Workforce Planning

XQT1 Workforce Planning
Task 1
Introduction:

In today’s hypercompetitive business environment, an organization’s sustainable competitive advantage is largely derived from intangible assets: human, social, and intellectual capital. Intangible assets are produced by skilled, capable workers. Human resource professionals enable current and future organizational competitiveness by maintaining an adequate supply of people with the skills, knowledge, and abilities needed to produce these resources. Human resource professionals accomplish this through workforce planning, recruitment and selection of top-quality talent, and effective employee-relations management.

As a human resource professional, your ability to effectively identify your organization’s need for employees, plan and implement employee recruitment and selection strategies, and manage employee relations will directly contribute to your organization’s success.

Scenario:

You are the newly appointed director of human resource management for the fire department of a city in the northeastern United States. Your organization has struggled to hire new firefighters for some time. Your predecessor attempted to increase recruitment and selection of new firefighters by implementing an employee referral plan. However, the number of new hires through referrals has fallen short of hiring goals. The need for firefighters intensified when your city’s newly elected mayor promised to lower arson rates by increasing the number of firefighters in areas with higher arson rates. The fire department has met the need for increased staff by assigning existing firefighters the additional hours and paying overtime wages. As the number of hours worked and overtime payments increased over time, this practice—originally intended to be a short-term remedy—attracted unwanted attention.

A front-page article in your city’s newspaper has revealed that three firefighters earned higher annual salaries than the mayor, due to excessive overtime. Stung and embarrassed by this disclosure, the mayor fired your predecessor and put you in his place. Both the mayor and your boss have given orders to “reduce overtime by hiring new firefighters immediately!” This mandate requires you to plan and implement new strategies to hire 25 new firefighters.

Fortunately, the former director of human resources left behind several documents that will help you perform these tasks. Refer to the following documents as directed when you perform the requirements below: (1) “Memo on Proposed Employee Referral Plan,” (2) “Job Description of City Firefighters,” and (3) “Data on Recruitment Sources and Methods.”

Requirements:

Create a report (suggested length of 5–10 pages) in which you address the following:
A. Analyze factors in the internal and external labor market that influence the supply of and demand for firefighters by doing the following (refer to the scenario above and the attached “Memo on Proposed Employee Referral Plan” to complete these tasks):
1. Discuss three factors that are influencing labor demand.
2. Discuss three factors that are influencing labor supply.

B. Design a recruitment plan for firefighters by doing the following (refer to the task attachments and your knowledge of best practices to complete these tasks):
1. Identify three recruitment objectives for your organization.
2. Develop a recruitment strategy for attracting job applicants by doing the following:
a. Determine the size of the applicant pool needed to produce 25 viable candidates (job offer-ready) using yield ratios and the recruitment data in the attached “Data on Recruitment Sources and Methods.”
b. Recommend two types of individuals who should be targeted for recruitment (i.e., the target groups listed in the attached “Data on Recruitment Sources and Methods”).
i. Justify your recommendation.
c. Describe two effective methods for reaching each target group.

C. Design a selection plan for firefighters by doing the following:
1. Recommend three appropriate selection methods for all target candidates.
a. Justify each of your three recommendations.
2. Describe two selection tests you will use to assess a candidate’s suitability for the job of firefighters.
3. Identify two background verification checks that should be used in the selection process including the following:
• type of check
• when the check should be conducted in the selection process
4. Discuss four methods of evaluating the overall effectiveness of your recruitment and selection plans.

D. When you use sources to support ideas and elements in a paper or project, provide acknowledgement of source information for any content that is quoted, paraphrased or summarized. Acknowledgement of source information includes:
• Author
• Date
• Title
• Location of information (e.g., publisher, journal, or website URL)