Resourcing and Talent Planning (5RST)

Resourcing and talent planning is a unit that explains the HR function in enhancing workforce mobilisation. The unit is meant to ensure that the organisation gets to attract the right personnel to carry out the right organisational roles to meet the goals set. It is a unit that explains the need to attract, recruit, and retain the staff members within the organisation. Organisations compete for talent in the labour market, and in learning this unit, the students get to learn the approaches taken to ensure that the right employees are selected from the labour market. Students taking the unit should learn that the organisation that they will be working for will have to recruit the staff members towards ensuring that they support the growth of the organisation. Thus, they should take note of this unit to ensure that they incorporate the right strategies towards recruitment and selection of the staff members, understand the succession planning, as well as the talent management aspects that contribute to organisational growth.

Labour market conditions

The students taking the course should understand the different between the tight and loose labour market conditions. This is important in determining the nature of labour competition, to which the organisation gets to select the right candidate for the job. Gumata and Ndou (2017) provides a description on the differences between the labour market conditions. The author explains the tight labour market condition as that which the employees available for the jobs are less and thus the competition is high towards getting the right candidate for the job. Loose labour market on the other hand is the condition where employees are many with less job opportunities. For example, China has a loose labour market condition and United Kingdom has a tight labour market condition.

Strategic positioning of organisations in the competitive labour market

Organisations should position themselves to identifying with the policies and legal requirements followed in the recruitment and selection of the employees. Planning for the organisation workforce requires the practitioners to follow strategies that help in the attraction of talent to the organisation. In addition, organisations should position themselves in a way that they promote the careers of the employees by developing learning and development opportunities, as well as ensuring that the employees experience a sense of satisfaction and commitment to working in the organisation.

Development of future employee skills

The organisations should relate with the hiring of the employees who will get involved in the process of delivering organisational goals, and this can only be made possible in cases when the future skills of the employees are developed. Different stakeholders have a role to play in ensuring that the future skills are met. The stakeholders include the government, trade unions, and the employers.

Workforce planning

The unit provides information on the principles of workforce planning, and these principles include; having the HR involve the organisational stakeholders in the workforce planning process, determining the expertise of the employees in carrying out organisational roles by identifying with their skills, knowledge, and competence, and monitoring the planning process to enhance development of the capital gains.

Apart from the principles, the learners should also understand the workforce planning tools, and some of those that have been identified for research in the unit include benchmarking, role fit, gap analysis, and scenario analysis.

Succession and career development plan

The unit teaches the students on the succession plans, and the career development plans, which are considered important attributes to having talented employees working to meet organisational goals. Succession planning involves identifying the employees who would replace those who are leaving the organisation, and the students should learn as HR professionals, it is their responsibility to ensure that the right candidate replaces a vacant job position for strategic talent management. The career development plans are considered to be HR roles in determining how the employee skills would be promoted to fit in a certain job position.

Downsizing organisations

Students taking the unit are expected to understand that organisations downsize for different reasons, and when this happens, the HR has to let some of the talent go from the organisation. As professionals students learn the importance of communicating with employees on the reasons why the organisation has to downsize, and prepare them for the outcome. In most cases, the employees become anxious, angry, scared, and uncertain. HR professionals in this case have the responsibility of supporting them. When making the decisions to retain the employees, the HR should focus on ensuring that they promote equity and fairness, and should also provide the employees to make decisions on whether they want to freely leave the organisation (Redman, 2016).

Job description, specification, and competency framework

Talent planning involves developing job descriptions to attract talent from the pool of candidates in the market. Learners taking the unit should learn how to develop the tool by clearly explaining the purpose of the job, and the responsibilities that the candidate is expected to carry out after being hired. Job specification follows job description, and it is considered to bring about the essential and desirable attributes that the candidate should have in order to fit in the job position. The competency framework provides the skills needed by the candidates to complete the job roles.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the unit, learners should;

• Be able to analyse the labour market in the different countries, and provide a comparison of how the markets influence workforce planning
• Learn the legal requirements that the HR and professionals should take into account in planning for the organisation workforce.
• Be in a position to understand the skill requirements needed by the workforce in carrying out different organisational tasks
• Have the ability to develop job descriptions and person specification requirements for candidates seeking for a job position in the organisation
• Understand the different selection and recruitment methods and how and 3when they are used
• Understand the retention strategies developed within organisations to facilitate effective talent management and workforce planning

Winding-up

The unit is for the students who want to be professionals in the fields of HR, L&D, and those willing to become consultants in HR field. The knowledge gained after completing the unit helps the learners become experts in carrying out their roles and responsibilities, towards ensuring that they promote the right mechanisms to retaining talented and skilled employees in the organisation.