Human Resource Planning (HRP) in Garment Industry

Last Updated on 12/01/2021

Human Resource Planning (HRP) in Garment Industry

R.S. Balakumar
Associate Professor
Dept of Fashion Design & Arts
Hindustan University, Chennai, India
Email: rsbalakumar1953@gmail.com

Human Resource Planning (HRP)
Human Resource Planning (HRP) has gained in its importance in the recent years. The significance and objectives are dealt with in detail with steps in HRP like deciding objectives and goals, estimating the future organizational structure and man power requirements, auditing human resources, planning job requirements and job descriptions, developing a human resource plan. The broader objective of the study is to examine the present practices of Human Resource Planning (HRP) in garment industry.

human resource planning in Garment Industry — Fig: HRP in Garment Industry

The major activities of HRP has the five areas like,

Demand forecasting,
Supply Forecasting,
Determining Human Resource Requirements,
Action planning,
Monitoring and control.

Right person in a right place is the key factor of succeeding the HRP in garment industry. Man power or ‘Human power’ may be taught of as “the total knowledge, skills, creative activities, talents and aptitudes of an organizations work force as well as the values, attitudes and benefits of an individual involved. It is the sum total of inherent abilities, acquired knowledge and skills represented by the talents and aptitudes of theemployed persons” of all the “Ms” in the management (i.e.)

The management of

Men,
Materials,
Machines,
Methods,
Money,
Motive power

The most important is ‘M’ for men or human resources. It is in fact an important economic resource covering all human resources organized or unorganized, employed or capable of employment working at all levels supervisors, executives, sewing section production master, cutting section master, finishing section master, fabric section executives and technical employees, sewing machine operators, Helpers are involved in the Apparel Industry. Majority ofthe Garment sectors always recruiting 70% of the women employees and 30% of the men employees.

In garment industry, constant true factor is considered to be 25% of the women employees’ absenteeism. This is due to poor health condition or their family situations. Daily productivity achievement are always at its back lock position, and to meet over this type of risk shift system, Individual production system Incentives on productivity based and some fringe benefits are kind enough to offer their employees is the key factor to gain successfully run the garment industry.

HRP is deemed necessary for all organisations for one or the other of the following reasons:

1. To carry on its work, each Apparel organization needs personnel with the necessary qualification, skills, knowledge work experience and aptitude for work. These are provided through effective man power planning.

2. There is a constant need for replacing such personnel who have grain old or who retire, die or become in capacitated because of physical or mental ailments otherwise the work would suffer.

3. HRP is essential because of frequent labour turn over which is unavailable and even beneficial because it arises from factors which are socially and economically sound such as voluntary quits, discharges, marriage, promoting or factors such as seasonal and cyclical fluctuations in business which cause a constant ebb and flow in the work force in many apparel industries.

4. In order to meet the needs of expansion of the factory due to expectation of over productivity to be achieved in a given schedule to deliver the goods to overseas countries.

5. The nature of the present work force in relation to its changing needs necessitates the recruitment of new labour.

6. Man power planning is also in order to identify areas of surplus personnel or areas in which there is a shortage of personnel. If there is a surplus, it can be redeployed and if there is shortage it may be made good.

HRP constitutes an integral part of corporate plan and serves the organizational purposes in more ways than one. For example it helps organizations to:

Capitalize on the strengths of its human resources.
Determine recruitment levels.
Anticipate redundancies.
Determine optimum training levels.
Serve as a basis for management development programme.
Cost man power in new projects.
Assist productivity bar gaining.
Assess future requirements.
Study the cost of overhead and value of service functions.
Decide whether certain activities need to be sub contracted.

Steps in Human Resource Planning (HRP):
It may be rightly regarded as a multi-step process including various issues, such as:

Deciding objectives and goals
Estimating future organisational structure and man power requirements.
Auditing human resources
Planning job requirements and job descriptions.
Developing a human resource plan.

Major Activities of HRP:
HRP entails following five areas of activity:

Demand fore casting
Supply Forecasting
Determining Human resource Requirements
Action planning
Monitoring and control

Though these activities are listed separately, they are interrelated and often overlap. The purpose, methods and techniques of these five activities are briefly discussed here.

The ‘Long-Range’ could be 5 years, while 10 to 15 years span could be used for a perspective plan. Long-Range plans must be made on the basis of various trends in the economy and in the labour market, and on long-term trends in the production. Long-Range plans are general rather than specific, flexible rather than rigid.

Nevertheless, a plan can be extremely useful in identifying factors and trends that need to be reckoned with the early warning on possible problems. The long lead time provides the opportunity and resilience to meet exigencies and make necessary adjustments. More complete plans can be had as time slowly brings the long-range into short-range.

