Coates Hire and Elders Limited: Workforce Planning Report, BSBHRM513

This report examines workforce planning strategies through the lens of two case studies: Coates Hire and Elders Limited. It begins by analyzing Coates Hire's organizational structure, its 'Coates Way' vision, and the importance of employee engagement. The report then shifts to Elders Limited, highlighting the challenges faced by the agrifood and wine industry in Australia, including labor shortages and skill gaps. It explores the critical role of workforce planning (WFP) in addressing these issues. The report outlines key steps in the WFP process, including identifying business strategy, articulating talent philosophy, workforce analysis, developing action plans, and monitoring and revising those plans. It also discusses the impact of technological evolution and the need for development strategies like cross-training. The report emphasizes the importance of adapting to changing market conditions and ensuring that organizations have access to the necessary human capital for effective performance. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of aligning HR outcomes with strategic intentions to drive employee engagement and achieve company goals.

STUDENT NAME: ID
BSB51915
DIPLOMA OF LEADERSHIP &MANAGEMENT
BSBHRM513
MANAGE WORKFORCE PLANNING
Trainer Name :
Student Name :
Student ID :
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Contents
Assessment Task 1......................................................................................................................................3
Assessment task 2.......................................................................................................................................7
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................7
Discussion...................................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................11
Assessment task 3.....................................................................................................................................12
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................12
Background...............................................................................................................................................12
Discussion.................................................................................................................................................12
Phase 1: Workforce future functional requirements..........................................................................12
Phase 2: Workforce Analysis...............................................................................................................13
Phase 3: Implement Plan.....................................................................................................................15
Phase 4: Monitor, Evaluate and Revise.............................................................................................18
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................18
References.................................................................................................................................................19
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Assessment Task 1
Coates hire business practices divisional structure where their business activities are
organised as per market and functions of services in the group into various divisional lines
of operations like sales & marketing, finance & accounting, production, etc. The nature of
divisional structure at Coates hire helps to make effective business decision based on cluster
of division level so as to respond rapidly and rationally to business situation on local
demand and is useful to facilitate accountability with alignment of responsibilities, actions
and outcomes at each operational level thus ensuring better management and best interest of
each division. Also it permits effective decision making to be shifted downward to
improvise ability of firm to respond to market condition and helps to produce better
response and performance in market to manage large number of product offerings to
different markets with sense of flexibility and adaptation.
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Fig: Organisational structure at Coates Hire
Source: theofficialboard.com (2018)
The Coates way is the firm’s vision that it intends to attain and uses this as framework to
develop strategies that leads to attainment of their corporate goals. The aspect of Coates way
includes the purpose which explains the business and current aims of Coates Hire as well as their
future strategic purposes. The second aspect is Vision where the way or path Coates Hire’s
business is heading is defined while in third aspect Critical success factors are explained which
illustrates the manner through which the business would reach to their strategic purposes and
vision. The last aspect is Values which explains the behaviour that firm expects from its
employees on regular basis at work. The understanding of the Coates Hire’s business purposes
by their employees helps to give strategic direction and clarity to them to ensure that each
employee works committedly to attain the purposes and vision of business. This understanding
helps to give them get clear understanding of path or approach employees are expected to take to
reach to desired objectives and results. These purposes, vision are then driven by key factors of
achievement that is expected to be followed at work regularly supported by values of employees
which helps to achieve focused direction for employees to attain overarching company goals.
The identification of strengths and weakness of Coates Hire helps to develop a strategic intent
and vision that would influence their workforce planning to ensure positive impact over
employee’s perception which would make them actively engage with strategic goals and
purposes with employees taking responsibility of their efforts. Also identification of firm’s
strengths and weakness helps in developing a strategic intention that would address all the weak
areas and ensure their improvement through optimum utilisation or enhancement of identified
strengths, which would ensure that Coates workforce gets developed eventually with better
capability to meet the strong areas and gradually overcome weakness of firm. The identification
of strengths and weakness even helps that workforce planning is developed to improve
organisational effectiveness by enabling employees to reflect on their contribution as well as
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experience of working so that this realisation and self-assessment would empower employees
retain their performance and further make more progress. The interpretation of strength and
weakness of Coates Hire helps to ensure that workforce planning includes aspects to improve
competency of employees and engage them in a culture of development to get best outcomes to
meet company’s vision with support of appropriate training and performance development plans
that are clear and measurable to be understood by employees and being practised to effectively
reach to goals as required to build performance.
