Resourcing and Talent Planning

This document discusses the role of government, trade unions, and employers in resourcing and talent planning. It also explores the principles of effective workforce planning. The content provides insights into labor market trends in the UK and France, as well as strategies for attracting and retaining skilled labor. It also includes a career development plan. Study material for this topic is available at Desklib.

Running head: RESOURCING AND TALENT PLANNING
RESOURCING AND TALENT PLANNING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Response to question 1: Labour market trends
Labour market trends in UK:
 The rate of unemployment and the number of working population increased with the
number in the year 2018, the unemployment rate reflected an estimate of 76.1 percent,
higher as compared to the previous year.
 The economically inactive group in UK decrease, it was estimated as 20.7 percent,
lesser than the year 2017.
 As of 2018, 32.48 million labour force were in working category with 396,000
working population more than 2017.
 An estimated amount of 75.7 percent working population of aged under 16 to 64 were
found in 2018, which is higher than the year of 2017.
 Unemployment rate of UK in the year 2018 was found lower in comparison with the
previous year, from 4.3 percent to 4.1 percent.
 The average weekly income of the employees in the Great Britain in terms of nominal
range, which is not adjusted in regards with price inflation, reflected a growth by 3.3
percent by including and excluding bonuses in comparison to 2017 (López-Andreu
and Rubery 2018).
The overall employment rate increased to 76.1 percent record:

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Fig. Employment rates (16-64) years from 1971 March-2019 Jan
(Source: Jenkins 2017)
Fig. Table depicting summarized form of labour market of UK for the month of October 2018
(Source: Jenkins 2017)

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Labour demand-
The net employment rate in the quarter’s record and/or the gap between the
proportions of the employers has reflected a rise by 22 points as compared to the last quarter
of 2018. The data reflects higher unit of employment confidence. The lack of skilled labours
were identified with the difficulty in filling existent vacancies by the employees, 61 percent
of the organizations framed the value of complexities. The activities of retention and
recruitment demonstrated challenges for the employers. Around 33 percent of the employers
of UK depicted the challenge of retaining existent staff members. 41 percent of the employers
were found experiencing challenges in recruiting skilled labour force. The trend increasing
the skills of existent employees. These trends were observed in the 43 percent of the
employers. Around 29 percent of the employers adopted the strategy of increasing wages in
United Kingdom. Another strategy of recruiting trainees for increasing the labour force was
observed, a total of 23 percent of the employers were observed adopting this strategy
(Khoudja and Platt 2018).
The basic pay rate in the 12 months of 2018 and the expectation up to the year of
2020 (March) is projected to be 2 percent, reflects a consistent report as compared to the
previous trends of the employers. In United Kingdom, the expected increase in the basic pay
for private sector organizations reflected a fall from 2.5 percent to 2 percent. In the public
sector organization, the expectations for the basic pay reflected a rise up to 1.5 percent from 1
percent. However, the statistics figure from ONS report reflected a different scenario, the
country have experienced an increase in the earnings of the workforce (excluding the bonus)
by around 3.4 percent. The trend of increasing the initial salary in the process of recruitment
for addressing the challenge of retention and recruitment in United Kingdom. The consumer
price in relation to the inflation decreased by 2 percent of the target rate of the year 2019.
Due to the ‘increasing wage rate’ strategy, the consumer spending rate increase in the year
2018. However, the increasing rate of wages doesn’t reflected in the rate of production or

