Resourcing and Talent Planning

Question 1

Labor Market Conditions in UK and China

The recent figures about labor market condition in UK demonstrate that the job market has been stable especially in the recent months. There has been significant decrease in the number of pay rolled employees in 2021 and the largest drop was experienced at the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitality sector in UK experienced the worst drop in payroll employments and the mainly affected employees are those under 25 years (Schoon, 2020). Data from the Labor Force Survey in UK indicate small quarterly drops in the unemployment rate and increased economic inactivity rates. The data also shows that the rate of employment and total hours worked have been constantly decreasing following the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions. The available job vacancies have also decreased to about 25% with sectors such as arts, entertainment, accommodation, food service industry, and recreational services greatly affected. The smaller companies experience the worst rate of job recovery following the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic (Schoon, 2020). The UK continues to experience strengthened annual growth in average employee pay following the compositional effects and decrease in proportion and number of lower paid jobs.

The previous labor market conditions in China had been benefitting the country as it was cheap to hire workers. However, the country has recently experienced various factors such as the change in demography, and labor effectiveness that slow down the economic growth. China is the first among the populated countries with about 1.41 billion people (Caliendo et al., 2019). The country experiences aging population that grows rapidly and the recent population statistics projects that the country might unavoidably experience downtrend workforce size where the working population is detrimentally shrinking by late 2022. Currently, most of job applicants in China search for jobs through the online platforms due to the increased number of white-collar workers in the country. most of companies have also maintained growth and managed the prevailing recruitment demands since most of business activities are currently done through the online (Caliendo et al., 2019). Even though new and emerging companies have experienced significant growth in recruitment, the traditional manufacturers in China experiences overcapacity and reduced demand for labor.

Significance of Tight Labor Market Conditions

Tight labor market refers to the condition where demand for labor is stronger than the supply (employers compete for workers). The situation is mostly significant for the employees since it increases their bargaining powers for wages and favorable working conditions (Gumata & Ndou, 2017). The excess demand for labor contributes to steady rise in workers’ wages once the employees have attained high bargaining power.

Significance of Loose Labor Market Conditions

Loose labor market refers to the situation when labor supply is higher than the demand and the condition is characterized by high unemployment rates. Loose labor market condition has significant effects on the staff recruitment such as increase in the number of job applicants for every job vacancy, reduced wages and increase in the number of overqualified applicants (Gumata & Ndou, 2017).

How Organizations Strategically Position themselves in Competitive Labor Markets

Organizations can strategically position themselves in the competitive labor markets by:

• Creating a working environment that inspires and soothes through careful selection of the best setting with the most interesting features of working environment.
• Providing mutually beneficial benefits, for example, investing in talent attraction and retention activities that focus on employees’ personal developments and wellbeing.
• Ironing the internal processes to remove that potential obstacles and frustrations to employees.
• Encouraging open and honest two-way feedback to enhance employees’ trust in their leaders and belief that their divergent opinions are valued.
• Forging unique organizational culture comprising of values, beliefs, and vision that help employees to effectively understand the organization’s culture and purpose.

 

Question 2

Role of Government and Employers in Ensuring that Future Skills are Met

The major role of government in ensuring that the future skills are met is to provide set of rules that governs organization’s programs of skill development. The government is also responsible for ensuring that economic stability and growth is achieved to promote provision of public goods and services. According to Cohen (2017), the skills required in any country would depend on the economic stability and needs and dictated by the labor market. The theory explains why the government should ensure economic stability and growth to ensure the future skills are met. The government can ensure that the future skills are met by supporting skills development. The other role of government in ensuring that the future skills are met is to support skills improvement of the workforce to address skills shortages in certain areas and improve labor productivity (Willis et al., 2018). The government is also responsible for planning delivery of Lifetime Skill Guarantee to reform the education system and promote training of workforce to match the already existing skill gaps in the job market.

