What is International Human Resource Planning?
Before having a clear understanding of IHRP, let us first understand the term Human Resource Planning (HRP). As discussed in the earlier chapters, HRP is concerned with the overall and meticulous planning of human resource, the most valuable resource, of an organisation. It involves various activities, such as forecasting manpower demand and supply, searching for the right candidates or employees for a particular position, providing training, developing the skills of employees and retaining efficient employees.
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HRP focuses on providing the right employees who could perform their roles effectively and contribute to the overall growth of an organisation. The main aim of human resource planning is to prevent the situations of shortage or surplus of manpower in an organisation. This is because the shortage of human resource may hamper various organisational activities and the surplus of human resource can lead to huge costs for the organisation. Now, when we have understood the meaning of HRP, we will further discuss international human resource planning.
IHRP is a broader concept as it takes into consideration the manpower needs of an organisation in the global context. With the advent of globalisation, organisations are expanding their businesses across borders. The success of such expansion is possible if an organisation has an efficient workforce internationally. Here, the role of IHRP comes into the picture. IHRP plays a significant role in fulfilling the global workforce requirements of an organisation.
HR policies vary from one country to another as per the rules and regulations of different countries. Therefore, it is important for organisations to plan and design their HR policies in conjunction with the rules and regulations of countries in which they operate.
IHRP focuses on maintaining an efficient pool of employees in an organisation and making optimum utilisation of employees’ skills and abilities. It integrates the diversity of cultures, languages, traditions, religions, and professional ethics of people in different countries. IHRP is a continuous process as it attempts to balance the demand and supply of human resources of an organisation at the international level.
Objectives of International Human Resource Planning
IHRP deals with the procurement and development of skilled and efficient human resource for an organisation at the global level.
The following are the objectives of IHRP:
- Searching, recruiting and procuring the skilled workforce for an organisation, keeping the global perspective in mind.
- Ensuring that the organisation does not suffer from the oversupply or under supply of employees.
- Keeping a tab on the amendments that take place in the laws and policies of different countries in which the organisation has a presence.
- Mitigating cultural and regional disparities so that all employees could work towards one common objective of the organisation.
- Assessing global manpower strategies in the context of the organisation’s objectives.
- Defining the key responsibilities and skill sets of employees at various levels in the organisation.
- Taking care of the training and development of employees in the organisation in order to polish their skills and increase productivity.
- Ensuring the maximum retention of employees to avoid the extra cost to the organisation.
Scope of International Human Resource Planning
IHRP is a process of forecasting the demand for human resource and determining the ways to fulfil that demand through an adequate supply. It aims at achieving organisational goals and objectives by ensuring the right number of the right human resources at the right time.
IHRP has extensive scope as it meets the global staffing needs of an organisation. The area of expertise of IHRP is to provide skilled workforce globally as per the rules and regulations of different countries in which an organisation operates. This helps in carrying out organisational operations smoothly.
Process of International Human Resource Planning
IHRP is a continuous process, and involves various steps. It ensures the best combination between employees and their work to meet with the organisation’s objectives, while avoiding manpower shortage or surplus. IHRP is a systematic process that involves a number of steps, which are shown in Figure:
These steps are explained as follows:
Determining the Demand for Human Resource
This is the first and foremost step wherein the future human resource requirements are estimated, taking the global scenario in consideration. To estimate the demand, an organisation needs to analyse its present human resource requirements. For this, the organisation needs to determine the human resource requirements of each of its department like sales, marketing, finance, etc.
An organisation needs to take into consideration the following questions while determining its human resource requirements:
- How many employees are required?
- What should be their skill sets, education and qualifications to match the respective job profile?
- How can employees’ skills be utilised?
Estimating the Supply of Human Resource
After determining the demand for human resource, it comes to the supply of skilled and the best human resources in an organisation. Supply of human resource is not only concerned with fulfilling the demand for human resource but it also aims at providing the right employees at the right place.
Organisations generally try to fulfil human resource requirements internally as current employees are familiar with the values and objectives of an organisation. In case, internal employees do not meet the selection criteria, organisations may look for external sources.
Providing Training and Development
Organisations conduct training sessions for new hires or for existing employees promoted to higher levels to develop their skills and knowledge. Training adds value to their work and helps in boosting their morale. It is provided at different levels of an organisation as per the needs and positions of people. A comprehensive training is conducted by an organisation for new joinees especially for freshers having no prior work experience.
Ensuring Employees’ Retention
Employees are the pillars of an organisation. They ensure the success or failure of an organisation. However, employees tend to switch from one job to another to seek competitive remuneration along with attractive benefits. Thus, it is important for an organisation to take care of its employees and find out ways to retain them by offering attractive benefits like health benefits, job security, safety, timely and good increment, annual bonuses, etc.
Benefits and Limitations of International Human Resource Planning
Working and planning in a global perspective has its own advantages and benefits. There are various benefits attached to international human resource planning as it involves dealing with different kinds of employees, policies, local bodies and market.
The benefits of international human resource planning are as follows:
- It identifies the needs for human resources of an organisation for the future.
- It helps in coping with the changes that appear suddenly.
- It helps an organisation in creating and retaining skilled and talented manpower
- It helps in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation.
- It gives the organisation an exposure to global strategies and policies.
- It reduces the disparities of country, region, language, caste and religion.
- It helps in reducing the extra cost to an organisation.
There are certain limitations associated with international human resource planning. They are as follows:
- Employees are unpredictable, and can destroy the plan easily by not performing well and resigning unexpectedly.
- All employees are not the same in terms of nature and work capacity so it is difficult to make plans and policies accordingly.
- It takes time to manage the shortages and surpluses of the employees as it is quite time consuming to hire new employees and fire the old ones.
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