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overall growth in GDP of United Kingdom. In United Kingdom, the GDP rate was
experienced to be around 1.4 percent in the year 2018.
The unemployment rate was very low in the past around 4% since 1975 and around
1.36 million people were unemployed, 65,000 being fewer than for the month of January to
March 2018. People who were in work were about 32.39 millions, which is 42,000 more than
for the month of January to March 2018 and around 313,000 more than that of the previous
year. The average weekly earnings growth was slow in real terms as compared to the
previous years. The regular pay increased by 0.4% that excluded bonuses and the total pay
increased by 0.1% that was inclusive of bonuses. Neil Carberry, the Chief Executive of
Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) commented on the ONS figures by
stating that the recent numbers confirm that the labor market is tight in nature and has high
employment rate (Bonoli 2017). This means that it is more difficult for the firms to grow
their workforce. The recruiters have been reporting about such issues and the employers are
now thinking about innovative and attractive offers to increase the workforce.
Labour market trends in France:
France experienced a population rate up to 67.2 million as of 2018, January. The
number of people employed in the year 2018 was around 27.1 million. The trends depicted a
rate of 84.7 percent of the population reflected open-ended contracts whereas 18.5 percent of
the population reflected the rate of part-time workers. In the fourth quarter of 2018, around
2.7 million people were found unemployed, which represented around 8.8 percent of the total
population. The decreasing rate of around -0.3 points in the year 2018 in regards with the
unemployed rate. The efforts of employers increased by a rate of 18.7 percent in the year
2018 reflected an increase of 2017, which amounted up to 8.2 percent. A total of 2.35 million
have been hired in the year 2018 in France. In the year 2018, the number of recruits
amounted up to 370,000. The intention of hiring was declared by around 25.9 percent

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establishments in the year 2018 in comparison to the 22.4 percent of 2017, marking an
increase of 3.5 percent. More than half (63.9 percent) of the recruitment in France in the year
2018 have reflected long-term contracts (Heckmann and Schnapper 2016). Thus France
shows a little loose market as compared to the United Kingdom.
Strategic positioning by organizations:
The organizations must provide with various employment benefits and attractive
offers that will help them in retaining the existing employees as well as attract new
employees. This can be done only if the company positions itself as the organization
concerned about the growth, development and satisfaction of the employees rather than just
positioning itself as the company that is focused in achieving the goal by any means. The
organization must provide ample opportunities to the employees to learn more while pursuing
with their jobs, must create a healthy working environment with proper working hours and
holiday schemes (Al Saifi 2015). The company must discuss about the pays by maintaining a
proper transparency so that they might not et dissatisfied in the future. It should provide with
proper grievance redressal systems, employment swap opportunities, promotion and
performance bonus opportunities. All these should help the company in retaining the
employees as well as acquire fresh talents.
Response to question 2: Role of government, trade unions and employers
In UK, the role of government in increasing the skilled workforce in the country
marked the action of expanding the work visas of the non-European workers. The uncertainty
caused by the potentiality of Brexit increase the sense of supporting migrant laws in UK for
maintaining the balance of skilled labour force demand in the UK industries. Government of
UK considered the option of eliminating the rate of restrictions in terms of aspect of
speciality and seniority. United Kingdom reflects data with lower rates of unemployment and
higher rate of vacancies. Government invested in developing the digital skills of the UK

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organizations by introducing Tech partnerships, making it free for all the employers in United
Kingdom (Boland 2016). The government of United Kingdom understood the importance of
increasing digital skills of the workforce. The digitalization scheme will contribute majorly in
the covering the gap between labour force demand and supply. This concept by government
will majorly contribute towards the factor of up skilling the labour force of United Kingdom
in various sectors of UK. For the purpose of increasing skills and responding to the increasing
gap between demand and supply of skilled of labour force in France, government of France
decided to restructure the professional apprenticeship scheme. The initiative of French
government for the full time and part time labours contributes to the opportunity of providing
the provision of spending 5,000 Euros for developing their skills and competencies of their
preference (Beharrell and Philo 2016).
Unions reflect efforts towards improving the wage structure of labour force. The
practice of improving wage structure can attract the skilled labourers for recruitment in the
organizations. Improved working conditions by the efforts of labour unions helps in
improving the working conditions of the labour force, which in return helps in attracting
skilled labour force from around the world. The French trade union reflects strong and
effective negotiation power. Under the French law, the trade union represents all the existent
employees with an average of 50 plus staff members in both council and in the council of
health and safety.
These must be consulted regularly by bosses on a vast range of detailed managerial
decisions. This gives trade unions a daily say in the running of companies across the private
sector, which accounts for the real strength of their voice. The influence of trade union of UK
is not significantly high as compared to France as currently UK reflects around 26 percent of
the total population of labour force are union members. Only one of the trade unions holds a
significant amount of influence, TUC (Trade Union Congress).

