Detailed Report: Resourcing and Talent Planning, RST Module

This report delves into the critical aspects of resourcing and talent planning, offering a comprehensive analysis of labor market trends in the UK and Canada, examining the significance of tight and loose labor market conditions, and exploring how organizations strategically position themselves in competitive environments. The report further investigates the roles of government, employers, and trade unions in ensuring future skills needs are met, emphasizing the importance of employee skill development for organizational performance. Additionally, it outlines the principles of effective workforce planning, including identifying organizational capabilities, analyzing workforce data, and forecasting demand, while also discussing the tools and techniques used in this process. The report underscores the importance of strategic workforce planning, which combines efforts from the human resource management and finance departments to enhance tacit and explicit knowledge about organizational operations and providing valuable inputs to the management to devise effective strategies.

Running head: RESOURCING AND TALENT PLANNING
RESOURCING AND TALENT PLANNING
Student’s name:
University:
Author’s note:

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Question 1
1.1 Assess the major contemporary labour market trends in different country
context.
Labour market, also known as the job market or employment market, can be
described as the demand and supply dynamics of labour, where the employers provide the
demand and employees the supply. In other words, labour market indicates the amount of
jobs available, as well as the amount of individuals ready to fill in those positions. Labour
market signifies an important element of the economy as it is essentially related with the
market in terms of capital, goods and services. At the macroeconomic level, labour market is
influenced by the domestic and global issues such as politics, economy, legislations,
immigration, education and health status, skill and the age of the working population etc.
impact the market trends to a great extent (Joll et al. 2018).
With the rise of Multinational organisations, there is an apparent paradigm
shift in the labour market all over the globe. The entry of such organisations in a national
economy and business environment creates new opportunities in terms of employment, skill
and economic growth. On the other hand, the specific nature of the employable population,
involving their value system, culture, as well as their economic and professional expectations
influences the policies and operations of the organisations. Therefore, it can be said that the
labour market trends are dependent on the dynamics of the employee-employer relationship
(Driffield 2013).
Interestingly, the major trends of the global labour market are diametrically
contradictory. On one hand, there is an increasing rate of unemployment. On the other hand,
certain jobs are remaining vacant for a long time due to the lack of specialized skill. Scholars

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indicate that the world is undergoing the fourth wave of industrial revolution. As a
consequence, there will opening for many novel job opportunities. Businesses are facing
major changes in terms of products, services and technology innovation. This will create an
opening for people with special expertise. On the other hand, this change will diminish some
of the traditional employment options (Driffield 2013).
Following these trends in the labour market, the job market in the UK and Canada can
be explained. The economic data obtained from Office of National Statistics, UK indicates
that unemployment rate has gone down to a record 4% compared to the last 40 years’ report,
while employment rate has been recorded as high as 75.8% by the end of 2018. However,
these figures do not support the overall economy, as the GDP growth has only been 1.4%.
Scholars suggest that this due to the lack of key skill in the labour market of the UK. The
falling rate of migration from the EU countries and slow-paced innovation in the employer’s
end has contributed to this skill shortage (Ons.gov.uk. 2019).
In Canada, however, the job market trends indicate a steady growth in terms of
increased employment rate. Last year, the rate has increased to 1.2%. Unemployment rate has
gone down to 5.8%. Average weekly earnings have increased too. As for the regional
statistics, the work force has diverged into the rural areas, although this growth was uneven.
However, in Canada too, there is a skill shortage. As a result, the unemployment rate is
unstable (Www150.statcan.gc.ca. 2018).
1.2 Explain how organisations position themselves strategically in competitive
labour markets.
The most important strategy adopted by the companies to attract potential employees
is to present themselves as the “employer of choice”. Meaning, organisations work towards
creating a fair and attractive brand image as an employer. Employer Value Proposition plays

