External Factors Affecting HR Planning (Research Proposal Sample)

NAME OF THE INSTITUTION
External Factors Affecting HR Planning
BY
STUDENT NAME
STUDY LEVEL
DATE
Introduction
This study is a systematic investigation about the external factors that influences the processes of Human Resources Planning. We formed a group of three participants and named the team Lion. In the team, we conducted our study in the Tourism Australia, a popular tourism firm in Sydney. Our main focus of the study was to investigate the possible external factors that influence the human resource function. There was a hypothesis already that external factors influence the way Human resource departments make strategic plans and that organizations do not have control over external factors. Owing to that, our team also focused on the possible ways through which the Tourism Australia was managing to mitigate external factors.
Literature Review
As it has appeared for some time, Human resource units have external influences that challenge the way they do their planning (Rothwell & Kazanas 2003, p.24). Most of the companies in Australia implement their Human resources functions through interpreted information Systems. These systems keep track of the employee history, which helps the human resources to make effective strategic plans for the employees. The external factors include changes in technology, for example the use of information-systems. There is always need for change in the information management methods; hence, data integrity has been an issue following regular data cleanups. The planning process also faces social issues related to the welfare of employees. Our team discovered that there has been an issue with skill gaps among new recruits. Tourism Australia has not been able to get a good number of experienced people in the industry. This has at times forced the human resource management department to take in middle aged people from other companies, but this has its own repercussions; retirement. The middle age employees soon attain their retirement age and the same challenge goes on in cycles. External service providers place the company in tight schedules with heavy terms of reference for example, Tourism Australia contributes high amounts of funds in terms of medical insurance premium. Analysis of the Labour Market
The labour market has been infiltrated by foreigners who are often an alternative as a result of the taxation policies in Australia. Indigenous employees seek opportunities in international organizations to evade the heavy taxation from the Australian government. Of course by employing foreign expatriates, especially from the United States of America, Tourism Australia has to do remunerations in international rates, which impacts negatively on its annual financial budget. In addition, Australian government policies require companies to have a minimum percentage of its employees being indigenous. It is not easy to retain the employees for considerable durations owing to the fact that the external job market is dynamic and employees pursue various personal interests beyond the ability of the company to satisfy, including high salaries.
Factors
Social factors Affecting HRP
One of the social factors that have appeared to affect the planning of human resources in Tourism Australia is the employment of aged staff. These staff attain their retirement ages before the human resources department plan to recruit their replacements. This again comes with heavy responsibilities for example, majority of the employees come with already large families of which Tourism Australia has to pay medical insurance premiums. The other social factor is in the area of education and experience. The level of education and studies in the industry has more theoretical presentation than practical exposure (Deb 2006, p.80). The challenge has been how to get local citizens into training programs to acquire more experience. Even the attempts to train the existing employees are not fruitful enough because the external job market pulls them out of Tourism Australia with all the experience they acquired. Tourism Australia gets into a situation where it handles employee retirement processes and recruitment processes at the same time. Changes of status among employees also have implications on Tourism Australia human resources. For example, if an employee is taken in while single a time comes when he or she will marry and even have children. All these information forces the human resource department to change its planning strategies (Caruth et al 2008, p. 11).
Economic factors Affecting HRP
Whenever the government experience effects of inflation, it affects every industry and prompts necessary reviews of terms of employment. Employees, through Tourism Australia Workers Union, demand higher payments during the common bargaining agreements. The only implication of the demands is an adjustment of the annual budget beyond what had been set in the strategic planning. The government increases taxation scales which make human resource management very expensive. This has seen Tourism Australia reduce the numbers of recruitment and also doing frequent retrenchments. Our survey found out that due to the unpredictable nature of inflation, Tourism Australia human resource department has to apply for a provision for employee risk management from the finance department. This amount caters for increase in the budgets as a result of inflation or any other uncertainties related to employees.
Technological Factors affecting HRP
The dynamic work market according to Kumar (2010, p.35) requires frequent changes in the systems for managing human resource information. As employees come in and out of Tourism Australia, they raise the need for data updates in the management information system. This is an added task that is not easy for human resource department to plan for. The Lion team found out that there are possible delays in doing data amendments due to the rising frequencies of employee exits. Any slight del...