The four outcomes of HR support the strategic intention of Coates Hire by clearly alinging the
actions with goals and purpose of firm to help drive a focused approach to reach to goals. These
strategic intent and understanding of HR outcomes gives employees clear understanding of what
must be done to attain the company’s goals and help employees to get engaged with goals by
ensuring a positive influnce over their perception that makes them motivated to achieve
outcomes as expected. It also supports their development with enhancement of capabilities that
help improve employees flexiblity and effectiveness to reach to established strategic intent and
vision. Further it helps employees experince a culture and work environment that is conducive to
meet concrete outcomes with better employee reflection, culture and safety that helps to attract
and retain best performer making employees more dedicated to achieve strategic goals.
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Fig: Employee Engagement at Coates
Source: case Study
Employee engagement level at Coates Hire measures the commitment level of resources towards
the business goals and vision and in Annual surveys as well as in Climate Surveys the employees
of Coates are invited to take part which helps to get feedback of employees thus enabling to
explore what makes Coates special and what are fields that are needed to be improved to help
better employee engagement. These surveys helps Coates understand their resources needs and
their expectations in specific areas which supports the firm to become best choice to work for
employees. The data above depicts employee engagement level at Coates against benchmarks in
similar business competitors as well as best performers. The data reveals that Coates had
attained high level of employee engagement specifically the survey data shows that Coates
performed better than other competitor business in areas of career opportunity, quality of
location and tasks. The data also reveals certain areas for improvement that consist of work-life
balance opportunities, level of recognition related to tasks and level to improve physical work
environment
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Assessment task 2
Introduction
A global survey reveals that the food and drink industry is presently facing continuous threat
from increasing shortage of skilled human resources more than climate change, rocketing
energy bills and water scarcity. According to Burrows (2016), one in two businesses
operating in Australia’s agrifood and wine industry have accepted sufficient supply of skilled
of labour as a significant challenge. The industrymight not be getting troubled with scarcity
of resources as much as it is getting affected due it labour shortage, the impact of which has
started to affect the bottom line of companies. Over the past couple ofyears, additional time
and costs needed for securing the availability of resources (human) and making them suitable
for use has become the principle challenge for companies. According to Sutcliffe and Dhakal
(2018), the challenge of finding labour has become unsustainable further leading towards
tonnes of agricultural food products of agribusiness companylike Elders Limited been wasted
causing a significant loss to the country’s economy. There has been critical imbalance
between supply and demand of labour in the Australian agrifood and wine industry.
According to Bruke (2011), with increasingly tightening labour marketsince 2010, Elders has
been experiencing difficulties in meeting its demand of skilled workers and has to consider
overseas staffs for overcoming this shortage of skills. In this industry recruiting difficulties
are long-standing both at white and blue collar levels. Skilled labour shortages have forced
Elders in going on a permanent recruitment drive.Itfurther revealed that only 40% of the
positions it had advertised were filled and that the ratio of applications per job is 1:1, a
situation much drastic than it was in 2009 when then ratio was 1:4 applicants. While no
applicants are available for jobs advertised in isolated locations.
Discussion:
According to Zoller (2018), workforce arguably is the most important tangible asset today in
Australia’s agrifood and wine industry however, most organizations often fail in carefully
planning, measuring or optimizing this asset despite of declaring repeatedly that workforce
planning and data-driven decision-making is their top most priority. According to Opengart,
et al., (2018), workforce planning is anincreasingly significant domain for both human
resources and organizations and hence, is defined as a process that assures organizations like
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Elders Limited has access to required human capital, current and future for performing
effectively. It involves determining the current and future personnel needs besides looking for
most suited and cost-effective methods for theirrecruitment and retention.