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Employers’ contribution in increasing the wage rate of the employees or labour force
contributes towards decreasing the challenge of recruiting skilled labour force from the
labour market. The employers’ decision of improving the skills of the existing labourer
increases the potentiality of addressing the gap in demand and supply of labour force. The
employers’ decision of encouraging the practice of recruiting/hiring apprenticeship will
address the need of skilled labour in the organizational system (Humphrey 2017).
Response to question 3: Principles of effective workforce planning
Two most critical needs are being addressed by a proper strategic planning-
i. Proper alignment with the human capital program of the organization with the
organization’s current mission, vision and goals.
ii. Development of long term strategise that will help in the development, growth and
retaining the staffs for achieving the organizational goals (Goodman, French and
Battaglio 2015).
It can be said from the above two points that the effective workforce planning can be
done at two major levels and they are – strategic workforce planning and operational
workforce planning. The strategic workforce planning is done on a long term view and
determines, forecast and analyses the critical roles that are required by the organization in the
future. The operational workforce planning on the other hand takes under consideration short
term demands and considers the supply of fresh talent in order to determine if there is any
requirement of additional manpower (Beck, Manderscheid and Buerhaus Jr 2015) .
Among the various principles that are prevailing in the market the principles that are
actually adopted by the organization usually vary. The effective principles however that are
common irrespective of all the organizations are –

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i. Rather than involving just a few, it would be better if the top management and few
other stakeholders are also considered while developing and implementing the
strategic workforce plan.
ii. Determination of critical competitive skills that will be helpful for the smooth and
efficient achievement of the current and the future organizational goals.
iii. Development of strategies that are specifically made in order to analyse and
address the numerical gaps, alignment as well as deployment of the approaches of
human capital in order to enable and sustain the critical skills and competencies.
iv. Organizational capacity should be made stronger for addressing the educational,
administrative and other requirements for workforce growth and development
(Greene 2018).
v. The progress of the agency towards the human capital goals and objectives should
be monitored and evaluated.
The key principles can be briefed in simple terms as follows (Martin 2015):
Principle 1 - Identification of the organizational needs and the workforce needs
(Organizational Capabilities).
Principle 2 – Getting to know the existing workforce (Individual Capabilities and
Workforce Data)
Principle 3 – Bridge the gap by identifying, understanding and addressing the issues of
workforce (Analysis)
Principle 4 – Provide a proper and efficient basis of implementation (Integration)
Principle 5 – Monitoring and Evaluation (Check and revisit any steps as and when required)

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Response to question 4
The career development plan
Development
Need/Goal
The development actions Measure/ Timing By whom
The aim is to enhance
the capability for
driving performance
through other people.
Te focus is to empower
the employees and offer
them coaching to
enable delivery of the
agreed standards.
The focus will be on being
able to describe the impact
of the under-performance for
both the organization and the
individual. The thinking
will be through the obstacles
to performance and identify
the ways to remove or
reduce these. The shifting
will be from providing
solutions to direct reports to
coaching. The employees
will obtain coaching from
the manager as well as the
hired coach. There will be
difficult conversations with
the peers, managers and
leaders. The participants
will participate in ‘Pathways
to Performance’ training
course (Brown et al. 2019).
The direct performance reviews
will be observed for ensuring the
performance expectations. There
will be 360 degree leadership
feedback. The commitment to
coaching-feedback will be
demonstrated from the staff-
ongoing The participants will
participate in the next available
program within the next 6 months
Self/Manager
The next goal will be
to work around the
individuals who are less
The participants will be
requested to take on the role
of ‘an idea facilitator’
The development plan will be
updated and the quality related
documents will be completed
Primarily by
self but the
manager will

