I am working with a conglomerate. Currently, we are in a situation where we need to determine, for one of our businesses, what parameters should be looked into to determine whether the HR Department is overstaffed or understaffed. Also, I would like to know how to approach the situation. Mere calculation of HR: Employee ratios will not be of much use. Due to time constraints, a time and motion study is not being considered. The objective of the entire exercise is to have optimum allocation of manpower, especially at the plant/factory level. Please guide. Thank you.
From India, Pune
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From India, Pune
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Dear member,
You are seeking advice on staffing for the HR Department of your company. However, as an HR professional, members of this forum would have expected your post to contain more detailed information. What is your designation, and how many persons currently work in the HR department? In many manufacturing companies, the erstwhile personnel department is often labeled as the HR Department. Is this the case in your company as well?
You have not provided information about the total employee strength, whether your company has a labor union, and most importantly, your level of commitment to implementing various systems and processes. Questions such as which processes will be outsourced, whether administration activities have been segregated from HR or integrated with it, need to be addressed.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
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8219You are seeking advice on staffing for the HR Department of your company. However, as an HR professional, members of this forum would have expected your post to contain more detailed information. What is your designation, and how many persons currently work in the HR department? In many manufacturing companies, the erstwhile personnel department is often labeled as the HR Department. Is this the case in your company as well?
You have not provided information about the total employee strength, whether your company has a labor union, and most importantly, your level of commitment to implementing various systems and processes. Questions such as which processes will be outsourced, whether administration activities have been segregated from HR or integrated with it, need to be addressed.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
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What are your observations, are the HR employees feeling overworked or do they feel otherwise? If you see the HR department only from the establishment point of view, i.e., wage and salary administration, compliances, HR informatics, recruitment, or promotion, the requirement would be limited. But view it as a business partner, then your emphasis shifts to PMS, Career planning, etc., and other sunrise fields of HR, as well as grievance management - the most neglected area of HR. If you feel understaffed, you can consider outsourcing some of the traditional functions like the attendance system, compensation, HR data management, compliances, etc.
From India, Mumbai
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From India, Mumbai
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Dear colleague,
Parameters for staffing of HR dept:
1. What are the routine and specialized functions to be handled? For example, recruitment, induction, attendance and leave, payroll, employee records, performance management, compensation design, learning and development, etc.
2. Number of employees to be served.
3. Whether unionized or not. If yes, IR content will be added.
4. Labour laws compliance requirements.
5. Use of internet and communication technology in HR functions.
The above functions/factors and some others will help determine the number and specialist HR personnel requirements in HR dept.
Regards,
Vinayak Nagarkar
HR Consultant.
From India, Mumbai
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Parameters for staffing of HR dept:
1. What are the routine and specialized functions to be handled? For example, recruitment, induction, attendance and leave, payroll, employee records, performance management, compensation design, learning and development, etc.
2. Number of employees to be served.
3. Whether unionized or not. If yes, IR content will be added.
4. Labour laws compliance requirements.
5. Use of internet and communication technology in HR functions.
The above functions/factors and some others will help determine the number and specialist HR personnel requirements in HR dept.
Regards,
Vinayak Nagarkar
HR Consultant.
From India, Mumbai
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Hello members,
Sorry for not being able to respond earlier. The previous post was to provide an idea about the exercise, and I thank all the fellow members for their value-adding responses.
As advised, I have collected manpower-related information for two factory/plants:
Plant A:
- Managerial Cadre: 70
- Supervisory Cadre: 70
- Workmen Cadre: 240
- Contract Workers (for Regular jobs): 160
- Contract Workers (for specific project/one-time activity): 70
To handle these, in the HR department (inclusive of Personnel & Administrative functions), 8 people are deployed. Apart from the Head of HR, the manpower distribution for Plant A is as follows:
- T&D + Recruitment: 1
- Industrial Relations: 2
- Administration: 1
- Time Office: 1
- Security: 1
- Occupational Health Centre: 1
Plant B:
- Managerial Cadre: 85
- Supervisory Cadre: 150
- Workmen Cadre: 430
- Contract Workers (for Regular jobs): 670
- Contract Workers (for specific project/one-time activity): 60
To handle these, in the HR department (inclusive of Personnel & Administrative functions), 16 (14 Permanent & 2 Temporary) people are deployed. Apart from the Head of HR, the manpower distribution for Plant B is as follows:
- T&D + Recruitment: 2
- Industrial Relations: 2
- Administration: 3
- Time Office: 0
- Security: 2
- Occupational Health Centre: 3 (+2 Temporary)
- CSR: 1
Both plants are unionized, but the exact number of trade unions is not readily available. There is still data to be obtained from approximately 5-7 more locations, but these two locations should suffice for creating a broad framework for the distribution of HR manpower.