On the other hand, employers play central role in shaping technical education to ensure that the future skills are met by ensuring that the available workforce has the required skills in the job market.  The recent study conducted by Van Berkel et al. (2017) reveal that approximately 67% of working age graduates in UK have attain the high skilled employment opportunities and about 6% of young people attain qualifications from the technical institutions at the age of 26 years old. The study also found out that approximately 35% of employees in UK have got degree or above. Therefore, employers are encouraged to design technical courses that ensures that the workforce undergoes training that meets the skill gaps. For example, employers could work alongside colleges and technical institutions to develop skills plans that would be necessary to meet the training requirements.

The government would be responsible for supporting such initiative by funding the program which would aim to address the skill gaps (Cohen, 2017). In addition, employers through their specialist HRs play significant role in identifying skills deficits while engaging learning institutions and colleges to ensure investment in people’s skills through training. Employers also invest in high-quality professional development to develop the required skills. Moreover, employers play significant roles in regular training of workers to enhance professional development and ensure that employees have acquired the emerging skills caused by technological advancements (Willis et al., 2018). For example, the current world is characterized by various technological changes that would require organizations to regularly update their skills through the regular training and educational programs for the employees. Therefore, employers play critical roles in increasing the worker’s skill level to improve productivity and economic growth. Employers also ensure sustainable talents succession planning based on the current and future needs. However, employers should always be aware of the wider skills context and policy environment in any country to ensure successful operations (Van Berkel et al., 2017). Employers also encourage conducive working practices that emphasize on skills development and enhancement to ensure that workers remain experienced and relevant depending on the future skills requirements.

Question 3

The main principles of effective workforce planning include:

• Involving the top leadership, employees and the other relevant stakeholders when developing, communicating and implementing the workforce planning strategies. Such principle would be necessary to transform organizations and meet the long-term fiscal and global challenges in the current century. Involving the top leadership and relevant stakeholders would promote systematic identification of the required skills and development of strategies that shape the available workforce (Willis et al., 2018). Involvement of all stakeholders is also necessary to create shared expectations from the process. For example, the current CEO of Apple Inc. Company says that effective workforce planning in the company is attributed to involvement of officials, team managers, senior directors, human resource managers, supervisors and staff before developing the strategic workforce plan (Gumata & Ndou, 2017).
• Determining the required skills and competencies to achieve current and future results. Organizations should consult with the key stakeholders on its strategic goals and identify the workforce skill requirements to achieve the strategic goals. The planning should also entail how the organization would obtain the requirements including the acquisition, development and retention plans. For example, Unilever develops new strategic goals for its projects and research and development after every 5 years to enhance its understanding on the workforce changes and how the organization should acquire, develop and shape the required skills (Van Berkel et al., 2017).
• Developing the required strategies to address gaps in availability, deployment, and alignment of human capital approaches to ensure sustainable skills and competencies. The principle calls for development of programs, policies and practices that would be necessary to recruit, develop and retain the critical skills for achieving the goals. Development of strategies would provide organizations with roadmap to move from the current to future workforce requirements. However, organizations should consider the available full range of flexibilities and the additional legislations to adopt such principle. For example, Unilever developed strategies for increasing the number of MBA graduates at its department of labor in 2018 which was successfully implemented in 2020 when the company started a second class training for 20 MBA fellows (Squires et al., 2017).
• Establishing the required capacity for addressing the administrative and educational gaps to support workforce strategies. The principle is necessary for the organization to recognize practices that are relevant for effective application of human capital authorities. The practices such as educating managers and employees on the availability and application of flexibilities ensure successful implementation. For example, Apple established transparency and accountability into its newly designed process of awarding employees by listing the award amounts and frequencies to enhance transparency and accountability when using such flexibilities (Cohen, 2017).
• Monitoring and evaluating the organization’s progress towards the human capital goals and the roles of human capital results on achieving the goals. Evaluation of workforce plan contributions to strategic results is instrumental in measuring the effectiveness of workforce plans and ensure realization of the intended strategic goals. The principle also improves the effectiveness of workforce planning strategies and the overall workforce planning process through identification of shortfalls in performance and incorporation of improvement opportunities in the next planning cycle. For example, KPMG evaluated the early retirement results in 2017 to design the future retirement programs that would improve the company’s staffing levels and to attain its workforce goals (Gumata & Ndou, 2017).