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informed. having thought afresh about
every situation and sought
about the inputs from the
colleagues. The next action
will be to add to the team
meeting agenda. The
practice sessions of asking
open questions rather than
making statements only. A
departmental off-site
meeting will be designed
and facilitated to enable the
sharing of cross-functional
information along with the
generation of solutions. The
participants will participate
in a ‘diversity and inclusion’
training course. The
operation team will guide
and recommend the needful.
within 2 months. The
effectiveness will be measured by
less than 8 5 deviation to the
process. In every second month,
feedbacks and the reports will be
viewed in the faculty meetings. In
every 3rd month , the positive 360
degree feedback will be given on
collaborative working. There will
be team feedback regarding the
active listening and the facilitation
skills (Dany and Torchy 2017).
also assist.
In some
cases, the
team will be
involved too.
The third goal will be
to develop assertiveness
skills with the internal
customers.
The action will be to
understand the frequent
requests for processing
deviations and developing
the questions answer
document. The role play
will be conducted to manage
the customer interaction with
the manager. The
The role play will be completed
and at the same time the
feedbacks from the manager will
be focused on to improve the
everyday customer interactions.
The manager
and the team
will support
in this
activity but
the self will
also be
involved.

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participants will participate
in delighting internal
customers’ training program.
Evidence of my contribution to plan for downsizing organization
Minutes of team meeting
Agenda- What can be the most effective plans for downsizing an organization
Duration and location- 45 minutes at the conference hall
Participants – The marketing manager, the operational manager, the team leads, the CEO.
My suggestions- I believe that management of an organization determines that the particular
organization is not operating at the peak efficiency. The management is responsible for
looking for the ways to make the organization extra productive. In order to conduct an
effective organizational downsizing, the management should communicate honestly and
openly with the employees about the reasons for the downsizing and the plan for downsizing.
The managers should also listen to employees and provide comfort so that the morale is kept
high among the survivors.
Evidence of my contribution to the development of job descriptions, person specifications
and competency framework
An email to the CEO
Dear Sir,
I need to talk about my views and some suggestions for the job descriptions, person
specifications and competency framework. As per my views, the job descriptions must be
developed to help an organization articulate the most important outcomes required from an
employee. The job descriptions are the communication tool for communicating with the

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employee to tell them about the job demands and the organizational policies. I would suggest
that the job description should be an analysis of the work, tasks, duties and the
responsibilities required to be accomplished by the employee. It should also contain a clear
articulation of the most essential outcomes which are expected from the position. In the job
description, an important part is the person specification. It is the description of the skills,
qualifications, the experiences and the knowledge a person will have to posses for performing
the job demands. It is a foundation of the recruitment process. I would suggest that the
interview questions and the selection tests should be derived from the person specifications.
The competency framework should be followed strictly to deal with the different levels of
performance.
Response to question 5
Every organization performs the process of recruitment and selection in order to
acquire the required talents for the organization. An organization must select its candidate
carefully that will help them in reaching the goals and will enable them in fulfilling the
mission of the organization. These organizations are supposed to comply with the
Employment Agencies Act 1973. The organizations cannot charge the job finders for finding
them work. There has to be a written contract between the workers and the organization. The
candidates should be checked for their suitability to the job role (Sarma 2017). As per the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the discrimination based on religion, sex,
gender is illegal during recruitment. The National Labor Relations Board is on the other hand
an independent federal agency that prevents the unfair labor practices. The Federal Contract
Compliance Programs has formulated a set of laws called as the Affirmative Action that also
bans the discrimination in the workplaces. Laws relating to Child Labor and Foreign Labor
also exist in the process. Certification is required for hiring a foreign labor. The applicant
must be eligible as per the regulations laid down in the Immigration and Nationality Act
(Heilman, Manzi and Braun 2015).

