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Learn about the key differences between manpower planning and human resource planning.
The manpower planning is an attempt to develop a systematic method of ensuring that the organization would have a continuous supply of people it needed now, and would need in the future, in order to carry out the task that led to the achievement of objectives.
Human resource planning is understood as ‘the process for identifying an organisation’s current and future human resource requirements, developing and implementing plans to meet these requirements and monitoring their overall effectiveness.’
Difference between Manpower Planning and Human Resource Planning
Difference between Manpower Planning and Human Resource Planning – 6 Points
Difference # Human Resource Planning (HRP):
1. Concept:
It is a planning/projection concerning core components of people (viz. skill, knowledge, ability, attitude, value, beliefs etc.)
2. Process:
Manager is concerned with motivating people-a process in which costs, numbers, control and systems interact
3. Coverage:
It has a wider coverage (both quantitative and qualitative aspects in the employment of people are considered)
4. Emphasis:
(i) Emphasis is given on culture management and individual growth and development
(ii) Main focus is on the human and human aspects of people.
5. Assumptions about People:
(i) People are considered assets, resource People make the organization grow.
(ii) Organizational goals are achieved through people
6. Approach:
It is a new approach concerned with broader issues
Difference # Manpower Planning (MP):
1. Concept:
It is a planning/projection concerning ‘strength’/ ‘power’ of people
2. Process:
Manager is concerned with numerical aspect of forecasting, supply demand matching and control
3. Coverage:
It has a limited coverage. It looks into the quantitative aspect of employment
4. Emphasis:
(i) Emphasis is given on the technical aspect of matching of supply and demand of manpower.
(ii) Main focus is on the numerical elements of forecasting
5. Assumptions about People:
(i) People are considered costs.
(ii) People are constraints, hurdles to the achievement of organizational goals.
6. Approach:
It is a traditional approach of manpower requirement.
Difference between Manpower Planning and Human Resource Planning
There has been a lot of confusion and ambiguity over the use of the terms ‘Human Resource Planning’, (HRP) and ‘Manpower Planning’ (MP). Some are of the view that both HRP and MP are the same. K. Legge (1989) opines that HRP turns out to be the old wine of personnel management in new bottle. Thomson (1988) argues that there is no difference between HRP and MR.
In the 1988 edition of A Textbook of Human Resource Management he writes –
Human resource planning (or manpower planning) may be defined as a process whereby courses of action are determined in advance and continually updated, with the aim of ensuring that –
a. The organization’s demand for labour to meet its projected needs is as accurately predicted as the adoption of modern forecasting techniques allows and
b. The supply of labour to the enterprise is maintained by deliberate and systematic action to mobilize it in reasonable balance with these demands.
Some opine that HRP and MP are two different things. John Bramham (1989) argues that there is a big difference between human resource planning and manpower planning.
However, human resources planning and manpower planning are not entirely different. These have similarities in some areas while in some others areas these show differences to each other.
Difference between Manpower Planning and Human Resource Planning
The manpower planning is an attempt to develop a systematic method of ensuring that the organization would have a continuous supply of people it needed now, and would need in the future, in order to carry out the task that led to the achievement of objectives. The U.S. Department of Employment defined manpower planning as ‘a strategy for the acquisition, utilization, improvement and retention on an enterprise’s human resources’.
When manpower planning was first proposed, manufacturing represented 60 per cent of jobs and the planners relied on the availability of traditional skills. The process was analytic, and it was comprehensive in the sense that it set out to provide the staffing needs of the whole organization.
This approach was appropriate for the purpose it served since the demand was for traditional knowledge, skill and competence across the spectrum of organizational activities.
Human resource planning is different from manpower planning. There are areas that are common to both, but they differ markedly in the strategy approach and purposes. Definitions of processes, however, say more than simply what a process is; they also indicate the thinking that underlies the approach to its implementation.
The original thinking behind defining manpower planning was that it was a strategy that secured the enterprise’s human resources’, which amounted to acquiring the right number of appropriately skilled people when they were needed. The main idea was to achieve a match between manpower demand and manpower supply.
Demand means the organisation’s current and future human resource requirements, while supply refers to the degree to which the demand may be met, from the current workforce and externally. Human resource planning goes beyond just acquisition of human resources.
Human resource planning is understood as ‘the process for identifying an organisation’s current and future human resource requirements, developing and implementing plans to meet these requirements and monitoring their overall effectiveness.’
The process ensures that the human resource requirements of an organization are identified and plans are made for satisfying those requirements. Human resource planning is a strategic management function, the aim of which is to ensure that the organization will have the human resources it needs currently and in the future in order to realize its strategy and achieve its human objectives.
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