The various tools that may be used for workforce planning include:

• Strategic workforce planning map. The map is used to demonstrate the alignment of workforce planning activities with the organization’s picture such as organizational strategy. The map also adds value to the ability of HR policies to follow the organization’s strategy. The board of directors is responsible for setting the organization strategy by focusing on various factors such as trends in demand and supply, the already produced products and services and the existing stiff competition (Kroezen et al., 2018). This marks the first step of applying strategic workforce planning map where one determines the direction that the organization would wish to go in the next 3 to 5 years. The next step is to identify the current position of an organization in terms of quality and quantity of workforce through the use of performance-potential matrix. Workforce planning map is used to execute all the various functional HR areas such as rewards and promotions, performance management and employees’ recruitment.
• 9-Box grid. The 9-Box grid (performance-potential matrix), is used to map the employees’ performance and potential in one model. The grid maps employees in different categories such as talent risk and consistent stars. The talent risk category comprises of low performance and low potential while the consistent stars comprises of high potential and high performance (Dejaco et al., 2016). Creation of the 9-Box grid requires assessment of employees based on their performance and potential. Therefore, the tool is necessary for assessing and managing talents.
• HR dash-boarding. The tool is used to demonstrate the current workforce capabilities based on the information filled from different source systems such as payroll systems, human resource information system and applicants tracking system. The information generated is used to calculate and display the metrics.
• Compensation and benefits analysis. The results of compensation and benefit analysis provide highly structured and accurate data related to financial outcomes and the bottom line performance (Caliendo et al., 2019). The two steps of compensation and benefit analysis include setting an internal pay benchmark for severely overpaid and severely underpaid workers categories and retrieving performance data to categorize employees as either over performing or underperforming.
• Scenario planning. The tool is used to anticipate the various possible future requirement that would have severe impacts on the organization. The various scenarios may include technological innovation, natural disasters, changes in public attitude, and new legislation and government policies (Squires et al., 2017). Projecting the potential impacts of such scenarios would help the organization to develop relevant strategies to mitigate the negative impacts.

Question 4

Role of HR in the following:

• Developing the basic succession and career development plans.

HRs work closely with the upper management to play key roles in developing the succession planning process. One of the roles is to hire high quality individuals for all positions to obtain deep bench of potential candidates for succession. HRs also develop quality evaluation programs to provide timely and meaningful feedback to employees and the company for tracking history and success stories of employees in such organizations (Jnitova et al., 2017). The third role of HRs in developing succession and career development plan is to act as the catalyst in ensuring appropriate delivery of evaluation to the right supervisors in timely and professional manner while focusing on performance growth and improvement.

 

HRs are also responsible for facilitating maturation of succession candidates by forming part of the individualized management training programs to provide tailored approach for skill development. In addition, HRs evaluate and recommend appropriate compensation mechanism to ensure fast track of performance and appropriate rewarding of successful employees (Burton et al., 2018). The other role of HRs in developing succession and career development plans is to review and develop employees’ retention programs to ensure that organizations retains the best and brightest candidates. HRs also develop reporting mechanism which would be necessary for an organization to apprise upper management and candidates progress.