The first step in the HRP process is the establishment of a planning horizon. One should know the period for which the plan will apply. Then, the specific corporate objectives and strategies should be clear. Based on these, estimates or projections for demand and supply of human resources can be made using the approach and methods. The difference between the estimates of demand for and supply of human resources is often referred to as the HRP strategy i.e. to formulate plans for closing such gaps – perhaps by recruitment and training. (If the demand is positive i.e., demand exceeds supply) or by planned redundancy (If the gap is negative).

1. Demand Forecasting
Refers to the estimation of the future need for Human Resources in the context of corporate and functional plans and forecasts of future activity levels of the organisation. Demand for Human Resources in an organisation should be based on annual budgets and corporate plan, translated into activity levels, for each function and department. In a manufacturing concern, the starting point is the sales forecast and targets. Based on these, production plans are prepared specifying the numbers and types of product to be made over a specific period. Then the number of people, skill levels, etc., to accomplish the sales and production targets are estimated. The human resources requirement for a given level of operations vary in the same organisation over different points of time or among organisations depending upon the production technologies, process, make or buy decisions etc.

The plans refer to expected changes in production or manpower levels arising from changes in working methods or procedures, automation or mechanization. These could be mentioned as a crude percentage increase in productivity which could be used to adjust the required man hours for a given level of output. Job analysis and work-study provide the major inputs for demand forecasting.

2. Supply Forecasting
Every organization will have two major sources of supply of human resources: Internal and External. In unionized firm, up to certain job levels agreements may determine the ratio of internal and external sources of supply. Manpower flows in and out of an organisation can be of a variety of reasons. Policies affecting each of these aspects need to be reviewed regularly to assess their possible effects on human resource supplies.

3. Determining Human Resources Requirements
Human resource requirements are determined by relating the supply to the demand forecasts and identifying deficits or surpluses of human resources that will exist in the future. Table shows proforma of how demand and supply forecasts can be scheduled over a period of 5 years. The reconciliation of demand and supply forecasts gives the numbers of people to be recruited or made redundant as the case may be. This forms the basis for the action programme for HRP.

4. Action Planning
The human resource requirements identified with the above procedure need to be considered within a strategic framework. Organisations operate in a changing environment. So, they do not remain static. Manpower structures also do not remain static. Review of activities and roles of persons at different levels and O & M studies may provide useful insights and opportunities to modify assumption about manpower structures, job design etc., and change the estimate about requirements.

Change in production methods, union agreements on productivity, offloading maintenance, sub-contract etc., are some of the strategic decisions that help organisations to significantly alter their human resource needs without affection the volume of business. Once the human requirements are studied and analysed, amongst strategic options such as those mentioned above, the following action plans could be drawn up:

(a) The recruitment plan, which will set out:

The numbers and types of people required and when they are needed;
Any special problems in recruiting the right people and how they are to be dealt with;
The recruitment programme.

(b) The redeployment plan, which will set out programme for transferring or retraining existing employees or new jobs.

Who is to be redundant and where and when;
The plans for re-training, where this is possible;
Alternative programs for voluntary separation (Golden Hand Shake), retrenchment, lay-off etc.

(d) The training plan, which will show:

The number of trainees or apprentices required and the programme for recruiting or training them;
The number of existing staff who need training or retraining and the training programme;
The new courses to be developed or the changes to be made in existing courses.

(e) The productivity plan which will set out programmes for improving employee productivity or reducing employee costs through:

Work simplification through O&M studies
Mechanization and automation
Productivity bargaining
Incentives and profit sharing schemes
Job re-design
Training and re-training.

(f) The retention plan to reduce avoidable wastage by review or reasons for employee turn over through additional information that can be obtained through exit interviews and initiate necessary changes in;

Compensation policies and Programmes
Induction and training
Changes in work requirements
Improvements in working conditions.

In each of these areas it is necessary to estimate the cost and weigh them against possible benefits.

5. Monitoring and Control
While assessing future requirements, the estimates depend mostly upon the nature of human resources assumptions in the organisations. Corporate strategy can influence manpower strategy and vice-versa. Here the three approaches we can consider are zero bases budgeting, ideal and realistic.

References:

Human Resource Management – Dr.Balu.
Study Materials On HRP- & HRM Reputed Indian Universities (DDE)

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Mazharul Islam Kiron

Founder & Editor of Textile Learner. He is a Textile Consultant, Blogger & Entrepreneur. Mr. Kiron is working as a textile consultant in several local and international companies. He is also a contributor of Wikipedia.