The Effect of Implementing a HR Planning Process Proposal

Abstract

The main research objective in this paper is to determine the effect of implementing a HR planning process for training. Since a lot of factors may contribute to the broad organisational impact of training, this dissertation will only dwell on the effect of planning for training on the actual training process.

Literature review on the subject reveals that most HR training planning projects tend to focus on overall organisational effects, not the effectiveness of the training process. Furthermore, many studies dwell on western companies or a myriad of organisations within a certain industry or sector.

This dissertation will narrow down the analysis to a specific organisation so as to increase accuracy of data collection. Several papers also focus on reasons behind the failure of HR training planning, so this dissertation will highlight the outcomes of the same.

The research methods will be based on quantitative analysis of employee and trainer attitudes concerning the training process. Information about training schedules, training goals, employee learning style-training fit and identification of the right employees for training will be collected. Primary sources include employee attitude surveys and trainer attitude surveys.

Training goals will be analysed through secondary sources on Microsoft Gulf’s HR practices. A comprehensive analysis of the data will be done to ascertain whether the planning process affected the training process or not.

Objectives

The overall objective of this research is “To determine the effect of implementing a HR planning process for training.” The company chosen for analysis already has a sound HR planning strategy in place.

It will be critical to assess whether this company is achieving any tangible results from the planning of training programs. Therefore, the research will reveal both the positive and negative outcomes of HR planning for training. This overall objective will be achieved through the following specific objectives:

To assess whether planning for training leads to accomplishment of training needs

Some organisations may wish to increase productivity, sales revenues or other similar objectives. Planning for training is supposed to allow companies to set definite goals that will cause the company to meet training needs (Freeman 1993). This research will find out whether this is true.

To determine whether planning for training causes companies to identify the right employees for training

In the planning process, a company needs to perform a needs analysis so as to identify the employees who need training in a particular area.

To investigate the effect of training planning on training schedules

HR personnel or parties in charge of training are supposed to plan for training by setting specific dates for the various sessions. This research will investigate whether the planning process led to better scheduling or worse scheduling. Were the classes too far apart that employees forgot the first lessons? Or were they placed too close to cause information overload?

To investigate whether planning for training led to application of the right method of training for trainees

Each training process possesses certain methods and materials that must be applied to the right audiences. The research will analyse whether the planning processes created greater flexibility in training.

Project Outcomes

The overall project outcome is to “Establish whether HR planning for training leads to effective training processes”. Other specific project outcomes include:

• Establish clarity of goal setting during training.
• Establish the effectiveness of training targets with regard to how challenging but achievable they were.
• Verify that the right employees were identified for training.
• Show whether schedules were too far from each other thus leading to memory loss of earlier lessons.
• Show whether schedules were too close together to lead to information overload
• Ascertain that training reached all categories of learners.
• Clarify the factors that led to success or failure of the training program.

Key questions

1. Does planning for training lead to goal accomplishment in training?
2. Does planning for training lead to identification of the right employees for training?
3. Does planning for training impact the effectiveness of training schedules?
4. Does planning for training alter the teaching methods?

Why the project is of interest to me

Most analyses in the field of Human resource planning tend to focus on the effect of planning in the organisation or among the employees concerned. However, since the human resource planning process encompasses various components, it is more effective to focus on one aspect of HR planning (Stavou-Costea 2005).

In this case, I chose training because it plays a significant role in achievement of organisational outcomes. This area of research is particularly interesting because it dwells on the effectiveness of training based on the planning process.

Therefore, organisations can identify why their training is failing or they may learn from Microsoft how to plan for training if the results prove that Microsoft is succeeding. Sometimes the solutions to training effectiveness may be as simple as improving pre-existing programs. This can save companies a lot of resources as the problem can be easily fixed.

Therefore, this research was interested to me, and it probably will be to other parties, because it facilitates the re-examination of companies’ HR strategies.

Using the methods suggested in the dissertation, firms can honestly find out whether they are doing the right thing in HR planning or whether they are simply going through the motions. Unless a certain program is beneficial to an organisation, then one must either look for alternative programs or find ways of improving what the company is already doing.