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an important role in creating this image (Baker, 2014). Addressing employee expectations,
creating opportunities for learning and development, offering a comprehensive benefit
package, practising a fair recruitment process are some of the strategies that organisations
utilise to attract and retain employees. Effective implementation of these strategies also gives
them competitive advantage over rival companies (Chhabra and Sharma 2014).
1.3 Explain the significance of tight and loose labour market conditions.
Loose labour market indicates surplus of knowledge and skills in the employee
population, from which companies can obtain a rich talent pool. Tight labour market, on the
other hand, suggests a shortage of skilled labour for performing in available organisational
roles.
Both these features have a strong impact on business. The feature of loose labour
market requires active recruitment process, although there are not much suitable positions
available. A stiff competition among the employees results from this feature. Tight labour
market too impacts the recruitment process, for the lack of suitable skill hinders
organisational performance (Granovetter 2018).
Question 2
1.4 Describe the role of government, employers and trade unions in ensuring
future skills needs are met.
Employee skill is a necessary requisite for enhancing organisational performance. The
functions and operations of a company largely rely on the skills and knowledge of the
respective employees. To ensure the sustainability of the company, the management has to
identify their current business needs and future prospects. Therefore, to increase productivity
and profitability, the organisations have to facilitate knowledge and skill development and

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necessary training for the employees. Hence, it can be said that the role of the employer in
managing the skill set of the company talent pool is three-fold: First of all, the employers
have to assess the requirement of talents according to their current need. Second, the
employers have to identify appropriate talents that would be the best suitable options for the
company’s requirements. And finally, the management has to make necessary arrangements
and strategies to aid the employees with necessary training so that they can work towards
achieving the goals and objectives set by the organisation (Marchington et al. 2016).
This aspect of training and development is applicable to the corporate entities, as well
as the government agencies. Besides, the government plays another necessary role to ensure
employee skill development for future needs. The primary factor through which the
government contributes to the issue is policies and legislations. The major challenge for the
governments in this regard is to ensure employability among the youth of the respective
countries by providing them with necessary higher education and training programs. As has
been mentioned earlier, lack of appropriate skill in the labour market can cause damage to the
performance of the private sector. This will in turn affect the country’s economy in a negative
way (Warner and Sullivan eds 2017). Therefore, the ruling bodies all across the world have
laid out elaborate plans to strategize and implement skill development in their respective
nations. For example, the government of the UK envisions the establishment of the Big
Society to ensure the sustainable growth of the economy by extending social mobility and
social inclusion (Department for Business Innovation & Skills UK. 2019). The underpinning
vision of these objectives are skill development nonetheless. Therefore, the UK government
declares that it is the shared responsibility of the government, the corporate organisations and
individuals to invest in the project with consistency and confidence. For the said objective,
the UK government has increased the number of Adult Apprenticeship programs, vocational

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courses, informal adult and community learning programs etc. (Milbourne and Cushman
2013)
Apart from the human resource policies and strategies adopted by the government,
there are some legislations that contribute to skill development as well. South Africa, for
example, has introduced Skill Development Act 1998 specifically to address this issue
(Horwitz 2013.). Several other countries such as the USA, Australia, and New Zealand etc.
undertake the same responsibility through their legislation designed for human resource
development, education, corporate law and labour law.
The involvement of trade unions in the issue of skill development also plays a key role. A
recent study from Leeds University shows that the positive involvement of the trade unions in
training has a strong impact on the overall outcome of employee skill development. The
study reports that the proportion of union members getting into training has gone up to 38.9%
from 36.8% in between the years 2008 and 2013. The proportion of the non-unionised
employees, on the other hand, has decreased from 23.4% to 22.9% (Tuc.org.uk. 2019). Trade
unions supports employees for entering into training and improving the quality of learning
opportunities. Workers who take part in this union-led training programs often are reported to
acquire enhanced job-related skills and consequently earn better wages and extended tenure
compared to the untrained employees. Thus, union-led training courses also contribute to
build an organized and skilled working force that will eventually be meeting the
organisational needs effectively (Gill and Meyer 2013).

