What is the process of manpower planning?

The process of man power planning involves the following steps.

First of all the objectives and strategies regarding the diversification, expansion innovation, production, marketing and finance of the organization are analyzed so that a fair idea could be made regarding the future HR needs of the organization. Because the organizational plans are based on the labour, economic, sales and expansion forecasts, it serves as a good foundation for the manpower planning.

Next step is forecasting the demand for human resources. There are many techniques available for forecasting the HR demand like managerial judgment, ratio-trend analysis and mathematical models. The supply of man power is also taken into consideration from internal and external sources. The difficulties faced during the process of manpower planning are uncertainties that can be caused by absenteeism; seasonal employment and labour turn over. The other uncertainties that make the manpower planning process less reliable are technology changes and market conditions. Sometimes the employees and their unions also resist the man power planning process because they erroneously feel that man power planning could increase the work load of the employees. Another limitations faced by the process of man power planning is that the information system regarding the human resources of an organization is not fully developed in some countries.