Literature review

A number of researches in the area of training as a part of Human Resource planning focus on training-needs assessments. They often entail case studies of particular firms or certain industrial sectors. One example was a research carried out by Abdullah (2009).

He wanted to investigate how effectively companies carry out training needs analysis. In order to narrow down his focus to a reasonable sample size, he decided to focus only on manufacturing companies in Malaysia.

In this analysis, the author measured the proportion of firms that carry out needs analysis, and then he dissected the nature of approaches used to assess these needs. In his investigation, the researcher found that the participating Malaysian firms use observational methods to do a needs-analysis. Therefore, training needs analyses were absent in those companies regardless of the nature of their sizes.

These findings have serious implications for personnel in other firms as they illustrate that the effectiveness of training is greatly undermined when people pay little attention to employee and organisational needs. It is likely that such firms will report minimal positive effects after employee training.

Alok (2006) echoes the same sentiments. He found that when firms do not carry out a needs assessment of their employee’s training needs; in other words, if they do not plan for training, then chances are that the employees will underperform.

If training is limited to the newcomers who are only enlightened about a company’s organisational structure, processes and procedures, mission and vision, then chances are that the older employees will feel dissatisfied. This again will result in low outcomes. From the above mentioned articles, it can be stated that one of the effects of poor or no training planning is low productivity and morale.

However, these two papers focused on the negative aspect of HR planning in training. Their concern was on the lack of training. This dissertation will attempt to seal that gap by focusing on a company that plans its training. It will not investigate whether several firms implement this aspect or not; emphasis will be on a firm that is respected for its training planning.

What the dissertation will study are the training outcomes of such a process in the participating firm. Other researchers such as Tooksoon and Mudor (2011) found that poor human resource management practices, such as the lack of job training, leads to poor job satisfaction and high employee turnover.

Most HR planning researches on training are based on Western countries, which have the resources and the capabilities needed to carry out effective training. However, resource constraints in other parts of the world may be severely constrained by the lack of such resources. It is, therefore, insightful to perform an analysis on planning for training in non – Western countries such as the United Arab Emirates.

As such, one can say that there is a gap in current literature because most of it is inclined towards the western world (Noe 2005). This proposal will attempt to fill that gap by focusing on a multinational in the United Arab Emirates.

Training has a myriad of effects depending on the calibre of employees that are given special attention. Bhatta (2002) found that several small-sized companies often planned for training among recruits or entry-level employees. Second line or executive leaders did not have the same privilege.

In fact, most of them tend to be happy with such a status quo because it means that they do not have to challenge themselves when working in an organisation. It will be insightful to study the changes that companies undergo when this calibre of employees are not ignored.

One can ascertain whether HR planning for training actually leads to tangible changes in an organisation when senior level employees are considered too. This dissertation will attempt to fill that gap by studying the latter parameters.

It is a common practice for most firms to take their training needs casually. This is often characterised by a haphazard approach towards the entire process. Hill (2004) explains that several companies use such a method because they do not have the right experts to carry out the job. Planning for training and its needs is a complex task that not every member of staff can do.

Furthermore, some companies think of planning for training as a burden to them. They, therefore, wait for emergencies to implement a needs-analysis. This is a classic case of prioritising short term needs over long term objectives. Many organisations tend to fall short because of failing to look at the big picture (Hansen 2003).

Other articles identify high employee turnover as a major challenge that prevents companies from doing training planning. It is understandable for firms to adopt a short – time perspective when their employees rarely stay long enough to develop. Alternatively, poor training planning may come from certain structural issues prevalent within an organisation.

Such firms may not have the right human resource policies or plans needed to carry out training and development. They may not have allocated a specific department to carry on with tasks.

These explanations are indicative of another point of focus in HR planning-for-training literature; a diagnosis of the causes of poor training planning. This dissertation will not focus on causes; instead, the major issue will be on a diagnosis of the effects of training planning.

Research methods

The research method will be deductive. I will come up with a research hypothesis on each research objective and then use data to confirm or nullify the hypothesis. Such an approach was chosen because similar topics have been done before. Consequently, one can use literature to establish general expectations from the paper. Furthermore, the method is quite appropriate for a quantitative study as it has a narrower focus.