According to Jacobson (2010), WFP is important because of its potential of presenting
significant opportunities to HR teams, senior leadership team and board members in driving
the process’s strategic end besides setting the agenda for workforce change further making
everyone look towards the future, both for themselves and the company. WFP assist aspiring
personnel in pushing themselves forward, reorganizing them into more suited roles and
foreseeing the future needs. WFP when employed rightly can help businesses like Elders in
early identification and anticipation of problems, circumventdisruptions and abrupt
costs.According to Arms and Bercik (2015), WFP activities benefit in aligning strategic
planning with head count and talent planning, creating clear-cut view of talent demand and
supply issues by expense area, reporting relationship, and location, furnishing easy-to-use
reports and tools to managers for determining the effect of their talent decisions and
prioritizing future workforce investments, highlighting issues limiting employees
productiveness and cultivating competitive advantage through planned against reactive talent
management.
According to Jones, et al., (2017), WFP process includes five key steps:
Identify company’s business strategy: the vision, goals and business strategies of Elder
Limited are identified for their impact of staffing requirements besides establishing the future
needs influencing the numbers and types of employees required.
Articulate the talent philosophy and company’s strategic staffing decisions: Elder’s
commitment on promotions, retention, and preferences to hire people having certain skills
and training impact the nature of employees required while planning and forecasting.
Workforce analysis: the demand and supply is forecasted at here followed by gaps
identification amidst these two aspects.
Develop action plans: for addressing gaps amid labour demand and supply forecasts action
plans are developed consistent with the talent philosophy of Elder and both short and long
term recruitment are included.
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Monitor, evaluate and revise action plans: with rapidly changing markets and business
environments, evaluating theworkforce plans is important to ensure its effectiveness and
amendments accordingly.
According Sheehan, et al., (2018), for agrifood and wine industry finding human resources
meeting its demands has become hard increasingly, which eventually has created a situation
of near-crisis within the industry.A survey reveals that around 70% of food and beverage
making companies are facing the brunt of crisis with context to low supply of skilled
workers. The food production industry of Australia is heavily dependent on an adequate
supply of labour for harvesting, processing, packaging and distributing produce. The industry
has been witnessing a significant increase in the number of businesses facing difficulties in
hiring enough workers, and Elders in no exception. The decrease in number of migrant
workers has also contributed to this unprecedented challenge. Companies operating in this
sector reveal that around 70% of labour suppliers failed in meeting their employment
demands. Also there has been a significant decline in the number of people applying in
agrifood and wine industry, as reported by the labour suppliers. Other issues hounding the
industry are fast ageing manpower and a declining regional workforce.
According to Bhagra and Sharma (2018), apart from dealing with shortage of labour, the
nature of agrifood and wine industry is also undergoing a dramatic change with constant
technological evolution permeating every aspect of competitive companies like Elder. The
new norms of research, testing, supply chains, plant operations, food and worker safety,
transportation, marketing and sales are defined through automation and connectivity. A skill
gaps analysis in Elder reveals specific gaps in skills revolving around basic IT knowledge,
numeracy, literacy, advanced IT and other technical and practical skills.According to Christo-
Baker, et al., (2017), to address the identified skill gaps at Elders the management should
focus of development strategies through cross-training. For optimizing the existing in-house
resources cross-training is a great way to improve the skills gap. By promoting and
supporting employees to cross-train in areas where a need for talent exist, the company will
get not only support in shoring up the immediate shortcoming but will even build more
skilled talent within the workforce to improve knowledge transfer all over the business.
Techniques used for forecasting labour demand and supply through WFP process
In order to forecast labour demand and supply workforce planning need to be followed along
with using technique for Human Resource Planning so as to project existing and future
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staffing requirement to eliminate exposure to surplus or shortage of workforce. Managers use
various methods to forecast flow workforce into, within and out of company so as to estimate
level of future workforce demand. Also the WFP process uses procedures to facilitate
employee’s development and skill enhancement through assessing level of competence and
overall productivity so that skills can be developed with training and development planning.
