INTERNAL ASSESSMENT OF ORGANIZATIONAL WORKFORCE

Analyzing the jobs that will need to be done and the skills of people currently available to do them is the next part of HR planning. The needs of the organization must be compared against the labor supply available.

1. AUDITING JOBS AND SKILLS

The starting point for evaluating internal strengths and weaknesses is an audit of the jobs currently being done in the organization. This internal assessment helps to position an organization to develop or maintain a competitive advantage. A comprehensive analysis of all current jobs provides a basis for forecasting what jobs will need to be done in the future. Much of the data to answer these questions should be available from existing staffing and organizational databases.

The following questions are addressed during the internal assessment: 

• What jobs now exist?
• How many individuals are performing each job?
• What are the reporting relationships of jobs?
• How essential is each job?
• What jobs will be needed to implement the organizational strategy?
• What are the characteristics of anticipated jobs?

2. ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITIES INVENTORY

As those doing HR planning gain an understanding of current jobs and the new jobs that will be necessary to carry out organizational plans, they can make a detailed audit of current employees and their capabilities. The basic source of data on employees is the HR records in the organization. By utilizing different databases in an HRIS, it is possible to identify the employees’ capabilities, knowledge, and skills. Planners can use these inventories to determine long-range needs for recruiting, selection, and HR development. Also, that information can be the basis for determining which additional capabilities will be needed in the future workforce that may not currently exist, but will be needed.


COMPONENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITIES INVENTORY 

This inventory of organizational capabilities often consists of:

• Individual employee demographics (age, length of service in the organization, time in present job
• Individual career progression (jobs held, time in each job, promotions or other job changes, pay rates).
• Individual performance data (work accomplishment, growth in skills).

These three types of information can be expanded to include:

• Education and training
• Mobility and geographic preference
• Specific aptitudes, abilities, and interests
• Areas of interest and internal promotion ladders
• Promotability ratings
• Anticipated retirement

All the information that goes into an employee’s skills inventory affects the employee’s career.

Therefore, the data and their use must meet the same standards of job-relatedness an nondiscrimination as those used when the employee was initially hired. Furthermore, security of such information is important to ensure that sensitive information is available only to those who have specific use for it.

USING ORGANIZATIONAL INVENTORY DATA
Data on individual employees can be aggregated into a profile of the current organizational workforce. This profile reveals many of the current strengths and deficiencies. The absence of some specialized expertise, such as advanced computer skills, may affect the ability of an organization to take advantage of new technological developments. Likewise, if a large group of experienced employees are all in the same age bracket, their eventual retirement will lead to high turnover and a major void in the organization.

For example, in one case, eight skilled line workers in a small rural electric utility were due to retire within a three-year period. Yet it takes seven years of apprenticeship and on-the-job training for a person to be qualified for a senior skilled job within the utility.

Other areas often profiled include turnover, mobility restrictions of current workers, and specialized job qualifications. A number of these factors are ones over which the organization has little control. Some employees will die, leave the firm, retire, or otherwise contribute to a reduction in the current employee force. It can be helpful to plot charts giving an overview of the employee situation for each department in an organization, suggesting where external candidates might be needed to fill future positions. Similarly, the chart may indicate where there is a reservoir of trained people that the employer can tap to meet future conditions.

Increasingly, employers are making use of a computerized human resource information system (HRIS) to compile such records.