I request inputs from all fellow members regarding the following:
1. In these plants, I observed that the manager:supervisor ratio is somewhere between 1 and 1.8, indicating that the "average" span of control of managers will be around 3. Is the managerial span nearly this figure only in manufacturing (metals) locations? [I am concerned with the managerial span because even though the work of immediate subordinates of a manager may or may not be specialized, the span is usually expected to be at least 5-6.]
2. What factors should one consider while deciding the manpower deployment under:
a) Security - Number of security guards, etc.
b) Administration - Number of workmen, number of workmen/contract workers working in the canteen, etc.
c) Industrial Relations - Number of trade unions, etc.
d) Occupational Health Care
e) T&D
f) Recruitment
3. Regarding the existing HR manpower deployed, what metrics should be considered under the different heads to ascertain the productivity of the HR function? From my discussions with concerned personnel, a few inputs I received were like:
- For T&D: Number of trainings conducted, number of training hours, etc.
- For IR personnel: Percentage of grievances resolved, etc.
The main purpose of my exercise is to develop a model that will help my organization decide how the HR staffing for any new location should be done and whether some locations are overstaffed or understaffed. I acknowledge that such a model will never provide an "exact" number but will help the organization get an approximate idea of how much manpower might be required, and then the actual staffing may be done.
Thanks and Regards,
Prakhar Gupta
HR Officer
Organisational Design & Effectiveness
From India, Pune
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Sorry for not being able to respond earlier. The previous post was to provide an idea about the exercise, and I thank all the fellow members for their value-adding responses.
As advised, I have collected manpower-related information for two factory/plants:
Plant A:
- Managerial Cadre: 70
- Supervisory Cadre: 70
- Workmen Cadre: 240
- Contract Workers (for Regular jobs): 160
- Contract Workers (for specific project/one-time activity): 70
To handle these, in the HR department (inclusive of Personnel & Administrative functions), 8 people are deployed. Apart from the Head of HR, the manpower distribution for Plant A is as follows:
- T&D + Recruitment: 1
- Industrial Relations: 2
- Administration: 1
- Time Office: 1
- Security: 1
- Occupational Health Centre: 1
Plant B:
- Managerial Cadre: 85
- Supervisory Cadre: 150
- Workmen Cadre: 430
- Contract Workers (for Regular jobs): 670
- Contract Workers (for specific project/one-time activity): 60
To handle these, in the HR department (inclusive of Personnel & Administrative functions), 16 (14 Permanent & 2 Temporary) people are deployed. Apart from the Head of HR, the manpower distribution for Plant B is as follows:
- T&D + Recruitment: 2
- Industrial Relations: 2
- Administration: 3
- Time Office: 0
- Security: 2
- Occupational Health Centre: 3 (+2 Temporary)
- CSR: 1
Both plants are unionized, but the exact number of trade unions is not readily available. There is still data to be obtained from approximately 5-7 more locations, but these two locations should suffice for creating a broad framework for the distribution of HR manpower.
I request inputs from all fellow members regarding the following:
1. In these plants, I observed that the manager:supervisor ratio is somewhere between 1 and 1.8, indicating that the "average" span of control of managers will be around 3. Is the managerial span nearly this figure only in manufacturing (metals) locations? [I am concerned with the managerial span because even though the work of immediate subordinates of a manager may or may not be specialized, the span is usually expected to be at least 5-6.]
2. What factors should one consider while deciding the manpower deployment under:
a) Security - Number of security guards, etc.
b) Administration - Number of workmen, number of workmen/contract workers working in the canteen, etc.
c) Industrial Relations - Number of trade unions, etc.
d) Occupational Health Care
e) T&D
f) Recruitment
3. Regarding the existing HR manpower deployed, what metrics should be considered under the different heads to ascertain the productivity of the HR function? From my discussions with concerned personnel, a few inputs I received were like:
- For T&D: Number of trainings conducted, number of training hours, etc.
- For IR personnel: Percentage of grievances resolved, etc.
The main purpose of my exercise is to develop a model that will help my organization decide how the HR staffing for any new location should be done and whether some locations are overstaffed or understaffed. I acknowledge that such a model will never provide an "exact" number but will help the organization get an approximate idea of how much manpower might be required, and then the actual staffing may be done.
Thanks and Regards,
Prakhar Gupta
HR Officer
Organisational Design & Effectiveness
From India, Pune
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