Staffing: Forecasting Labour Supply and Workforce Planning

This study material covers topics such as forecasting labour supply, workforce planning, and evaluating business trends in economy. It discusses the importance of understanding current and future competency trends and skills in the labour market for effective staffing. The material also explores the steps involved in workforce planning and the different types of information used to evaluate business trends. It addresses the questions that need to be addressed in staffing planning as well.

Running Head: STAFFING 0
Management

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Answer 1: For forecasting the supply of labour, it is essential to understand the current as
well as future competency trends and skills in the labour market. It is because a firm has to
change in some aspect due to the changing demand and actual data of market.
Forecasting external labour market: It is true that all the organisations hire the labour market
on one point or another point (Bailey, Mankin, Kelliher & Garavan, 2018). It is because an
organization hires the new and experienced workers in order to meet the increasing demand,
as well as replacing the new workers with one who are retiring or leaving the organization.
Organization monitors the external labour market in two ways:
 By analysing the employment trend in the organisation. Employment trends can be
done by proper research of the market.
 By finding out the replacement need such as retirement, death, and termination.
As compare to the external labour forecasting, internal labour demand is forecasting in such a
way:
 Demand forecasting in the internal labour market involve the interpretation of specific
skills and expected changes that will occur in the future such as turnover, retirements, and
termination. In every organisation, internal labour demand occurs due to turnover of any
employee from the organisation.
Answer 2
Workforce planning is the process that enables the organization to predict as manage their
talent demand and supply. The main objective is to help the organization for achieving its
business strategy and gaols. Certain steps that are followed in workforce planning are as
follows:
 Identification of the firm business strategy: mission, vision, and strategy of the firm
affect the current as well as future needs of the staffing. It also tends to influence the types
and number of employees that are needed (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2017).
 Articulating the strategic staffing decisions and firm’s talent philosophy: several firms
have several commitments to things such as promoting workers, retailing workers, and hiring

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preference. In this way, knowing all these things in advance ensure the firm need to forecast
accurately.
 Developing the action plan: the identification of strategies helps in closing the gaps.
For example- the real time reporting software helps in tracking the productivity of employees.
Outsourcing as well as restructuring also provides the solution.
 Implementation of action: in this step, work is being done with the various teams and
departments in order to bring the effectiveness and efficiency.
 Monitoring and revising the plan: It is the last step where effective monitoring of plan
is done in order to determine its effectiveness and weakness. It allows the organisation to
improve the performance.
Answer 3: It is true that different type of information can be used to evaluate the business
trends in economy. The five common type of information are as follows:
Consumer taste and preference: several changes occur timely in terms of preference and taste
of the customers. By knowing the consumer buying behaviour, it becomes easy to evaluate
the trend that is going on in market. For example- customer focus has been shifted toward the
online mean as compare to the traditional mode (Park, Yaduma, Lockwood & Williams,
2016).
Changes in government policy- Government also change their policy time to time in order to
safeguard the interest of consumers. For example- in several countries, government tends to
adopt the different rules and regulation for different category of product.
Change in technology: In recent time, technological changes are taking the place. Therefore,
by ensuring the technological changes properly, firm can know the current business trend.
Availability of human resource: Before moving to the process of production, it is essential to
analyse the availability of human resource. For example- in various places, there is less
availability of human resource that requires to be fulfil before starting the operation.
Seasonal forecasting: several forecasting can be done on seasons as demand increases as per
the season. Therefore, a firm can anticipate and prepare the staff members. for example- In
the summer season, demand of juices and shakes tends to increase (Baron, 2016).
Answer 4
The three questions that are needed to be addressed in the staffing planning:

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 The first question is that businesses must ask themselves: “what resources are
needed?” It is true that some cost is attached with the hiring and recruiting people. Therefore,
the business must plan for the referral incentive for the employees, advertising cost,
relocation cost as well as the travel cost for the applicants and recruiters.
 The Phillips and Gully elaborate another question because some candidates usually
have very less interest in the position before the time of hiring. Besides this, other lacks the
proper qualification. By having the large number of applicants, organisation becomes more
selective. This allows the organisation to identify the candidate who best and properly fits to
the position as compare to the person who only applies for the job.
 The last thing that is to take into consideration the timeline of the process that is from
the stating to end. Vacant jobs of the organisation equal revenue and lost productivity. There
is always some motivation to fill the position fast. Therefore, the timeline is essential and it
should be built into the plan of staffing (Bratton & Gold, 2017).

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References
Bailey, C., Mankin, D., Kelliher, C., & Garavan, T. (2018). Strategic human resource
management. Oxford University Press.
Baron, A. (2016). Human resource planning. In Encyclopedia of Human Resource
Management. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Kavanagh, M. J., & Johnson, R. D. (Eds.). (2017). Human resource information systems:
Basics, applications, and future directions. Sage Publications.
Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2017). Human resource
management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Park, S., Yaduma, N., Lockwood, A. J., & Williams, A. M. (2016). Demand fluctuations,
labour flexibility and productivity. Annals of Tourism Research, 59, 93-112.