LECTURE 2: HR PLANNING FOR ALIGNMENT AND CHANGE

Lecture 2
HR Planning for Alignment
and Change

PREPARED BY:
MS.KOMLAVATHI
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MARKETING
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LECTURE 2: HR PLANNING FOR ALIGNMENT AND CHANGE

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of this chapter, students will be able to:

• Explain the strategic importance of HR Planning for Alignment and Change.

• Describe a planning process for aligning human resources and the business.

• Discuss how to scan and assess the environment.

• Give examples of several possible HR objectives and metrics.

• Explain how to develop HR plans and timetables.

• Describe how to implement HR action plans.

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TOPIC OUTLINES
The strategic importance of HR Planning for Alignment and Change
Overview of the HR Planning and Change Process
Scanning and Assessing the external and Organizational Environments.
Determining HR Objectives and Metrics
Developing HR Plans and Timetables
Implementing HR Action Plans and Facilitating Change

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2.0 The strategic importance of HR Planning for Alignment and Change

Importance of alignment
Alignment means repositioning, and when there is need to do so, it is to enable the
company to be competitive in the industry

• Vertical
HRM system fits with all other elements of organizational environment; culture,
strategy, structure

• Horizontal
HR policies and practices are consistent with each other so that they present a
coherent message to employees concerning how they should behave while at
work

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Types of organizational change

1. Degree of change
 if there is major adjustment in ways they do business, usually create the
need for radical change; ABC Ltd. Become XYZ Ltd, usually takes long
time and does not happen all the time
 If there is an going process of evolution, not drastic, then this is known as
incremental change, as small changes occur routinely; change uniform
color from red to black

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HR Plan – Alignment & Change

2. Timing of change
 reactive change occurs when it is forced to change in response to an
event, external or organizational environment; new moves from
competitors, new discovery, performance problems; MTV becomes
MTVASIA to become localized.

 Anticipatory change occurs when an organization taken action in

anticipation of upcoming event; different designs of the MTV logo.

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Learning Organizations
Continually finds new ways to satisfy customers and other stakeholders by skillfully
integrating the resources of information, technology and people to produce and then
effectively use new knowledge.

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2.1 Overview of the HR Planning and Change Process

Elements of HR Planning
1. Scanning and assessing the environment
2. Specifying the objectives to be achieved by HR activities, along with the
measures to be used to assess the achievement of those objectives
3. Developing specific plans for HR policies and practices along with timetables
for implementing the plans.

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How Well Is HR Planning Linked to

Strategic Business Planning?
(Responses from 1,277 HR Professionals)

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Who Participates in the Development, Review,

and Approval of Strategic Business Plans?

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Scanning
• looks into the economics and political situation of the country
• look into the organizational analysis, an assessment of external and internal
environment
• (1)forecast on HR needs to determine/estimate the firm’s future HR needs;
skills, supply, competencies; (2)forecast on estimates of current and projected
productivity levels, market demand, sales, current staffing, mobility; (3)forecast
on business growth/decline.
• Organizational analysis an assessment of the external and internal environment
to understand the current environment before taking action.
• Employee opinions using surveys, focus groups, employee involved in
developing plans to gain valuable insights on HR needs.

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Changing Age Demographics of the U.S. Population

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Determining Objectives and metrics

1. must be tied to strategic business goals

• help focus attention into anticipated growth/decline, new competencies if any,
increase productivity levels

2. metrics must be well aligned to specifics

• metrics developed to suit needs, systems or formula to calculate risks and ROI

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Developing HR Plans and timetables

1. considering alternatives of ‘what if’ scenarios
• layoffs: may not be best solution but could be the easiest way out if want
to cut costs
• reducing turnover: ‘make’ top performers leave to reduce costs
• outsourcing: work that performed inside the company being contracted
out to another company, reduce possibility of liability to incur extra
overhead costs
• offshoring: bear own duties but moves work to another country; Levi’s
move from US to china for lower wage workers
• other alternatives: internal transfer, having employees rotate around other
sister companies to take over vacancies but share jobs, restricted
overtime, giving early retirement schemes, partnering with government to
find jobs for displaced employees

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2. A complete HR plan needs to include:

• staffing plans
• talent management plans
• training plans
• leadership development plans

3. Timetable is crucial to determine the scope and time length taken for the
change to take place/effect for
• developing talents,
• Layoffs and plant closings

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4. Implementing Plan, Facilitating changes

• To improve effectiveness of implementation, it can include:
• involve the employees in the process
• establish the need for accountability; specify objectives on why change is
needed
• managing resistance to change; fear from insecurity, misunderstandings
arise due to misinformation, cynicism in regards of control
• showing respect in difficult times; to understand the justification of change
and try to explain to the affected employees, cannot avoid the negative
reactions but try to smooth things out
• review, revise, refocus; evaluates the success of change and if necessary
change accordingly to objectives and employee feedback

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Key Terms

Anticipatory change Offshoring

Horizontal alignment Organizational analysis
Human resource ROI expense ratio Outsourcing
Human resource forecast Radical change
Human resource metrics Reactive change
Human resource objectives Succession planning
Human resource planning Talent pool
Incremental change Timetables
Learning organization Vertical alignment

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