• Contributing to plans for downsizing an organization.
• Employees have an insatiable appetite for news and information and failing to keep them informed may alienate critical groups from the future plans of the organization. Therefore, HRs are responsible for keeping employees informed about the downsizing plans of such organizations.
• HRs are responsible for training the workforce about the restructuring programs that comprise downsizing strategies.
• Collect data. HRs mitigate the challenges of downsizing and assist the top leadership through data collection to show elements or lack of consensus. HRs also collect data and wind up with the managers to protect them from losing the bigger sight of downsizing programs.
• Provide visible and accessible leadership. CEO and top leadership are the key leaders of downsizing efforts. HRs are answerable to the questions raised by CEO and top executives concerning the downsizing strategies. Therefore, HRs enhance productivity and morale by providing knowledge, feelings of anger, and answers to fear and uncertainty.
• Ensure equity and fairness. HRs ensure equal application of the rules to ensure that executives do not emerge from downsizing unscathed in line with the workers being laid off to prevent the potential damaging effects on morale and productivity.
• Maintain a managed approach. HRs keep eye track on the management activities during downsizing for example through surveys to gauge employees’ response and ensure that the management is properly aligned to the criteria set down. Therefore, HRs provide information about the general feelings of the workforce and the occurrences in the company.
• Contributing to the development of job descriptions, person specifications and competency frameworks.

HRs are responsible for coaching and facilitating the process of updating job description, person specifications and competency frameworks. HR is the natural owner of job descriptions since job descriptions entail recruitment, succession planning, workers’ training and education and legal compliance. Therefore, HRs are in the unique position of ensuring that such elements of organizations are effectively aligned with the organization’s legal obligations (Jnitova et al., 2017). The other role of HRs involves keeping the job descriptions alive and relevant to recruitment and performance process. Moreover, HRs ensure that the job descriptions comply with the government regulations Act and Fair Labor Standards Act. HRs also review the job descriptions, person specifications and competency frameworks and put it in a language that can be easily understood by the targeted employees.

Question 5

The main legal requirements in relation to recruitment and selection include:

• The Scope of Discrimination Legislation. The Equality Act 2010 prohibits workers’ discrimination based on gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, and trade union membership.
• Job Description and Person Specification. Organizations are required to formulate the job description and person specifications at the beginning of workers’ recruitment and selection processes to ensure that the final content is clear, non-discriminatory, relevant and straightforward.
• Positive Action. Organizations are subjected to permissible actions of encouraging more people from the minority or under-represented group in the workplace to apply for work. Such permissible actions include encouraging people from the disadvantaged group.
• Adjustment for Candidates with Disabilities. Employers are obliged to consider and make reasonable adjustments for job applicants with disability.
• Employment of Young Persons. Organizations are required to comply with the laws related to recruitment of young persons and children.
• Employment Offers. Employers should state whether the job offers are conditional by highlighting the further information required.
• Carrying Out Checks on Potential Employees. Employers are required to carry out checks on employees’ health records, previous work records, qualifications and criminal records during the recruitment and selection process.
• Even though employers do not have general duty to provide references for existing and previous employees, their main role is to ensure that the references are accurate, factual and non-misleading.
• Employers have the right to access prospective employees’ criminal records for example through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) where necessary.
• Data Protection Legislation. The Data Protection Act prohibits employers from accessing the sensitive information about employees unless an individual gives free and explicit consent.

Assessment of Two Different Methods of Recruitment and Selection

The two different methods of recruitment and selection that would be assessed are; Direct advertising and Employee referrals.

• Direct Advertising. The method involves placing job adverts on the organization’s career site, social media, publications and job boards to find the applicants. Direct advertising is important because it gives exposure to employer branding and boosts the organizations reputation. However, external advertising could be expensive and failing to place the company’s ads well could lead to getting few or unsuitable applicants.
• Employee referrals. The method involves combining both internal and external recruitment whereby staffs are encouraged to refer candidates that they know for the available vacancies. The method is quick and cost effective. Moreover, employers can trust the referred candidates since employees will not refer unsuitable candidates (Jnitova et al., 2017). However, the method could lead to hard feelings while other employees might feel being isolated, especially when the candidates referred do not get hired. The method could also lead to awkward relationship between the hiring manager and employees since their referrals are important to them.

