Managing Personnel Records - International Records Management ...

HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING
Logically, if not always in practice, personnel management begins with human
resource planning. Human resource planning attempts to analyse likely influences on
the supply of and demand for people, with a view to maximising the organisation’s
future performance. Planning for people in organisations involves ensuring that the
organisation has
? the right people
? in the right numbers
? with the right knowledge, skills and experience
? in the right jobs
? in the right place
? at the right time
? at the right cost.
Both the quantity of staff and their quality are important issues.
Human resource planning may be undertaken at a global, ministry, departmental or
lower level, or not at all. The users of human resource planning are not just the
planners themselves but also the senior management of the organisation, including the
head of personnel. Their objective is to produce a better fit between the current levels
and skills of staff and the plan’s projections.
To carry out the human resource planning process, it is necessary to obtain certain key
facts about staffing in the organisation. These facts include grade, occupational
group, job type, title or department, contract of employment, sex, age, length of
service, skills and educational levels, knowledge and expertise, language, ethnic
origin, nationality and disability. Research is needed to gather these facts if they are
not already accessible to the human resource planners.
Statistics gathered from this exercise can be analysed to produce information about
the match between actual staff skills and those identified as necessary or desirable.
Carrying out a human resource planning exercise relies heavily on the information
contained in personnel records. Working through this process has the added benefit
of identifying gaps in the personnel records and allowing processes to be put into
place to fill these gaps.
The human resource planning process is illustrated in the Figure 1 below. Note that
Stages 1 and 2 can be carried out simultaneously, but the later stages must be carried
out in sequence.
MANAGING PERSONNEL RECORDS
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