Effective HR planning is paramount for the development of organizations’ human capital. At the same time, as stated by Booth (n.d.a), “the success of many HR activities relies on effective collaboration” (para. 1). When performing a wide range of those activities, starting from the formulation of recruitment objectives and ending with career development and employee retention, HR teams should work together with multiple organizational stakeholders. Individual employees and managers from various company units can make important contributions to HR planning. They can help an HR team in hiring the best workers at the lowest possible cost and improving the workforce development strategies. In the present reflective statement, I will write about my past experience of participating in HR planning and collaborating with the HR team in my company. I will also explain how learning from the module impacted my approach to collaborative HR planning and will discuss possible ways for improvement.
Working as a financial analyst, I have been involved in HR activities mainly indirectly and only within the scope of practice of the Finance department. For instance, in my company and, probably, in the majority of other firms, Finance employees are responsible for calculating cost plans for each one of the organization’s multiple units, including HR. It is almost impossible to determine the right cost limits for HR without the understanding of current and future workforce development needs and the overall HR strategies and approaches. Thus, when deciding on a budget for the HR team, I frequently met with HR managers to discuss their work plans, at least briefly, and also inform them regarding potential cost limits. As a result of such a collaboration, the HR team became able to make an optimal choice of workforce development activities. In their turn, the company’s budget analysts became able to develop a more comprehensive picture of the company’s spending and makeup more valid forecasts.
Overall, in my current profession, I early became aware of the importance of collaboration between HR planners and Finance as it largely facilitates the work process for both organizational units. In fact, such a cooperative approach to budgeting and HR planning is an essential part of the company’s strategic management and a major prerequisite for the attainment of its strategic goals (Booth n.d.b). According to Booth (n.d.b), to achieve the best results, cooperative workforce planning with the involvement of financial and corporate analysts must be continual. Nevertheless, in my company, it usually occurs one time a year when the Finance team forges the budgets. I consider that by expanding my knowledge about HR planning, I will partially be able to address this issue. Firstly, a more advanced understanding of HR activities and the workforce dynamics as such will allow me to compose more realistic HR budgets since I will know how to locate headcounts more accurately. Besides that, I will have enough expertise to advocate for the establishment of a more cooperative work environment and continual synergy between HR and Finance to foster more efficient HR planning in the company.
After completing the module, I have realized that my contribution as a financial analyst to workforce development in the enterprise should not necessarily be limited to the creation of forecasts and cost plans. Working in my current position, I may still participate in many activities that the Workforce Planning Circle comprises, including the identification of workforce gaps against present and future organizational needs (Weeks 2019). For instance, knowing my department’s culture and functions better than the majority of the HR team members, I may more accurately identify any shortages in talents and skills that my unit has. Of course, I do not expect the HR team to take into account and satisfy all remarks regarding workforce development from each employee individually. Still, subordinates’ participation in the monitoring of the workforce environment can greatly benefit the company. Thus, it is valid to say that cooperation regarding this issue and the establishment of corporate systems and structures supporting the discussion of workforce gaps and efficacy within different teams and across distinct units can be beneficial.
Except for involving executive leaders and managers from various departments in HR planning activities, I believe that companies should consider collecting feedback on workforce development from subordinates across all organizational levels. Even partial employee involvement in HR planning implies participation in companies’ decision-making, mental and emotional reflection on one’s job and work environment. Thus, it can potentially result in greater employee commitment and engagement that Irawanto (2015) links to better organizational attainment. However, it is worth noting that it would be appropriate to engage only those subordinates in HR planning who have sufficient expertise in their field, as well as awareness of the situation in the firm.
Overall, my approach to collaborative workforce planning systems has evolved from an occasional discussion of hiring needs with HR when performing budgeting activities into systematic, interprofessional cooperation aimed to optimize human capital development. In my opinion, an effective cooperative HR planning system would allow identifying individual and organizational development needs more efficiently and fostering greater employee motivation and retention. It is true that HR managers always aim to create favorable group dynamics and maximize organizational excellence when hiring new people. Nevertheless, employees can frequently identify any changes in the workplace climate and behaviors faster than other organizational actors, including managers, since they are positioned to notice them earlier and experience them first-hand. Therefore, in the future, I would like to explore in greater detail how different internal organizational stakeholders may directly or indirectly contribute to the improvement of workforce planning in companies. In addition, I would like to continue studying the effects of a collaborative approach to HR activities on firms.
Reference List
Booth, I n.d.a, ‘Workforce planning collaboration: the talent acquisition and HR partnership’, Visier.
Booth, I n.d.b, ‘How to keep HR and Finance in sync on workforce planning’, Visier.
Irawanto, DW 2015, ‘Employee participation in decision-making: evidence from a state-owned enterprise in Indonesia’, Management, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 159-172.
Weeks, A 2019, ‘Workforce planning’, CIPD.