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The two significant methods of recruitment and selection are the psychometric test
and group discussions. The strength of the psychometric test is that it is accurate and
appropriate and cheap to acquire. It helps in measuring the consistency and efficiency of the
applicant. The approach is totally unbiased and it reveals the motive as well. The weakness is
that this method can be provide wrong result if the applicant chooses the choices that he
would otherwise not make in the real life. It also makes the candidate nervous and is time
taking at times (Ekwoaba, Ikeije and Ufoma 2015). The strength of the group discussion
method is that it tends to provide more information and knowledge. It helps in understanding
the group behaviour of the candidates. The disadvantage is that it is a long and time
consuming process and it can create conflicts as well.
Response to question 6
Reason behind staying and leaving the organisation
The workplace policy and environment of the organisation determines the turnover of
the employees of that organisation. Many companies are there that spend a lot of money in
investigating the reason behind high employee turnovers. The first most important thing that
the company must consider is that it must never assume that the employees are happy and
must keep on taking feedbacks at intervals. This would make the employees feel that the
organisation has concern for the employees and make them feel loyal to the organisation. Exit
interviews help in understanding the reasons behind leaving the organisation and it must keep
these records in order to ensure that the problems stated are actually solved. Exit interviews
reveal numerous reasons behind the dissatisfaction of the employees with the organisation.
There are reasons for staying loyal with the organisation or leaving the organisation and the
reasons in short can be classified into one term, which is “inertia” (Rissanen 2017). The
inertia of the employee can be strengthened and weakened, depending upon the relationship
between the work ethics of the employee and the values followed by the organisation. If there

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is huge deviation between the employee ethics and the work value the gap becomes wider
and employees get dissatisfied and leaves the organisation, whereas if the gap is low the
employees tend to stay loyal to the organisation. The other reasons underlining this action are
the perceived job opportunities of the employees in different other organisation. The loyalty
with the organisation comes from other reasons like preference of local areas, children
schooling issues, local friends and other such external issues. The inertia gets affected by the
employer-employee gaps, monotonous work, co-worker relationships, organisational
opportunities, participations, independence, knowledge about the future prospects of the
organisation, the work-culture, recognition and appreciation and so on. If these factors
contribute positively the employees stay else they leave (Purl, Hall and Griffeth 2016).
Cost associated with dysfunctional employee turnover
The cost of replacement of an employee is very costly. The recruitment and selection
process of the employees involve several stages. There are third parties who are associated
with the recruitment processes and are required to be paid (Miller 2017). Thus replacement
becomes very costly. Frequent employee turnovers will affect the productivity of the
organisation and will also impact the morale of the employees. Training and development of
the new employees also involve huge cost and time. Customer service and errors increases
when new employees come into a process. There is also a cultural impact (Mathieu et al.
2016)
Response to question 7: Managing dismissal, retirement and redundancies
There are several practices that are being followed to retain employees and manage
the dismissals and retirements. The normal rule about retirement is that the employers cannot
coerce their employees to retire and neither can it set any retirement age on its own. The older
employees and the younger employees must be treated equally and fairly. The older
employees must not be forced to leave the organisation because of their age. Rather voluntary

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retirement schemes should be there where any employee can choose to retire voluntarily in
exchange of some benefits. The notice period in case of voluntary retirement schemes are
much longer than that of resignation (Froidevaux and Hirschi 2015). The dismissal
management is one of the important tasks for any human resource. There are three kinds of
dismissal in terms of law – fair, unfair and constructive dismissal. The dismissal process
should however consist of an initial meeting, providing time for appealing and at last
termination. A proper notice should be given and meeting should be arranged.
Documentation should be done in matter of the discussion. The meeting should be very
professional without any emotional attachments and the employee should be given the
opportunity to appeal the dismissal decision. The process of managing the employee
redundancy requires ensuring the authenticity of the redundancy, understanding the
obligation, managing the process properly and supporting the individual (Ashman 2016).

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