The forecasting technique used to forecast labour demand and supply includes demand
forecast which is quantitative element of WFP process that estimates future need of
workforce and is based on factors like determining employment pattern in firm for atleast
past 5 years so as to forecast future demand, identification of retirement, resignation,
termination, death etc to determine replacement need, identification of productivity and
arranging improvement for employees skills and potential through training which would
result to high level of productivity, growth and higher demand for employment of competent
workforce as well as identification for recruiting and selecting more competent resources so
as to expand growth objectives of firm. Demand forecasting is done through techniques like
workload forecasting, ratio-trend analysis, echometric models etc. In workload forecast stock
of workload and flow of operation is analysed and labour demand is estimated by calculating
working capacity of labour in terms of man hours for each unit and then number of estimated
employees. Using statistical techniques like ratio trend analysis the ration is computed from
previous data in terms of number of employee for each department and for future work
capacity that may allow change in structure, job, methods and hence future workforce
estimation is made. Another method is econometric technique which is developed based on
estimation of previous statistical data to form correlation between variable (production,
finance and others) that impact workforce need.
Supply of labour is forecasted through means of estimating supply of workforce in
consideration to estimation of existing workforce inventory and future availability. The stock
of current workforce is estimated with identification of head count, age inventory, skills,
experience and capabilities inventory, salary grade inventory, local and non-local wise
inventory and with past performance and future potential inventory. Also labour wastage is
estimated in context to turnover rate so as to estimate future labour needs.
According to Sharma (2016), for addressing WFP at Elders People Strategy should be the
key HR strategy, developed with focus on best HR practices, the strategic objective of WFP,
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considering Board Members view, and consultation with staffs.To equip WFP, reinforcing
performance mindset (defining and embedding WFP values and behaviours), shifting the
focus (enhancing national staffs skills and capacities), building WFP’s talent (Developing
career frameworks and skills, providing learning and growth opportunities) and providing
impactful leaders (mobilizing senior leaders, enhancing leadership and management
capabilities) will be the four imperatives. According to Belenzon and Tsolmon (2016), since
diverse workforce is engaged at Elders, it frequently faces various issues in maintaining the
workforce diversity. The issues arise in situations revolving around generational and age
differences. The workplace comprising of diverse range of ages often gives rise to conflicts
amidst employees of different generations. For example, a more collaborative working
approach is preferred by the millennial while Baby Boomers are more reserved eventually
leading to communicational conflicts. According to Busse, et al., (2017), Political factors like
government type and its stableness, legislativechanges (employment laws, contracts over staff
rights), social and employment legislation, probable changes in Australian political
environment,Economic factors such as unemployment and labour supply, labour costs, Social
factors such as growth rate of the populationand age profile, and Technological factors like
effect of reduction in communications costs and increased remote working are affecting the
labour demand and supply in Elders. Employee satisfaction and organization changeis
another factor affecting the labour demand within the industrywhere the former is mainly
related to poor working conditions and low wages.It is reported that 86% of workforce
engaged in this industry are paid lower wages with little or zero access to paid sick leaves and
health benefits further dissuading people’s interest to work in this industry, driving in acute
labour shortagewhileElders undergoingtransitional organization change by replacing manual
production procedure with an automated process has also affected its demand for skilled
labours, which is currently deficit.
Conclusion
Finally it can be conclude that for ensuring higher performance Australian agrifood and wine
industry should focus on meeting theWFP challenges in the current economic climate by
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developing and sustaining exclusive workforce planning programsbesides breaking down the
conventional barriers ofcompetent workforce planning.
Assessment task 3
Introduction
Workforce planning is a very vital Human Resource activity which is needed to be
undertaken by every organization in order to determine the number of job shortages in the
organizations and the expected skill levels in order to fulfil those positions in the company so
that a company can plan its employment and recruitment strategy accordingly. In case of the
Australian labour market there is observed a demand supply gap due to lack of effective
supply of qualified human resources in order to fulfil the vacancies of the company. There are
various challenges which are relevant to the workforce of the company such as ageing
population and lack of eligible staffs to fil the vacant positions of the company. The
workforce planning strategy of Elders will focus on decreasing the employee turnover rate of
the company and increasing the employee retention of the company and will also focus on
improving diversity and intercultural management in the company.
Background
Elders is a leading rural Australian based agribusiness company which offers various
products and service such as rural services, financial planning, real estate, insurance and
home loans. The board and management team of the company remains committed to meet the
highest standards of corporate governance, business integrity and professionalism with due
respect to all their stakeholders.
Discussion
Phase 1: Workforce future functional requirements
The future functional requirements of the workforce of the Elders company need for highly
productive employees who would be multitasking in nature, highly motivated employees who
could work without any directions and supervisions, highly adaptable and flexible employees
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