coming months/years and understanding how the economy will affect future recruitment efforts.
CREATING AN ACTION PLAN TO ENSURE THE COMPANY’S WORKFORCE MEETS FUTURE LABOR DEMANDS
Thanks to their forecasting efforts, human resource professionals can clearly see how many people they’ll be needing to hire and for which positions. The resulting action plan should align with company goals and objectives to ensure you have the right people in place and clearly define:
- Which positions need to be filled – This will include an overview and detailed description of all the positions that need to be filled, including:
- Responsibilities
- Department
- Functions
- Timeline for when the position needs to be filled
- Define the ideal candidate – Here you’ll outline a profile for the best-fit candidate including (but not limited to):
- Education level
- Experience level
- Required skill sets and certifications
A HRP action plan should also determine compensation/benefits, performance review processes, and training programs for existing team members. It’s also important that an action plan link back to your company’s strategic goals and objectives.
IMPLEMENTING THE ACTION PLAN
Implementing an action plan can be broken down into a few key steps:
- Align with business needs – Business strategies will likely be focused on external goals and driving revenue. HR needs to align with company goals to ensure it has the resources needed to hit those goals.
- Communicate to stakeholders – When new initiatives are being implemented, informative and concise communication will help the larger team welcome the change. Start with leadership and management teams to garner buy in. This will help resolve any challenges with their support.
- Promote collaboration – When teams have contributed to HR efforts it can have a significant, positive impact on the business and workplace culture.
CONTINUALLY REVIEWING AND ADJUSTING THE COMPANY’S WORKFORCE PLAN
A great action plan can fall short if it isn’t being put into practice. Creating an action plan and making changes when necessary is a crucial step in making it a valuable asset for the business. An action plan should be a living, breathing document that evolves with the organization.
The best action plans will also discuss what success means in specific, measurable terms. Rather than “meet the recruitment needs,” goals should be discussed in a way that clearly defines how successful the plan was. For example, “based on forecasting data, hire five project managers and three engineers to meet this year’s project demand.”
It can be difficult to create an entire plan for the year/quarter ahead. HR professionals should expect their plans to be iterative and be willing to adapt their goals and metrics. You may wind up hiring too many people, so it’s important to understand how that happened based on the data at your disposal in relation to the action plan. By monitoring successes and errors it helps keep the plan adaptive.
