Workforce planning

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Under manpower planning ( PEP ) refers to the rational allocation of the different employees to the positions (due to their ability profile and the requirements of the site) and otherwise setting up of free or liberated capacity, movement of qualified employees and restructuring of departments. Another dimension of the term is shift planning.

The task of planning the deployment of personnel is to distribute the current employees to the various workplaces, taking into account the quantitative, temporal and local requirements of the company and the interests and inclinations of the employees.

A distinction is to be made between the personnel disposition , which is supposed to establish the short-term (daily or hourly) balance between target and actual personnel.

Problems of personnel deployment planning are optimization problems and can therefore be assigned to operations research . They can therefore also be approached with the usual solution methods of Operations Research. Many problems in workforce planning can be specifically formulated as linear optimization problems .

Capacity planning and time management

More recent approaches understand personnel deployment planning as a strategic instrument for optimizing business processes in companies and authorities. A central role is played by making working hours more flexible, so that they can be synchronized with fluctuating personnel requirements. Since these issues of working time management are closely linked to further business management problems, such as a fluctuating order situation or general conditions under labor law, modern approaches integrate workforce planning into a larger context. Under the catchphrase workforce productivity, methods are discussed how processes of personnel deployment planning can be efficiently linked with other administrative and management tasks, for example in the areas of order planning or building security. For this purpose, the value "Total Personnel Costs Share of Sales" is often used as a measure, which defines certain threshold values ​​(e.g. in trade between 15 and 20%, in industry between 28 and 35%, in service areas such as architecture and advertising a maximum of 45% of sales) must not exceed. In trade and related service areas one has to choose different approaches than those used in the manufacturing sector. If the focus in production is on the number of goods produced and their quality, then in retail you will have to pay attention to a minimum number of people in the shop in order to serve potential customers and, if necessary, to act as a deterrent to shoplifting. On the other hand, economic aspects will also be taken into account here (e.g. the number of economically viable employees per m² of sales area).

Shift planning and deployment planning

Workforce planning can also refer to shift planning. In shift work , employees are shifted to the same job according to a certain schedule, so that they have to do their work at different times within a certain period of time. In order to schedule the workers, it is necessary to create a shift schedule. In the field of deployment planning, employees are assigned various activities that they carry out on site at the customer. A work schedule is necessary so that employees know when and where to work.

In the event of bottlenecks, employees may be taken out of their free time, e. B. with colleagues who are temporarily ill. If this accumulates, it is advisable to create a so-called double duty roster: For each shift, a second employee is entered who is free in the first duty roster. This gives employees planning security. Internet-based solutions simplify the creation of a second duty roster.

Workforce management

Furthermore, the workforce planning is a component of workforce management. In addition to the workforce planning, this also includes the forecast of the expected workload and the staff required, the optimization of the use of staff to avoid under- and over-coverage, the administration of various time accounts within the framework of the Time management as well as the analysis and control of the entire workforce management process. In contrast to traditional personnel deployment planning, which is anchored in time management and is an administration of time in the past and future, workforce management addresses changes in planning requirements and goals: needs-based orientation and optimization are the core elements of modern workforce management solutions. It is no longer just about the distribution of working shifts to the existing employees, but about flexible planning geared to current needs, taking into account demand-related or seasonal fluctuations, current customer, sales or transaction key figures or other economic aspects (so-called Demand driver). These demand drivers are used as part of a personnel requirement assessment (= forecast) with the aim of determining the company's exact personnel requirements. After each period, the data from the personnel requirement forecast should be compared with the actual business figures in order to be able to draw conclusions for the forecast for the next planning period. Usually own table solutions but also special forecasting tools are used here.

The corporate goals of workforce management are to have the right employees (with the right qualifications) in the right place at the right time. Through holistic workforce management and its optimization, in the long term, personnel costs can be significantly reduced, employee satisfaction increased, productivity increased and more sales achieved through better service.

literature

  • Ellen Braun, Steffen Hillebrecht: Personnel planning in the book trade. Bramann-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-934054-63-9 .
  • Burkhard Scherf, Matthias Fank: Manual of personnel deployment planning . Datakontext-Verlag, Frechen, 2005, ISBN 3-89577-373-5 .
  • Houyuan Jiang, Mohan Krishnamoorthy, David Sier: Staff Scheduling and Rostering: Theory and Applications. (= Annals of Operations Research. Vol. 127/128). Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004, OCLC 55216116 .
  • Horst-Werner Feldmann: Workforce Productivity. Holistic optimization strategies for human resources. Hirschen Verlag, Fürth 2006, ISBN 3-939480-00-2 .
  • Frank Kieper: Dynamic success controlling as a solution approach for operational personnel cost management. Munich / Mering 1996, ISBN 3-87988-197-9 .
  • Maik Günther: Highly flexible workforce management: challenges and solution processes. Springer-Verlag 2011. Print ISSN  0933-1875 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. E. Braun, S. Hillebrecht: Personnel planning in the book trade. Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 46ff.