HR Planning

World-class aspirant organisations need to assess how effective they have been in developing the potential of their people, top to bottom

Employees are not simply cost factors to be minimised. This strong conviction underlies the Malcolm Baldrige process, as well as the European Quality Award process and the IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award (IMC RBNQA) process. Just like investment capital, human capital - the people who work in an organisation - must be managed in a way that maximises its benefit to the organisation.

World-class aspirant organisations need to assess how effective their organisation has been in developing the potential of their people, top to bottom, and across all categories of employees. The first issue to address here is how your organisation’s various human resource goals and plans relate to the overall quality initiatives outlined in the strategic quality plan. A word of caution: strategic planning should drive the human resource strategy, and not vice-versa.

As with most plans, human resource plans and priorities must retain some elasticity, as trends and conditions change. Worker expectations are not set in concrete. New technologies are ushered in without warning. Workforce demographics fluctuate considerably from one year to the next. To cope with this endless swirl of change, a human resource plan must be flexible and fleet of foot.

Imagine, for instance, that your company has set for itself the goals of creating a fully empowered workforce and a state-of-the-art performance evaluation-and-recognition system as means to attain the vision of becoming the employer of choice in your markets. Your company knows, however, it must first lay the groundwork. Accordingly, it kicks off its initiative by teaching workers basic quality concepts, underscoring the principle of customer satisfaction. So the effort is underway. Now the company installs a suggestion system and is tracking its use and setting goals for a number of ideas submitted and implemented. It trains workers in problem solving skills and team dynamics. Some workers receive advanced courses in statistical process control while others are given instruction in team building and the seven basic statistical tools.

Two years later, this programme is still doing well. Eventually, according to your plan, workers will be given even greater decision-making authority and the compensation system will be restructured. based on recommendations of a team looking into performance evaluation. The new evaluation system will recognise team and individual contributions. This is the kind of detail and linkage among systems that the Baldrige, EQA and Bajaj framework is seeking in human resource plans.

Is this unreal? Vikram Cement, HDFC and Infosys, who have won the IMC Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award for the past three years, can be benchmarked for human resource planning.

CRITERION 5. HUMAN RESURCE FOCUS (100 POINTS)
The Human Resource Focus criterion examines how the work force is enabled to develop and utilise its full potential, aligned with the Company’s  performance objectives. Also examined are the company’s efforts to build and maintain an environment conducive to performance excellence, full participation, and personal and organisational growth.

Criterion Parts

Evidence is needed of:

5.1 Human Resource Planning and Evaluation (25 points)
Describe how the company’s human resource planning and evaluation are aligned with its strategic and business plans and address the development and well-being of the entire workforce.

Suggested areas to address include how:

• human resource plans and strategies are determined based upon long- and short-term quality and operational performance goals of the organisation
• specific goals and plans are prepared for educating, training and empowering employees
• specific goals and plans are prepared for improving mobility, flexibility, and workforce organisation
• specific goals and plans are prepared for improving reward, recognition, compensation, and benefits
• specific goals and plans are prepared for improving recruiting and selection
• employee related data are reported in a systematic and easy-to-understand manner
• employee related data are periodically analysed to identify causes of problems or deviations from standards
• employee satisfaction factors are used to reduce adverse indicators of employee morale