My research title points to a very specific issue- Hr training planning. For such a specific idea, it is best to use deductive reasoning. Additionally, one should think about how easy it is to quantify data. In my case, results from HR training and planning approaches can be easily quantified through employee or trainer attitude surveys. This research will use a quantitative approach to collect data; it will involve a survey method.

Employee feedback on various aspects of the training process will be sought. Furthermore, the research will also get information from the trainers in Microsoft Gulf FZ LLC for certain parts of the research. Those components of the research objectives that involve training goals will solicit responses from the concerned training personnel.

However, other parts of the research questions such as the effectiveness of training, the ability of trainers to meet the learning needs and identification of the right employees will entail employee-feedback. Carrying out a survey within an organisation of the attitudes or opinions of employees concerning a certain HR strategy can be an effective way of assessing the overall outcomes of training (Ballot & Taymaz 2006).

Data collection will be done through structured questionnaires. This method was preferred to open ended interviews because some employees may have concerns about the repercussions of their responses. They may worry about the traceability of their statements and this may limit their honesty. Questionnaires ensure that all the participants have the same set of questions to choose from, so this protects their privacy.

The questionnaire will not be administered to all members of the organisation as this is a large company. Thereafter, the data will be analysed through a factor analysis. This will allow step by step analyses of the total number of parameters involved in the report. Representative samples will be selected in order to ascertain that every department is effectively represented.

As this dissertation is a case study, its generalisability will be limited. HR personnel must consider the fact that it was done only in one firm before they apply the results in their own organisations. Furthermore, it may be reflective of the culture in Middle Eastern firms or UAE specifically.

Primary or secondary sources

The secondary sources used in this study will include company reports concerning training schedules and training objectives. Some of this information can be found in the company website. It can be deduced from the firm’s annual reports on training. However, because most of this information is for consumption by the enterprise’s internal stakeholders, then chances are that it may not all be found on the internet.

I will cooperate with members of the HR team and the training arm of the company in order to get all the necessary information for this study. Issues such as assessment of employee needs are rarely in the public domain, so this research will get it from the trainers themselves.

Primary sources will form a major part of this research. They will entail trainer and employee surveys. Participants will furnish the interviewer with the right information required to establish a clear direction of HR training issues.

It is worth mentioning that the analysis to be carried out in this dissertation will not be effective unless one can get a firm grasp of the topic at hand. It will be essential to carry out a comprehensive literature review on planning of HR training.

I will utilise various academic print and web journals. Some books on HR and reports handed in on the same topic will also contribute towards this analysis. I will also dwell on some books that discuss planning for HR training. The secondary sources will also assist in hypothesis development and identification of effective ways to phrase the questions in the questionnaires.

Gantt Chart

References

Abdullah, H 2009, ‘Training needs assessment and analysis: a case of Malaysian manufacturing firms’, European Journal of Scientific Research, vol. 37 no. 3, pp. 351-360.

Alok, D 2006, HR planning, recruitment and deployment: challenges related to recruitment policies, HR policies and practices. Web.

Ballot, G & Taymaz, E 2006, ‘Who benefits from training and R&D, the firm or workers?’ British Journal of Industrial relations, vol. 4, pp. 473-495.

Bhatta, G 2002, ‘It’s the identification stupid: profiling senior public managers for training and development’ International journal of training and development, vol. 6 no. 2, pp. 99-111.

Freeman, J 1993, ‘Human resources planning- training needs analysis’, Management Quarterly, vol.34 no. 3, pp. 45-60.

Hansen, C 2003, ‘Cultural myths in stories about human resource development: analysing the cross-cultural transfer of American models to Germany and Cote d’Ivoire’ International Journal of training and development, vol. 7 no. 1, pp. 16-30.

Hill, R 20004, Why HRD in small organisations may have become a neglected field of study, London, Routledge.

Noe, R 2005, Employee training and development, New York, McGrawhill.

Stavou-Costea, E 2005, ‘The challenges of human resource management towards organisational effectiveness’ Journal of European Industrial training, vol. 29 no. 2, pp 112-134.

Tooksoon, P & Mudor, H 2011, ‘Conceptual framework on the relationship between human resource management practices, job satisfaction and turnover’, Economics and Behavioural Studies Journal, vol. 34 no. 2, pp. 41-49.