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Question 3
2.1 Describe the principles of effective workforce planning and the tools used in
the process.
Workforce planning is a process through which organisations aligns the employees
with the objectives and priorities of the company. It involves analysis, forecasting assessment
of gaps, determining the target and goals, attracting appropriate talents and managing the
workforce. It is a carefully designed process that enables the organisation to proactively
anticipate the current and future needs of the company. It is also useful for the enhancement
of organisational performance by managing the resource and meeting the company goal. In
order to ensure these outcomes, an organisation requires to maintain the regulatory,
legislative, production and service requirements. Workforce planning enables the
organisation to meet these requirements by providing evidence-based strategies for workforce
development (Pilbeam and Corbridge 2010).
Effective workforce planning can only be designed by combining the careful efforts
of the human resource management and finance department of the organisation. The aim of
workforce planning is to enhance tacit and explicit knowledge about the organisational
operations and providing valuable inputs to the management so that they can come up with an
effective strategy. Workforce planning also plays an instrumental role in the budgeting
process of the organisation (Fadairo, Williams and Maggio 2013).
Workforce planning is usually categorized to two major subtypes, namely strategic
workforce planning and operational workforce planning. Strategic workforce planning
generally aims at a four to five years’ forecast period, determined by the organisational goals

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and requirements. An organisation needs to analyse its workforce implications, scenario
planning, current workforce transition, as well as its strategic objectives.
Operational workforce planning, on the other hand, expands over a comparatively
shorter timeframe, i.e. 12-28 months’ business planning cycle. Through this process,
organisations gather the necessary information about the workforce, analyse it and report to
the management for devising strategic workforce management policies (April et al. 2018).
To implement an effective workforce planning, it is important to use an analytic
approach to gather, assess and analyse workforce information. It should include evidence-
based methods and focus on the current and future needs of the organisation. A strategic
workforce planning follows certain principles that determine the central objective of the
organisation, as well as aligns the workforce with the objective. The principles are as follows:
1. Identifying the organisational capabilities and requirements and determining the
business direction by balancing them with the said capabilities and requirements.
2. Gathering and analysing current workforce data including personal and collective
capabilities of the available human resource.
3. Forecasting the organisational demand of workforce capabilities.
4. Identifying and bridging the gap between the workforce demand and supply.
5. Implementing an effective workforce strategy to meet the goals using the
workforce.
6. Monitoring and analysing the strategic approach for the assessment and mitigation
o of potential risk factors, as well as and to ensure productivity and profitability.
To ensure all these principles are taking place effectively within the organisational
operations, companies use various workforce analytic tools and techniques such as stretagic
workforce planning map, HR dashboarding, scenario planning, compensation and benefit

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analysis, 9-Box grid etc. These tools help the organisations to understanding the workforce
behaviour including assessment of employee recruitment, employee turnover, promotion
patterns, overtime, absenteeism and decreased productivity (Fadairo, Williams and Maggio
2013).
Question 4: Give a brief account of HR’s role in each of the following:
2.2 Develop basic succession and career development plans
Career development planning is a process through which an individual plans his or
her career progression. It is the process of systematically corresponding individual
capabilities and career goals that leads an individual to reach his or her desired positions in
the professional field. It is necessarily an individual-specific process, in which learning,
expansion of knowledge and skill development are the necessary pre-requisites (Wood et al.
2013).
Succession planning, on the other hand, concerns itself with the entirety of the
organisational talent. It is a significant organisational strategy to ensure the company’s
sustainability. Succession planning is the process of identifying and developing new talents
appropriate for the vacant positions in managerial and executive workforce when they arise.
More specifically, succession planning is an effective procedure of replacement management
for the key roles in the organisation. Employee development and knowledge sharing is related
to organisational succession planning as an integral part of the said process. Effective
succession planning involves the management talent pool and subsequent feeder groups.