Why Workers Leave an Organization

Workers could leave an organization due to:

• Rude behaviors such as back-biting, putting blames on a particular group of employees and playing favorites and retaliations. Such behaviors make employees to feel resentful and mistreated.
• Work-life imbalance. Work-life imbalance occurs when an organization decides to downsize or restructure its workforce leading to longer working hours and employees are forced to choose between life or work.
• Jobs that do not meet the expectations. Such occurrences could lead to mistrust and employees could consider leaving an organization.
• Employee misalignment. This involves forcing an employee to fit a particular job vacancy which generates hard feelings among employees.
• Employees could also leave after feeling undervalued for example when an organization fails to recognize or reward an employee according to the job well done.
• Lack of coaching and feedback could also could also influence employees to leave an organization due to hindered workforce growth and inability to develop a successful team.
• Lack of decision making skills and employees empowerment which makes it difficult for the employees to embrace the required trust for enthusiasm and ownership pride.
• Workers could also leave an organization due to organizational instability characterized by frequent reorganizations and changing of directions that disconnect employees from the purpose of organization.
• Employees could also leave when an organization fails to have confidence in their ability and competencies that prohibit workforce growth opportunities.

On the other hand, employees might decide to remain in an organization when:

• They believe that they are part of the organization’s culture, team and environment.
• Their actions and skills are valued and trusted by the organization
• The organization appreciates and recognize the efforts
• They appreciate and respect their co-workers
• They are given a mentor who encourages them
• They have trust in their leaders
• Organizations invest in them through regular training and genuine care
• They are subjected to fair treatment

The various costs that are associated with dysfunctional employees’ turnover include:

• The costs on lost productivity due to the time between the loss of an employee and time for hiring a new employee
• The costs on lost productivity when the new employees learn the job
• The costs incurred on training
• The lost productivity when coworkers are helping new employees.
• The recruitment costs, which include advertising costs, orientation and training, severance and testing costs.
• Lost productivity when the previous employees lacked motivation prior to leaving.
• Costs associated with the loss of trade secrets.

The two approaches that could be used to retain talents are: paying employees above the labor market and providing more incentives.

Paying employees above the labor market. The approach involves paying employees more than what the market offers. The approach is significant because it enhances the motivation of employees and it is also essential for retaining of top talent in the organization. However, giving employees more pay could lead to talent bottlenecks because the overpaid employees could not go anywhere else to look for other opportunities (Dejaco et al., 2016). Overpaying certain employees could also spread resources too thin resulting to the limitation of the employer’s ability to reward other employees.

Providing more incentives. The method is important because provision of incentives to employees enhances efficiency and effectiveness of workers, resulting to increased productivity. Incentives also creates a culture of high performance in an organization and they also motivate the staff to exceed their goals. On the other hand, payment of incentives to employees does not guarantee an improved quality (Cohen, 2017). Provision of incentives to certain employees could also create conflicts in the working environment and they also demotivate low-level performers.

Question 6

I would advise my organization to apply the procedures of best practices when dismissing, or managing retirement and redundancies. Applying the procedures would help the organization to keep such dismissals professional and regulated by the laws. Proper compliance with the laws would also help the organization to protect itself against potential claims. The three steps of managing dismissals, retirement and redundancies would include conducting initial meeting, providing time for appealing, and lawfully terminating the contract. The first step of having initial meeting before termination of contract would provide opportunity for the organization to discuss issues that could have resulted to such dismissal, retirement, and redundancies with the affected employees (Kroezen et al., 2018). The meeting would also help the organization to resolve potential disagreements through respectful engagement and conversations. I would advise my organization to provide the affected employees with time to appeal preferably a five-days window period to allow the employees to express their feelings and show areas where the organization could have unfairly treated them. Having conducted initial meetings and provided employees with adequate time to appeal, I would advise the organization to terminate the contract to keep things amicable. I would also advise the organization to write reference for the next employment opportunities after terminating the contract. Even though such cases especially dismissals are difficult to handle, I would recommend the company to remain kind and considerate of employees’ feelings by following the three steps and make the process smoother.