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Effective succession planning is subject to a thorough assessment of the current and
future talent requirement of the company. It also depends on the capabilities of acquired
talents and subsequent development (Clutterbuck 2012).
The human resource department of an organisation plays the most instrumental role in
both career planning and succession planning, for the assessment of talents and identifying
the organisational requirement both fall under the expertise of the HR. The HR is also
responsible for devising the training and development programs necessary for the
enhancement of the capabilities of the managers and the general employees. For this purpose,
the HR arranges Management Development Program (MDP) and Executive Development
Program (EDP). Thus, by ensuring personal development, the HR manages personnel talent
enhancement and prepare them for future responsibilities in the promoted designations
(Rothwel et al. 2015).
2.3 Contribute to plans for downsizing an organisation
The term ‘downsizing’ refers to reducing the amount of existing workforce of a
company. This reduction may be necessary for a multiple reasons, cost-cutting being one of
them. The employers mainly downsize the organisation to tackle poor economic conditions,
maintain profitability, or to accommodate change such as new undertaking or merger of
companies (Brauer and Laamanen 2014).
Downsizing requires careful planning and execution of strategic approaches, for
laying off the amount of workforce may affect the productivity of the company. Therefore, it
can be said that downsizing requires a both-way precaution—it has to cut down the existing
cost and maintain or enhance the productivity at the same time. Therefore, appropriate talents
are to be identified and retained strategically. The Human Resource Management is the key
unit to carry out this strategy. The HR is responsible for the performance appraisal of the

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employees. While the management decides the parameters for this appraisal, HR has the first-
hand knowledge of the employee capabilities (Redman 2016). Thus, HR executes the
assessments and identifies which personnel to be laid off and which to retain.
2.4 Contribute to the development of job descriptions, person specifications and
competency frameworks.
Job description, competency framework and person specification are all parts of the
organisation’s approach to ensure success. These methods enables to identify and choose the
right talents appropriate for the organisation. HR has the primary responsibility of designing
the workforce and align them with the goals and objectives of the company. Therefore, it is
essential for HR to portray the accurate job description and subsequent person specification
and competency framework designing (Sanghi 2016).
HR has the primary information of the organisational operations and projected targets,
therefore, they can identify the present and future needs of the company. Therefore, by
projecting the exact requirements of the designation, HR can hire the appropriate employee.
Person specification helps to identify these appropriate knowledge and skill set. Thus, HR
can set the selection criteria by aligning the talent requirement with the available talents.
Moreover, the competency framework of an organisation helps the HR management
personnel to develop their skill in attracting, screening and hiring employees for the
organisation. This framework is also developed by the HR department as they devise the
necessary strategy and opportunities of the necessary training procedure. Thus, HR
contributes to the standardized approach to ensure an effective HR performance through
engaging in these procedures (NEWELL BROWN 2011).

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Question 5
2.5 Explain the main legal requirements in relation to recruitment and selection.
To ensure the organisational success by designing and effective strategy, a company
needs to recruit appropriate talents from the existing labour market. The strategy to hire
appropriate personnel depends upon the demand of capabilities and the central goals and
objectives of the organisation. However, organisations have to follow certain legislations as
well as government directives apart from the organisational guidelines.
The major legal requirements regarding hiring and recruitments vary from country to
country. However, there are some fundamental principles that shape up the recruitment
frameworks across all the nations. These principles are based mainly on the understandings of
basic human rights and anti-discriminatory policies followed by all the national and
international bodies. In the United Kingdom, the basic legal requirements for hiring and
recruitment purposes of the organisations ratifies the Equality Act 2010. The employers
cannot discriminate the applicants on the basis of class, caste, race, sex, gender preference,
sexual orientation, age, maternity status, marital status or religion. Other legal requirements
include data protection, health and security regulations, grievance tackling and dismissal
procedure, holidays, working hours and remuneration maintenance etc. (Cascio 2015).
2.6 Assess the strengths and weaknesses of different methods of recruitment and
selection.
The strength and weakness of different approaches of recruitment and selection
depend on the fairness and strategic execution of the company policies. In order to execute a
successful selection and recruitment procedure, an organisation must identify its current and
future needs in terms of skills and experience primarily. Further, the selection criteria have to
be framed judiciously. However, in many cases, recruitment and selection cannot be